- Boveda & RH Shield Issue -

[wine_junkie]

Hey all! Especially @PigFish -

 

Have a 95 quart cooladore with heating mat/controller underneath. I am able to keep temps between 69.5 -71F with a slow temperature change do to the insulated environment. I have 4 pounds of 62% Boveda in there maintaining 62-65% humidity according to my Hobo data logger. Piggie was saying (especially with larger temperature swings) that a silica desiccant (I picked up ones from www.rhshield.com) act more in line with the actual Cigars - keeping your cigars from being a moisture buffer. 
 

I placed a pound of these 60% beads (replacing all my Boveda) and the humidity wont go below 65% staying at 67% most of the time. I gave it a few days and no change. I had the company send me a new 60% for fear that the beads had a mis labeled percentage and no change in effect unfortunately. 
 

Any ideas or help? I’d like to get these cigars down to a more consistent 60%. Thinking Boveda 58%... my cigars could still be dryer to my taste...granted it has only been 3-6 months for acclimation.

 

Thanks for listening to yet another humidity question...

[PigFish]

There is no such thing as 60% beads...! This is BS.

60% beads are a desiccant like any other. At one temperature, if they are truthful about it, the EMC should match 60rH (bring a container to 60rH at that temperature). At what temperature is the question?

The minute, second, hour, day .... week, etc. that there is an exchange of water into or out of the desiccant, it is no longer a 60rH desiccant...! In order to know how your desiccant will react you would need to know the amount of water in the desiccant and the isotherms for every (any) temperature. If you mention isotherms to the desiccant provider you will likely hear crickets chirping! 

Desiccants, like your cigars hold water vapor via a bond. That bond is made or additive or deductive (net change), made or broken by temperature and vapor pressure (level of rH when referring to water in space). 

I have considered putting Lady Piggy in the desiccant buffer business, selling the stuff, my own blend to use as cigar buffers. The real problem is that honesty in the cigar world is hard to sell. It is far easier to sell alicorn horns and pixie dust!!! 

Desiccants have their place. They are better than pillows (MHO) in conditions where temperatures change. They act like cigars, and if their surface area and water content matches that of the cigars they buffer, they will give and take water at a rate higher than the cigars themselves. That is the whole point of them. The problem with desiccants and most passive cigar buffers is that most people don't really have a clue as to the how they work and how much of them you require to buffer an environment. I could hazard some educated guesses, but they are guesses. I would say that at a minimum the ratio of about 3 to 1, cigars to desiccant by weight at EMC sounds about right!

The question is, do you want cigars to buffer the desiccant, or the desiccant to buffer the cigars?

Bake water out of the beads my friend. They are too wet at 70F. Many isotherms for high quality desiccants are established at 25C... That is 77F. I bet if you brought your 60rH beads to 77F, and if they did not take or lose water in the process, you may get 60rH. Temperature and rH (in the world of hygroscopic materials), goes hand in hand...

If your beads were conditioned to EMC at 60rH and 25C, they are useless as buffer for 60rH at 70F until you strip them of some water. 

Desiccants are all over the map, from activated charcoal to zeolites. The key to hi density desiccants is their isothermal behavior, pore size, and surface area. A really high density desiccant may have as much surface area as 700 sq meters per gram. I use desiccants (blended) that range from the 400s to the 700s. Yep... you heard that right. Lower quality stuff will be much lower. You will waste a lot of space with lower quality desiccants, but they are a lot cheaper.

Cheers! -Piggy

[moellert]

1 hour ago, PigFish said:

There is no such thing as 60% beads...! This is BS.
60% beads are a desiccant like any other. At one temperature, if they are truthful about it, the EMC should match 60rH (bring a container to 60rH at that temperature). At what temperature is the question?
The minute, second, hour, day .... week, etc. that there is an exchange of water into or out of the desiccant, it is no longer a 60rH desiccant...! In order to know how your desiccant will react you would need to know the amount of water in the desiccant and the isotherms for every (any) temperature. If you mention isotherms to the desiccant provider you will likely hear crickets chirping! 
Desiccants, like your cigars hold water vapor via a bond. That bond is made or additive or deductive (net change), made or broken by temperature and vapor pressure (level of rH when referring to water in space). 
I have considered putting Lady Piggy in the desiccant buffer business, selling the stuff, my own blend to use as cigar buffers. The real problem is that honesty in the cigar world is hard to sell. It is far easier to sell alicorn horns and pixie dust!!! 
Desiccants have their place. They are better than pillows (MHO) in conditions where temperatures change. They act like cigars, and if their surface area and water content matches that of the cigars they buffer, they will give and take water at a rate higher than the cigars themselves. That is the whole point of them. The problem with desiccants and most passive cigar buffers is that most people don't really have a clue as to the how they work and how much of them you require to buffer an environment. I could hazard some educated guesses, but they are guesses. I would say that at a minimum the ratio of about 3 to 1, cigars to desiccant by weight at EMC sounds about right!
The question is, do you want cigars to buffer the desiccant, or the desiccant to buffer the cigars?
Bake water out of the beads my friend. They are too wet at 70F. Many isotherms for high quality desiccants are established at 25C... That is 77F. I bet if you brought your 60rH beads to 77F, and if they did not take or lose water in the process, you may get 60rH. Temperature and rH (in the world of hygroscopic materials), goes hand in hand...
If your beads were conditioned to EMC at 60rH and 25C, they are useless as buffer for 60rH at 70F until you strip them of some water. 
Desiccants are all over the map, from activated charcoal to zeolites. The key to hi density desiccants is their isothermal behavior, pore size, and surface area. A really high density desiccant may have as much surface area as 700 sq meters per gram. I use desiccants (blended) that range from the 400s to the 700s. Yep... you heard that right. Lower quality stuff will be much lower. You will waste a lot of space with lower quality desiccants, but they are a lot cheaper.
Cheers! -Piggy

@PigFish, every time I read your stuff I feel like I learn, in five minutes, what would require me five hours to figure out on google. I would have expected a degree in physics would give me some intuition learning about humidification requirements for cigars but it has been a learning curve (albeit a fun learning curve).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CaptainQuintero]

3 hours ago, moellert said:

@PigFish, every time I read your stuff I feel like I learn, in five minutes, what would require me five hours to figure out on google. I would have expected a degree in physics would give me some intuition learning about humidification requirements for cigars but it has been a learning curve (albeit a fun learning curve).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  I've nearly a decade here and Pigster still leaves me in awe when he serves up a big slice of wisdom pie like that, great stuff!

[wine_junkie]

10 hours ago, PigFish said:

There is no such thing as 60% beads...! This is BS.

60% beads are a desiccant like any other. At one temperature, if they are truthful about it, the EMC should match 60rH (bring a container to 60rH at that temperature). At what temperature is the question?

The minute, second, hour, day .... week, etc. that there is an exchange of water into or out of the desiccant, it is no longer a 60rH desiccant...! In order to know how your desiccant will react you would need to know the amount of water in the desiccant and the isotherms for every (any) temperature. If you mention isotherms to the desiccant provider you will likely hear crickets chirping! 

Desiccants, like your cigars hold water vapor via a bond. That bond is made or additive or deductive (net change), made or broken by temperature and vapor pressure (level of rH when referring to water in space). 

I have considered putting Lady Piggy in the desiccant buffer business, selling the stuff, my own blend to use as cigar buffers. The real problem is that honesty in the cigar world is hard to sell. It is far easier to sell alicorn horns and pixie dust!!! 

Desiccants have their place. They are better than pillows (MHO) in conditions where temperatures change. They act like cigars, and if their surface area and water content matches that of the cigars they buffer, they will give and take water at a rate higher than the cigars themselves. That is the whole point of them. The problem with desiccants and most passive cigar buffers is that most people don't really have a clue as to the how they work and how much of them you require to buffer an environment. I could hazard some educated guesses, but they are guesses. I would say that at a minimum the ratio of about 3 to 1, cigars to desiccant by weight at EMC sounds about right!

The question is, do you want cigars to buffer the desiccant, or the desiccant to buffer the cigars?

Bake water out of the beads my friend. They are too wet at 70F. Many isotherms for high quality desiccants are established at 25C... That is 77F. I bet if you brought your 60rH beads to 77F, and if they did not take or lose water in the process, you may get 60rH. Temperature and rH (in the world of hygroscopic materials), goes hand in hand...

If your beads were conditioned to EMC at 60rH and 25C, they are useless as buffer for 60rH at 70F until you strip them of some water. 

Desiccants are all over the map, from activated charcoal to zeolites. The key to hi density desiccants is their isothermal behavior, pore size, and surface area. A really high density desiccant may have as much surface area as 700 sq meters per gram. I use desiccants (blended) that range from the 400s to the 700s. Yep... you heard that right. Lower quality stuff will be much lower. You will waste a lot of space with lower quality desiccants, but they are a lot cheaper.

Cheers! -Piggy

Beautiful. Thank you Piggy! These silica beads are completely dry (read absolutely white - I added no water and they’re still showing 67!) The most congruent change in RH with temperature seems to come with Boveda 62% packs (pounds of them) at the top of my coolerdore. I don’t have a ton of room for much more. Would you recommend going down to 58% Boveda packs instead? Would you sell your dessicants?  Here is a Hobo graph of the last half day:

[PigFish]

5 hours ago, wine_junkie said:

Beautiful. Thank you Piggy! These silica beads are completely dry (read absolutely white - I added no water and they’re still showing 67!) The most congruent change in RH with temperature seems to come with Boveda 62% packs (pounds of them) at the top of my coolerdore. I don’t have a ton of room for much more. Would you recommend going down to 58% Boveda packs instead? Would you sell your dessicants?  Here is a Hobo graph of the last half day:

There is one or more of a number things at play here. Humidors have multiple variable at play governing their performance.

Since I am sitting outside with my Lady Piggy as she surfs property outside the People's Republik of California... I will have to be brief.

Circulation, could be a big part of your problem.... Fick's law... where you are setting your hygrometer and circulation (again).

White silica desiccant does not mean dry. You only know that it is dry if you bake it.

Try this. Empty the humidor, or take the beads with the hygrometer on a stand and move it to another air tight container. Post up the data log, or send it to me. If the beads are dry, you will watch your rH sink like a lead balloon. If these beads have spent time with cigars and Pillows... they are not dry!!!

Cheers! -R