raising the humidity

Once you've grown and harvested your tobacco, what do you do with it? Talk about it here.
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kbadkar
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raising the humidity

Post by kbadkar »

My cure chamber is my tool and work space... a 8 x 8 x 8' to 6' shed. It's really cramped now and until these leaves shrivel up a bit, not much pipe making going on.

It's dry in LA and hot, so leaves are curing rapidly, a few have color cured somewhat green or have green spots. I figured I needed to kick up the humidity, so I have a 5 gallon bucket filled with water and with a towel in it and suspended up to a rafter. The towel dries out half way up to the rafter. I prefer passive capillary action over a high maintanence humidifier.

My questions are:
Does this sound reasonable?
Will it cause a mold problem (in the water, on the towel, or worse, the leaves)?
Do you think adding a drop or two of bleach to the water will somehow taint my tobacco flavors?

Thanks for dealing with my trepidations.

Update: After 4 days, I had to remove the towel because it was getting that musty smell. Still haven't decided whether to add bleach and reintroduce the towel.
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kbadkar
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Post by kbadkar »

An interesting solution, perhaps:

Since harvesting for the past few months, I've been wondering what to do with all these big thick stalks once I've cut them off. Well, after removing all traces of foliage at the bottom, I put four of them in about 6 inches of water in the 5 gallon bucket in the drying shed. I added a bunch of curly willow branches and branch cuttings to stimulate root growth. Curly willow has a high concentration of root growth hormones. Roots haven't developed yet, but the water needs replenishing every couple days; whereas without the stalks, I never noticed the water level dropping.
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flix
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Post by flix »

Wouldn't that tub of water work better (no mold) if you put some Propylene Glycol in there? I've got some, so I'm trying to think of a way to keep the humidity up also. PG in a 50/50 solution with some of that green plastic plant display stuff should keep the mold away, and keep the curing chamber humid.

Just my thoughts...
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kbadkar
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Post by kbadkar »

flix wrote:Wouldn't that tub of water work better (no mold) if you put some Propylene Glycol in there? I've got some, so I'm trying to think of a way to keep the humidity up also. PG in a 50/50 solution with some of that green plastic plant display stuff should keep the mold away, and keep the curing chamber humid.

Just my thoughts...
Proplylene Glycol, watered-down, is that "Credo fluid" I'm putting in my humidor element, no? It does inhibit mold growth, but it also inhibits water evaporation. In a closed "temp controlled" (read: indoors) enviroment, you want the water to evaporate slowly to keep an even humidity, so you don't saturate your cigars when you put distilled water in that green foam plant display stuff. My drying shed is really dry and hot and has ventilation, so the water needs to evaporate as quick as possible. Since am not using mechanical means to release the water into the air, I am dependent on water surface area, heat, and low humidity to do the work naturally. A 5 gallon bucket has very little exposed surface area of water... dark room developing trays would be better, but they would be a pain to deal with on the floor and with re-filling. The tobacco stalks suck up water and transpire it (though some is retained in tissue growth), adding water evaporation surface area without taking up floor space... and so far, no mold.
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flix
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Post by flix »

Ah, got it! It's less complicated that way anyhow. I'll do something similar. I've thought that a small humidifier might work, but, my curing area is pretty large. I'll have to think about it some more...

thanks for the clarification.
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Post by kbadkar »

I bought this here nifty gadget2 weeks ago for checking temp & humidity in the drying shed and chamber box thingy. They don't offer it on their website anymore, but I got a bundle with 1 base with 3 wireless sensors. When I tested the units, it seems that there is +/- 2 deg and +/- 2% rh margin of error between sensors, but that's close enough for my purposes.

Now I know why I had some problems with drying before color curing. The shed gets really hot by the ceiling and is much too dry. On a warm day it'll get well over 100 degF and around 35% rh (45% at night), even though is around 85 deg and 50% outside. Water in a 5 gallon bucket doesn't have any noticeable effect on humidity, even with the cut stalks in there (they have sprouted roots and shoots, though), and even with a towel suspended in the water, and I'll bet, even if you made a pool out of the floor. Basically, if you want to raise the humidity in such harsh conditions, you need to put in a humidifier. With the kids' humidifier, I have been able to increase the rh by 10-15% on a hot day. I can keep the humidity between 50% and 80%.

The drying chamber, made of 1"x3" and foam insulation sheets, on the other hand, has perfect conditions without needing to do anything. It stays consistently between 65 and 85 deg and 50% to 90% rh, but spends most of the time around 70%, which is ideal.

The moral of this story is, don't assume what you are doing has an effect - quantify to justify.
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