Well, this is my first post ever on a forum of any kind. And I'm a complete noob on cigars! I have a cheap Thompson humidor with a digital hygrometer and a 2 oz jar of CI international crystal. I seasoned the humidor with distilled water and a sponge and left it there over night, salt tested the hygrometer, stuck the jar in. It was at 68, then I added 10 cigars and for the past 3 days its reading in the low 60's. Why is this? I had left the jar out for a few months and it was dry, could this be the problem? thanks!
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I am not a big fan of the crystal, a good first step would be to buy some shilala beads from member CigarNut (Michael).

When you add cigars, they are often at a lower RH than the humidor, and will temporarily bring your RH down. Might take a few days to level off, but the low 60s will not harm your cigars (I store mine at 62% or so full time).
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If the gel in the jar is dry you need to add 50/50 solution to bring it back to the full level.....im not an expert but i would season the humi for a lot moore than 1 night i left my newest humi for 2 weeks it had thick cedqar and with a moistened sponge( distilled water) it takes a while to season IMO
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Sounds like you may not have your humidor fully seasoned just yet. What I would recommend is reading this thread closely for information on seasoning a new humidor: http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/showthread.php?t=620

You can put your sticks in a zip-lock for the time it will take the humidor to stabilize. Lots of people store their cigars well in to the low 50% range. I am experimenting with 58% right now and am liking the results.
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That is incorrect. Only add distilled water to the gel. At best, the PG does nothing and is just money wasted, at worst, it screws up the gel. Different makers used different formulas for the gel so what it does depends on a few things.
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Another thing to bear in mind is that it's winter and the RH of North America is low.
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This is really completely irrelevant. It does mean that if you leave your humidor open it will lose humidity, this is the case in most of the Western US 90% of the year. A humidor is meant to be a totally separate environment for your cigars. Once properly seasoned a humidor is setup and maintained it will function with little influence from outside Rh. :-)
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This assumes that the humidor has a good seal...
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For the little jars of crystals, PG is actually the best thing to put in there. Most of the time, the jars even advertise to use the company's brand of PG(ie Xikar, which is what I use). Distilled water works fine in them, but over time the crystals will no longer be able to absorb as much as they used to.(learned this the hard way with one of my jars)
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That's what I was getting at, along with the fact that 60% of humidor owners don't have as good of a seal as they think. I can tell him firsthand that the little Thompson Cherrywood humidors don't hold a very good seal at all. I'm talking to the point where I got mine for Christmas and I'm already replacing it.
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As mentioned above, if the jar has been sitting out, it's likely dry. Add some distilled water to it.

Also give it a few days to stabilize. Mine did the same thing and holds 65-69 now. FL humidity fluctuates a lot.
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There are a lot of different formulations to make a super absorbent polymer and it's possible that Xikar uses a rather different formulation than others, one which requires PG to maintain humidity, is something that I have heard before.

Most of the ones out there which are sold for cigar use are self-regulating around 65-70 RH with only water. The differences in formulation also explain why you generally can't take stuff from the arts and crafts store floral section and just stick it in a humidor, or, more accurately, why it doesn't give you a desirable RH when you do.

Also, going back to the formulation, certain formulations have different useable lifespans than others. Some are good for a few years, some are good for a decade before they "wear out".

Regarding some of the companies, the fact that they want you to buy their PG/water solution, when the PG doesn't do anything for the gel is classic marketing.
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I use shilala beads not gel jars but im pretty sure distilled water or 50/50 can be used in the jars.... Spend the money and get beads
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Anyway...

Beads. Whether you go with Shilala's or Heartfelt's, you can only go right.
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