Herf's Humi seasoning sticky from puff
How Herf N. Turf Seasons a New Humidor
Hi, Fellow Tobaccophiles,
As many of you know, I was just nuked, back to the stone-age. Ed Sallee, of Waxing Moon Wood, bombed me an absolutely beautiful, 50ct humidor. You can read all about the mayhem here (link).
Our Subject:
So now, guess what? You all get to go through the seasoning process with me.
First, I tested the seal... well, sort of. When I first opened the packaging and went to open the humi, it took a LOT of effort. When I spoke with Ed, he said that the only reason he'd put the latch on it, was because he himself had had difficulty opening the box. This is a very good thing.
For the sake of this tutorial, I did a paper strip test (akin to the dollar bill test, but more precise).
Here, you can see the results:
The seal is so tight that the test paper was no match. I tried hard to pull it out, but there was no give. The test resulted in catastrophic failure of the paper. Another reason not to use a dollar bill on a top-quality humidor I omitted the flashlight test and the whoosh test was pointless, since the lid won't close without a little down-pressure. Did I mention that this seal is t-i-g-h-t, tight? For others, using this as a reference guide, definitely do all the tests, until you are absolutely certain of your seal's integrity!
Next, I took a pre-doing-anything, hygrometer reading. This revealed an RH of 54%. Ed, was kind enough to ship it with three water pillows inside, which, no doubt, helped it a little from what the ambient humidity in his workshop must be.
Now that we've tested both seal and original RH, it's time to start seasoning.
Using a new, straight out of the packaging, sponge, I dowse it with distilled water and place it on a saucer. I use Corell, but almost any saucer will work
I placed the saucer and sponge in the humidor, with one of my calibrated hygrometers, at 1600hrs. First check was at 2300hrs, which rendered an RH of 64%. This doesn't mean that the wood's at 64%, merely that there is more moisture in the air inside the humidor. We're headed in the right direction!
Tomorrow afternoon, I will open and check again. I expect to see a reading of around ~70%, at which point, I will install a tube of DRY!, 70% Heartfelt beads. The reason I do this is because I don't want to spike the humidity. I install the beads as a buffer, to keep the RH from climbing above 70%. Otherwise, I cost myself several days of bringing it back down. I will then leave the beads in there until I can clearly see some of them turning clear (hydrated). At this point, it will be time to install cigars.
I will have to play some of this "by ear", since Ed uses thicker cedar stock than any other humidor maker of which I am aware. I will also have to determine the disparate absorption rates of cedar vs beads. If I put the beads in too soon, the beads will over-charge, before the wood is fully seasoned. The flip-side is the risk of over-seasoning the wood. The RH of the air inside the box, is no indicator of the condition of the wood. This is where experience, science and plain old guess work come in.
