Humidor crisis

[Bri Fi]

@Kitchen good point about the cigars being rolled wet. I’ll leave these alone for a good while. Of course it could be a new way of leaping the first maturation.  Soak your cigars and re-ferment. Joking of course 

[TBird55]

2 hours ago, MD Puffer said:

Just curious- I’m having an Avallo being built currently and wondered how often these kinds of problems occur in purpose built TEC humidors?  Any comments or advice would be appreciated. 

I have an Aristocrat that collects the condensation in a tray and drain it back to the humidifier. I check it periodically to make sure it hasn't stopped up, works great. I feel sure they employ a similar system with the Avallo. I have been  considering adding an Avallo, myself. Would be interested in your opinion of the unit after you receive it. What size did you choose? 

[TBird55]

2 hours ago, MD Puffer said:

Just curious- I’m having an Avallo being built currently and wondered how often these kinds of problems occur in purpose built TEC humidors?  Any comments or advice would be appreciated. 

I have an Aristocrat that collects the condensation in a tray and drain it back to the humidifier. I check it periodically to make sure it hasn't stopped up, works great. I feel sure they employ a similar system with the Avallo. I have been  considering adding an Avallo, myself. Would be interested in your opinion of the unit after you receive it. What size did you choose? 

[MD Puffer]

5 minutes ago, TBird55 said:

I have an Aristocrat that collects the condensation in a tray and drain it back to the humidifier. I check it periodically to make sure it hasn't stopped up, works great. I feel sure they employ a similar system with the Avallo. I have been  considering adding an Avallo, myself. Would be interested in your opinion of the unit after you receive it. What size did you choose? 

Matt is building a Cooled 2000 for me.  I'm pretty excited.  Plan on writing a review after getting it set up and settled in.  He has the flagship models on the website, but he apparently does a bunch of one-off and custom stuff as well.  When going over options he emailed me a bunch of photos of humidors that aren't listed on the site.  

[PigFish]

What is the current temp and rH of your home, area around your storage?

Consider unplugging the damn box that does not work! Sorry to be harsh on this, however building a truly successful, operating refrigerated humidor is not an easy task. Most people who build these, have no real idea what is really happening in their humidor space. They use low resolution, slow or damped reporting equipment, have insufficient circulation and leave little or no operation 'free space.'

Separate your cigars. If some are moldy, 5 will get you 10 all your cigars are actually saturated to a point of risk. They share the same, albeit non-homogenous environment.

Without a controlled environment, your only choice is to protect, ventilate and constantly monitor. Cold environments are no good! Cold locks water into a cigar. Hot will likely cause rapid loss to wrapper and binder causing cracking. 70 to low 70's is about as high as you should go.

Best of luck! -Piggy

[Bri Fi]

@PigFish I was hoping you’d throw your two cents in at some point. I’m pretty sure you’ve exhausted yourself trying to explain best storage practices over the years...

my house typically stays around 65-72 year around. An ideal situation is I keep my house at 65 all year around. Unfortunately like most men, our ladies run super cold so I have her complaining to deal with. Also, I have a baby and 65 is too cold for her. So, I need to keep my house in the low 70s in the winter. My only option is to use a wineador to keep the cigars in the mid 60s. I believe i had the temp too low inside the unit and too high outside the unit causing there to be about a 15 degree difference. Condensation formed and the rest is history. 

I was able to identify one cigar which had a good amount of white mold. That cigar has been wiped clean and stored separately until its stabilized. About four boxes of cigars were saturated. The cigars have been removed from their boxes and placed in ziplock bags with 69% boveda packs and some paper towels to the side of the bag. When those have stabilized, I’m going to put them back in their original boxes for storage. As suggested, I’m going to leave those cigars alone for probably a year until they have completely stabilized. 

Moving forward... I will not be packing the wineador so tightly. I’m utilizing a Coleman cooler for additional storage until a better permanent solution has been identified. 

Im all ears. 

 

 

[PigFish]

Best storage practices are for gurus... I typically talk about what are NOT best storage practices. I am a cigar smoke who understands a little about hygroscopic substances and how to maintain them in a relatively stable state. What is 'best' is not my field of endeavor. What is best, as I see it, is what works for you, or anyone else for that matter, enhances your smoking experience and does not cost you too much. All MHO...

I frankly don't like being told what to do. However can appreciate 'lessons learned' as experience passes from more seasoned smokers to the less seasoned. Right or wrong is a range of an envelope. It becomes wrong when one pushes outside the envelope and the wrong manifests itself to real, verifiable problems.

You certainly found the wrong. Perhaps joining here a few years ago might have avoided this. That is my goal. I try to separate the myth from the fact and impart some hard-fought wisdom into peoples' storage solutions. I don't try to get people to do what I do. I try to get people to recognize poor practices so they can avoid them.

Cheers! -R

[FOHrty9er]

On 4/5/2019 at 5:30 PM, CaptainQuintero said:

and relax!

  Cigars are tough little things, I'd guess you're mostly going to be ok as long as you nurse them slowly and keep an eye out for mould.

This.  I put some NC's in my basement for a few years that I did not care about.  Checked on them on occasion and figured they were done, based on fairly (low) regulated temp (68°F) with high humidity (78%).  Smoking them now... holy s%#t they are sublime!  Cigars are far more adaptive than we give then credit for.  Enjoy the hobby but don't be afraid of straying from the "norm."

[Head83]

On 4/6/2019 at 9:08 AM, aphexafx said:

You can use the TEC function in your wineador.  That's the main reason many of us have them.  You just have to understand how they operate and how to manage the condensate (water) that they generate.  Out of the box they are designed to drain any condensed water to an evap tray on the outside of the unit.  There are two potential problems with this: 1) You are losing this moisture and must replace it to maintain your internal RH, and B) the simple gravity drains can become blocked which causes liquid water to backup into the compartment.

I have designed and built several custom wineadors and I always employ a water recycling system which takes care of both problems.  In other words, the condensed water from the TEC is routed back into the active humidifier medium, forming a closed loop.

 

If this is not feasible for you then you should A) check the integrity of your drain periodically and, prevent your stock from resting on the floor of the compartment just in case.

The formation of liquid water is not a failing of TEC units in particular.  Anytime you cool a surface to below a dew point and draw air containing moisture over that surface in order to cool the air, the moisture will condense onto that surface.  This is why refrigerators are notorious for drying out their contents.  It's an unavoidable side effect of mechanically cooling an air volume.

I see people placing bead socks in the drain tray in order to absorb the liquid water and hopefully re-evaporate it, however this is just asking for mold and deterioration of the sock material, in my opinion.  In my recycler builds I use a plastic collection tray and at all points any liquid water exists only as small traveling droplets or is fully absorbed into a volume of beads with frequent periodic air flow to help it re-evaporate.  You never want standing water, especially around cloth or other fabric materials.

 

@Bri Fi your unit uses a gravity channel molded into the back of the compartment which guides the condensed water droplets to a similarly molded drain tray in the floor, which is drained to the external evap tray via a short length of tubing  Check your drain...why didn't it function?

I’d be very intrigued if you could go into a little more details on your system, how it’s built, pictures, etc. never heard of anyone doing this before and it sounds pretty sweet.  

[aphexafx]

On 4/7/2019 at 8:13 PM, Head83 said:

I’d be very intrigued if you could go into a little more details on your system, how it’s built, pictures, etc. never heard of anyone doing this before and it sounds pretty sweet.  

It's just a custom humidifier that I designed to minimize standing liquid water, avoid material-based bead socks, and make use of a water recycling loop.  I think a lot of the big pro-custom humidors also recycle the TEC condensation; doing this GREATLY minimizes the maintenance required as far as humidification goes (aka increases the utility).  The main points are that I use silica beads to capture and evaporate the liquid water in the system and I use a large, low-speed main fan on a variable and/or humidity controlled duty cycle to induce evaporation, meaning it runs for a minimum of 1 minute out of every 5 minutes, or more if required.  Where I see mold and mildew problems the most often is A) around standing/stagnant water, B ) around water-logged cloth/material/wood, and C) where there is a lack of air-flow.  So I built a humidifier which solves those issues and then did a custom Sp. Cedar interior and added integrated 12Vdc and 5Vdc power to support it.  Everything is connected using simple Molex connectors so it's easy to completely disassemble for cleaning (important!).  I use extremely low speed, silent, long-life fans.  Note that the smaller circ fan shown on the right wall in these older pics has been relocated to to the back above the TEC housing, which works better.  This fan is always running so the air volume is always slowly rotating.  I only store closed boxes.  It's a rugged system and has been going for almost twelve years.  I replace the beads every few years and I rarely add any extra water, it's super efficient.

 

 

I don't want to derail @Bri Fi's thread any more than this, but hopefully it relates.  It seems like the biggest issue people have with their TEC units stems from condensed water management.  You need to keep your cigars/boxes away from the liquid water, and you need to handle the liquid water by either draining it to the external evap tray or by recycling it in your humidification system.  The second option is more work but WAY more efficient since you eventually put the condensed water back into the air volume as working humidity.  But the most important thing is to realize that this water is going to be there by design and to keep your contents away from it.  Do that and you're golden.

Using some 1/4" Sp. Cedar standoffs on the back panel will help keep cigar boxes from touching the rear drain channel and picking up water.

Keeping your boxes from sitting directly on the floor will save them in case your drain backs up and prevent them from blocking the drain by accident.

I will also add that I have heard that the gravity drain in these units is prone to a manufacturing defect where the drain tube can be clogged by plastic from the factory.  To anyone setting up a new unit I would suggest testing the drain to make sure it's working.

[Bri Fi]

Feel free to derail! This is to help others from having mold issues or storage issues in general. We are all learning here. What you’ve done for so long works for you. Others who are new to the hobby are looking for proper storage. 

[BuzzArd]

On 4/6/2019 at 1:32 PM, Bri Fi said:

my house typically stays around 65-72 year around. An ideal situation is I keep my house at 65 all year around. 

 

 

I’d be thrilled with this temp range.  Not sure why you want to keep your cigars colder than this....   

I have a cooled/heated cabinet and really felt I needed one with winter house temps in the 65 range and summer around 82-83° range.   Turns out my non cooled cab gives me far less trouble.   I NEVER worry about mould in it.  Humidity is about 62% and Everything in it gets pre frozen so I don’t expect a beetle issue either (although I’m always on the lookout...).  If I don’t keep a close eye on the cooled cab, especially the lower shelves, then I run into issues. 

[Head83]

@aphexafx  Very interesting, thanks for the details.  I run a winedor as well but never ran into condensation issues in the past. I don’t keep any boxes on the bottom as a precaution and never push my drawers all the way in, mostly to provide room for airflow.  I wired up two computer fans in the rear to run for about a min every five off a timing circuit.  Always thought about hooking it up to a humidity probe but I run a passive system with beads so wouldn’t help me too much.  One quick question, how did you run your wires inside?  I snaked mine through the drain but would like to be able to keep it as open as possible if I can.  It still allows for drainage but always looking for ways to improve.  

[aphexafx]

8 hours ago, Head83 said:

@aphexafx  Very interesting, thanks for the details.  I run a winedor as well but never ran into condensation issues in the past. I don’t keep any boxes on the bottom as a precaution and never push my drawers all the way in, mostly to provide room for airflow.  I wired up two computer fans in the rear to run for about a min every five off a timing circuit.  Always thought about hooking it up to a humidity probe but I run a passive system with beads so wouldn’t help me too much.  One quick question, how did you run your wires inside?  I snaked mine through the drain but would like to be able to keep it as open as possible if I can.  It still allows for drainage but always looking for ways to improve.  

No prob, dude.  Sounds like you're good to go.    Cheers!

If you look really close in two of the pics you can see where I drilled a 3/8" hole through the back and routed the power wires through with rubber grommets.  Look just below the switch/junction box on the back and just below the left Sp. Cedar plank on the inside rear surface and you can see the entry point (they're bundled in some cable loom).

[Head83]

On 4/9/2019 at 8:49 AM, aphexafx said:

No prob, dude.  Sounds like you're good to go.    Cheers!

If you look really close in two of the pics you can see where I drilled a 3/8" hole through the back and routed the power wires through with rubber grommets.  Look just below the switch/junction box on the back and just below the left Sp. Cedar plank on the inside rear surface and you can see the entry point (they're bundled in some cable loom).

Got it now!  Thank you for pointing that out.  Ill see about finding the right grommet before I take a drill to it.