I’ve been using boveda packs for sometime and love them but hate buying them over and over. I know you can soak them and recharge ,which I have done, but after a few times it doesn’t work that well anymore. Do any of you use beads? I was looking to buy some of those humidity beads that are meant to be re hydrated over and over again. They are used in the cigar community a lot.
Do any of you use beads and if so have you found a quality brand? I generally put a 58% or 62% boveda pack in the jar with the bud. I’m looking on how to accomplish this with some beads. Maybe put some beads in some plastic mesh?
I’ve considered using a humidor for cigars. You’d be able to put a jar of beads inside and then baggies of weed or smaller mason jars without lids inside.
I don’t have the environment to be so precise on drying. Right now it’s 100F @42% RH. When they get chopped I let them dry for about 48 hours outside, then move them inside in paper bags to dry for five days. But, even inside my temps are in the 80’s and in the 50% RH wise.
I can’t afford to run the AC too much in the summer. In the winter it’s reverse it’s too expensive to run the heat all the time. Anyways, my buds don’t always dry perfect and I tend to error on being too dry than too wet. I can correct too dry with humidity packs.
What hygrometer are you using? I wish they made ones that were accurate and stayed that way for long periods. All the ones I got from Amazon vary so much and over time they all go way out.
I’ll probably get one of these to put into the tent and one in the cure tub so I can monitor the whole bunch of bags as oppose to individual jars. They have three models, two are made in the US and have vpd. This is their cheapest. They seem to be well liked.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ve been researching how to make my own boveda equivalent packs. My dive down that rabbit hole led me through the world of salt based humidity management to Potassium Citrate (courtesy of this post / the msds for boveda).
Once my hydro setup is not running up against repeated roadblocks (finally almost there), that’s on my list of things to play with. I will probably start with potassium citrate mix inside a container sealed with tyvek (or possibly tegaderm) because boveda packs are semi-permeable. I figure I’m going to end up running down the list of “readily available semi-permeable membranes” starting with the easiest to acquire, probably will take a few attempts at least.
I was experimenting with these for a while for use with potnanny. They are pretty accurate, but I couldnt write a Bluetooth plugin stable enough for what I needed.
But if your just using them in a drying jar and monitoring with the app, should be fine.
