Copied/pasted here for you, Derrick
:-)
How To Use Your HCM Beads
Your package includes Humidity Control Molecular (HCM) beads.
The beads are a 100% product with no chemical additives whatsoever. The beads are made of clay and are safe and non-toxic. They are created to control the humidity in your humidor, as well as scavenge free ammonia. The bags are made of 100% polyester fusible knit interfacing.
For this Humidity Control System I chose the absolute best and purest products available. I chose these products with us and our cigars in mind.
Your beads have arrived pre-conditioned to 65% RH (unless you’ve ordered a custom RH%age) and are ready to place in your humidor.
*** We won’t be making any adjustments to the beads for at least one week. ***
Two weeks to a month is even better. This will allow time for everything in your humidor to begin to reach equilibrium. That means that everything will be seeking a perfect balance of water throughout your beads, conditioned space, cigars, and humidor. That will take time and patience. Please do your best to be patient. The longer you can wait, the better your beads will treat you. Waiting will also heal most problems. Patience will also heal tons of problems that aren’t really problems. Most problems rise because we haven’t waited long enough.
Please take this time to salt test and calibrate your hygrometer.
A top quality hygrometer is an insanely important tool when starting with your new beads. Your cigar-keeping success relies heavily on its accuracy. More so, your bead adjusting skills will rely heavily on the hygrometer’s accuracy. In the future you’ll not want or need to rely on your hygrometers so much, as your cigars will tell you where you need to adjust your humidity by how they are smoking. For now, a hygrometer will be a huge and indispensable tool as you “learn” your beads.
If you do not own a high quality calibratable hygrometer, get one immediately. I have them available. Call me and I can get one on the way. Either that or I can make a suggestion. You may already have what you need. If you aren’t sure, please don’t hesitate to call and ask.
Calibration is non-negotiable and of the utmost importance. If you develop problems and contact me for help, I will ask you to salt test your hygrometer before we start trouble-shooting. I’ll insist you do it even if you just did it yesterday. We absolutely MUST be sure that the hygrometer is perfectly accurate before we start trying to fix anything, and double checking it is both sensible and responsible. It may seem borderline silly, but it’s a necessary nuisance.
After 24 hours your humidor should settle at, or very near, the setpoint of your beads.
If it does, you are finished. If not, after a couple weeks to a month, you can raise or lower the RH%age by following the simple procedures outlined below.
I can’t stress enough the importance of following the instructions to the letter. When I say to use a small dish with a sponge, I really, really mean that. A shot glass with water in it is not a viable alternative. It doesn’t provide the evaporative surface area we need. I know it may be the way we used to do it, but with new beads come new “ways”.
If the RH%age is lower than you like…
Place a small distilled water-soaked sponge in a pan or dish and place it in your humidor overnight. Take the dish and sponge out in the morning and then wait to check your RH%age in the afternoon.
If it's still low, simply put the sponge back in the humidor, leave it overnight, remove it in the morning, check in the afternoon, and repeat the process as necessary.
If you wish to hasten the process, simply use more wet sponges in more areas of your humidor.
While you are doing this, be sure to realize that it takes a good amount of time to recondition everything in your humidor. The amount of time depends on how much you want to raise the RH%age of your beads, how big your humidor is, how many beads you have, and how many sponges you use. It could take hours, days, or a couple weeks. Take your time. Be patient. The more careful, patient and precise you are, the better the process will work. The time you spend with the process will give you a greater understanding of how humidity works in your humidor, and how your beads react.
You can also hasten the process by removing your beads from the humidor and placing them in a Rubbermaid container or the like, along with the sponges and maybe a little fan to move air. That will move things along drastically, although it isn’t really necessary (or useful) unless you’re reconditioning a large amount of beads.
If the RH%age is higher than you like…
You can lower the HCM beads’ RH%age by placing them in the refrigerator for an hour. This relies on the fact that the RH in your refrigerator is around 45% RH (and they all are if they are working properly). The beads will always work to assume the ambient RH%age (the RH in the area surrounding the beads is the “ambient”, regardless of whether they are in the humidor or refrigerator or out in the room. You can use your room, too. It just needs to be of a lower RH than the beads. Ambient basically means “surrounding” in this context.) When reconditioning your beads to a lower RH %age, the ambient RH %age has to be lower, the lower the better. If the room ambient is less than 5% lower than your desired setpoint, don’t use it, use the refrigerator or freezer as instructed below.
When the refrigerator isn’t working well enough, or you wish to make big changes fast, you can put the beads on a plate and place them in the freezer for 25 minutes. SET A TIMER!!! If you freeze the beads, the water in the beads may freeze, expand, and destroy your beads. We don’t want that. Odds of it happening are slim, but it can.
After 25 minutes, take the beads out of the freezer and place them in a gallon ziplock freezer bag with your hygrometer. Let the bag sit for 24 hours, note the RH%age, and repeat the process if necessary.
It’s always best to test your beads with this method before doing any reconditioning at all. If the beads show a lot higher RH %age in the bag than when they were in your humidor, it will tell you that your humi is leaky. It’s how we’ll expose that sort of thing if we ever need to troubleshoot.
Storing your beads when not in use…
If for some reason you don’t wish to use your beads for some period of time, simply store them in a sealed ZipLock bag. That will preserve your beads’ RH value so that they are ready for use when you need them.
If left in the open air, the beads will work double time to assume the RH%age of their surrounding. As such, odds are that they won’t be at the proper setting when you come to need them most.
Last but not least…
Pay very close attention to how your beads react while you are working with them, and you will soon get a good “feel” for how your beads work.
When I recondition my beads, I take notes. I write down what time I started reconditioning, what the RH%age was when I started, and what the RH%age is prior to starting the next reconditioning cycle. I write down anything I think is pertinent, anything I think may help in the future. This helps me to quickly figure out how many “cycles”, or how much time it will take to recondition the beads to my desired setpoint.
The key to properly conditioning beads is patience. It takes time for water vapor to equalize throughout your cigars, boxes, and the walls of your humidor. It’s not measured in hours, it’s measured in days. Use this fact to your advantage. Take your time, and watch intently. Your beads and humidor will tell you what to do, and usually, if you’re patient enough, it’ll tell you that you don’t have to do anything at all.
If you have any questions, comments, or just want to share your observations about the beads, please feel free to email me at
shilala@comcast.net or call me at 814-771-0912. These beads were created by a Brother of the Leaf for BOTL’s with the help of BOTL’s. The success of the beads relies on the success of the brothers who use them. Please take time to share your input with us. It’s that spirit that makes these beads what they are, and why they are so wildly successful. With everyone’s help, they can only get better.
Thank You!!!
Scott Shilala
104 Dixon Ave.
DuBois, PA 15801
****NEVER add water directly to your beads. (And other fine print.)
HCM beads can become very hot and melt their bag. It's not a chemical reaction that causes the heat, it's the friction created by the water rushing into billions of tiny pores at an incredible speed.
Adding water directly to the beads will also upset the delicate balance that is equilibrium. Once that balance is thrown off, it takes a huge amount of effort to bring the beads back to their proper setpoint.
Only use the best distilled water available to condition your beads. Keeping them clean and free from debris will help them last a lifetime.
Never use the beads to soak up dripping water, such as in a winador. It will cause mold growth, ruin your beads, ruin your cigars, and make a mess. It’s dangerous and completely wrong. If you’re considering some sort of catch container, let the beads do what they do, first. Dry any standing water and deploy your beads where they are safe and away from it. If you’ve plugged your winador drain as you should (it’s an absolute must if you are using beads, regardless of what you may have heard), the beads will stop the water from collecting and help control it’s formation.
[Reply]
