Part 2 (21:34) demonstrates how to upgrade your humidification device using humidification beads and also gives you a brief tour of my humidor.
I gotta thank RGD over at Club Stogie for providing these instuctions on how to upgrade my humidification device. RGD is one of the great people at Club Stogie! I also need to thank Dave Asp at Heartfelt Industries for taking the time to answer some of my humidification bead questions.
I hope Part 1 and Part 2 pay dividends this winter and I look forward to the free time I can enjoy! As always, if anything isn’t clear or if I screwed something up just let me know and I will address it.
For step by step instructions visit RGD’s post at Club Stogie and for more information on humidification beads like determining the amount of beads you will need for your humidor or to place an order visit Heartfelt Industries and tell Dave the Stogie Review guys say hi!
I really hope you guys find this video series as useful and helpful as I did!
Jerry, once again kudos on the video. It was both entertaining as well as useful. Your website is now on the top of my CIGARS bookmark. These videos is such a great idea, they beat reading reviews or just listening to them on a podcast.
I have a few request for future vids:
-How to condition a humidor
-Cover the basics: lighting, cutting, purging, inhale or not to inhale, etc…
Once again, thank you for your contribution to the cigar smoking community.
One critique Jerry, if I may, the black background is a little ominous. I preferred the old background. Just my 2 cents, no biggie though.
Take care and happy smoking
Hey Devin! Thanks for the comment!
Great suggestions on video ideas. Walt specializes in that smoking thru the nose thing so maybe I can talk him into doing that one. We’re always thinking of new video concepts so you will have to wait and see what we put out.
You miss the door knob and the bed? The bed sadly went to the dump to make more room to do my thing in the spare room. I’m still playing with lighting and backgrounds as I recently received a Canon ZR500 camcorder for my birthday and as you can see, is a lot better quality than my first couple videos so the whole production is still a work in progress. One day we will find a happy medium. Keep letting me know what you think though so I know if I’m heading in the right or wrong direction.
I think you guys are doing great, just keep doing what you’re doing.
I love the selection of cigars you have reviewed so far. I’m definitely will try that Don Juan Urquijo for sure. I think what I would like to see most on SR- would be reviews of under-rated cigars, hidden gems, and budget friendly cigars. I think we have far too many reviews of cigars we all know is good, do we really need more reviews of Opus X or Pardon 1926?
There’s so much more out there to explore and enjoy.
Here’s to the good life! -or the good hour or 2 we enjoy while smoking our cigars.
Devin,
Thank you very much for all the positive comments.
I am glad you mentioned reviewing budget friendly cigars. I’ll make sure the next review I do, is on a budget cigar.
What are some budget cigars you would like to see reviewed?
This is what i have in the lineup for new reviews.
Pirates Gold
Flor de Oliva Gold
This is what i have to re-review for videos
Famous Nicaraguan 3000 (old blend)
La Veija Habana Fuma by Drew Estates
5 Vegas Series A
Great video and a beautiful humidor. You are absolutely right to keep it in its original state.
Part 2 was just as great as part 1. I’d like to see a lot more videos on tips and tricks for us cigar lovers. Its one thing to read about them but its very cool to see you guys perform them. Great job Jerry! I’m now a proud fan of the Stogie Review!
So what happenend to the video? I finally got all the supplies I needed (even went out and bought my own panty hose) and I can’t find the video. My A.D.D. won’t let me sit around an actually read the instructions so if you could bring the video back that would be great or else these panty hose will go to waste.
This was the best video I’ve watched on your sight so far. I appreciated seeing a hands on reconditioning of the humidifing elements in your humidor. Please follow Devin’s suggestions above for other video ideas. Based upon this video, I just bought some Drymistat Crystal Tubes from CI which I’m assuming perform the same function as the beads you used, only require less work on my part and satisfy my laziness. I also bought a digital hygrometer but I think my laziness will force me to accept the factory calibration but it’s nice to see how to calibrate them. If I get some compulsive urge to check the calibration, I’ll go review the part 1 of this series. Until then, I’ll trust the digital hygrometer and learn to feel the cigars for proper humidity levels. Or just smoke them and figure it out as I go, hmmm, that’s more likely.
By the way, that is one gorgeous humidor.
Dave
Dave –
It was fun to do this little two part series and I’ve received a lot of feedback. Most folks have said they trust their digital hygrometers and so calibration really only applies to analog hygrometers. But hey, when you invest money in something like cigars you can never be too safe right?
The Drymistat Crystal Tubes pretty much work the same way. I own a few and use them for my smaller humidors or for turning a cigar box into temporary storage.
Jerry,
Had to give you some more feedback. Well, being new to humidors and smoking in general, I didn’t fully appreciate your winterizing until recently and my dry natural gas heaters drying out my humidors. hmmm.
Anyway, my first digital hygrometer, Don Salvator Digital Hygrometer, was only +/- 5% accurate and as it turns out, unimpressive. So bought two +/- 1% RH accurate hygrometers (the Calibur III) as well as some beads from http://www.heartfeltindustries.com (thanks for the advice)!!
Now my humidors are at 70% RH on the dot. Tossed some Drymistat sticks on the bottom of the humidors to make sure cigars at the bottom keep a nice 70% as well.
You really packed in some information that after reviewing 3 times, really helped out a lot. Saved me a lot of pain, frustration and aggravation. I had no idea how difficult humidor’s are but the challenge is certainly rewarding and interesting.
Matter of fact, I’ll be testing my Don Salvatore digital hygrometer as well as one of my analog ones using the calibration procedure you demonstrated so I can mentally adjust for their inaccuracies (well, manually adjust the analog and mentally the pos Don Salvatore).
I also moved my humidors out of the path of the air from my heater vents and into the coolest part of my house. Something that is now obvious to me but hindsight is 20/20.
Thanks again and keep the video’s coming,
Dave
Hi Jerry,
I did not use this video to learn how to winterize my humidor, but to learn how to properly humidify my humidor. I just got a 25-count desktop humidor and filled up the “green foam” that came with it with 50/50 solution and put my cigars in right away. I quickly realized that that wasn’t a good idea and soon after tried to drain the “green foam” as best I could and properly season my humidor with new 50/50 solution and a distilled water sponge to dampen the ceder on the bottom of my humidor and sides of the humidor. I left the sponge on a plastic bag and put the top with the “green foam” device on my humidor and let it sit for a little over 24 hrs. I dampened my sponge again and wiped the humidor down and closed the lit to my humidor with the sponge removed. This is the last day into my re-seasoning of my humidor and my hygrometer is reading very high into the 80% range. What should I do to fix this? How do I bring my humidity level down? And also, is there something else you would recomend to use to control the humidity in my desktop humidor other then the “green foam” device that came in my humidor (please keep in mind that the humidor only holds 25 cigars, so it’s a small unit). THANK YOU SO MUCH JERRY!
~Erik Fraunfelter