I agree. I lit one up the other day and it did not live up to all of the hype I was reading about.
I mean, yea it was good, but not as good as everyone was saying.

Mine burned good and the draw was decent, but the first half of the cigar was very bland. The second half was a TON better, but compared to all of the reviews I was ready it should have been better..and delicious throughout the cigar, not just the second half.
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Thanks. Maybe I'll give it another try once I get my humidor properly seasoned and can let it rest for a bit.
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So I'm salt testing my Hygroset. I figure I can get that dialed in and use that to calibrate the analog that came with my humidor. After 12 hours this morning it was sitting at 64%. I'll let it go another 12 and see where it ends up.
I put a dish of distilled water and a Puck in my humidor, with about 60-70% of the beads translucent. When I checked this morning it looked like most of the beads were translucent. Should I take the Puck out until I get my humi at the target RH?
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Ceder will absorb a large amount of water. Get a brand new sponge, and wipe the interior with distilled water. leave the wet sponge in the Humi on a foil sheet. you may need to repeat this several times to fully season the humi.

Recharge the puck too.

As too the salt test dont get in a hurry.....
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I read few seasoning FAQS that said to do this, and then others that said not to as it can raise the grain of the wood. Those recommended just using a dish filled with distilled water.

As of this morning, the beads were pretty much all translucent, which I understood meant that they were holding water. I need to charge them when they turn chalky, right?

Is 24 hrs enough, or should I go even longer? I've seen everything from 6 hrs to 24.
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Leave the beads alone,they're still wet.
And don't stress too much.Cigars are for enjoyment :-)
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As for the whole seasoning thing-
1- Some people like to wipe the inside down with a sponge and then leave the sponge inside
2- Some wipe the inside down with a sponge and then put a shot glass inside
3- Some like to wipe the inside down and then put some hot water in there(so that the hot water vapor can be soaked in the entire humidor)
4- Some just like to put some hot water inside without wiping the inside
And there are many different ways to season a humidor, it just all comes down to what you wanna do. I really don't think there is a incorrect way of doing so.

And yes, you will need to recharge the beads when they start to become chalky(which will be a while)

For the salt test I would wait around 3 days to get a more accurate rating
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OK, that's what I thought.
Not really stressing. I just want to do this properly so I can start aging my smokes and enjoy them. Besides, until I get this humi broken in, I don't have a lot of room for more cigars... :-)

Good to hear. I guess I was just wondering if I should pull the Puck out until the cedar has absorbed a bit more water, as it looks like the beads in the buck have become more saturated since I put them in.

I can do that. The various how-tos and FAQS I read were all over the map.
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After about 38 hrs, the Hygroset is at 66%, and the humi has crept up to 61% (no idea how far off the analog hygro is, though). The beads in the Puck still appear to be fully saturated.
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I have the Prestige seasoned and loaded up, threw some pics in the Show Us Your Humidors thread.
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Hey guys, I'm looking for some tips from the experts here. I had to take my Puck from cigarmony.com out of my humi, as the RH kept creeping up over 70%. Right now my humi is holding rock steady at 68% with no humidifier. My Puck got saturated when I was seasoning the humi, so I think that might be the issue. I figured I could take the Puck out, and let the beads dry out a little, so they can soak up some moisture and drop my humi down to 65%. But after a bit over a day sitting outside, the Puck doesn't appear to be drying out. I know the RH in my apartment is pretty low, when I open my humi, I can see the RH on my Hygroset start dropping almost immediately. Any suggestions?
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not a bad looking box kreth! Just make sure she seals real well (if you let the lid go and drop on its own weight, the air pressure should catch it so that it doesn't go BANG) and she'll do the job.

Also, make sure because its glass top you dont put it near a window or else the sun will destroy your cigars, basically causing a green house effect.
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Yeah, it's got a pretty good seal. See my post above about holding RH even without a humidifier inside.

Thanks for the tip.
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So, just for fun:
Before (pics dated 1/24)
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Image
After (took these tonight)
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Image

What slope? :-)
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Congrats Jeff!!!
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