Expert: James Yee - 1/5/2011

Question
Good evening. As of late the humidity in my humidor has dropped. As we speak the humidity is at 57%. Take into consideration my location of Rhode Island...very cold and dry climate. For a humidifying agent I'm using a 2 oz. Cigar's International gel humidity bead jar that I noticed is depleting (even when I add distilled water the beads aren't as many/shrunk permanently). So what can be done to revive the humidity to a desired 70% level? Do I have to get another jar (think they only last for about 3 months)? Do I have to "reboot" the humidor (only prepared it for usage after I bought it which was in November of 08 and have used it consistently since)? One thing I noticed that helps is adding more cigars, but if there's a way to directly increase the humidity without having to add cigars I would prefer this method. Thank you and I anticipate your response.

Answer
Hi Matthew,

This is actually a common problem with most humidors during cold winter months. What happens is that the dry heat in your home is slowly wicking away the humidity that your humidor is producing.  When this happens, your humidor's humidity will deplete twice as fast.  To correct this, you can add an additional humidifier/jar of humidity beads to you humidor or you can recharge your humidifier(s) more frequently.  Relocating your humidor to a humidified room will also help.

Adding more cigars to your humidor is actually a very short-term fix because eventually, the moisture in the cigars will be wicked away by the dry air and the cigars will dry out.  Also, since you seasoned your humidor not too long ago and have consistently maintained it ever since, I don't think it's necessary to re-season it.  The best solution is to either recharge the humidifiers more frequently or add an additional humidity source to compensate the humidity loss.

I hope this helps!  If you have any more questions, please feel free to just ask and I will be happy to help.

Regards,
James