Moisture Content question

[WildSevenz]

I'm hoping someone can help me here. New guy, looking to soon roll my own and a question.

WLT ships leaf at around 12-18% moisture. How do they achieve this? I assume its done via a specific humidity at a given temp. My question is, what would that that humidity and temp typically be?

Thanks.

 

[deluxestogie]

Welcome to the forum. Feel free to introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself forum. And check out the Index of Key Forum Threads (link at the top).

I can't answer the details of how WLT does this. Relative humidity (RH) is, of course dependent on temperature. If you open the bag at a typical room temperature, the RH is in the range of ~60%.

Keeping the whole leaf tobacco within those carefully opened bags is a fairly effective way of maintaining it near that moisture content, so long as you evacuate the air as best you can after each access, and fold the open end over several times, then seal it with a couple of clamps (I use wooden clothespins). Just taping it is not as effective.

If the leaf begins to dry too much, just pull it out, mist it lightly with water, and put it back in. After a few trials, you will be comfortable with how much to mist how much leaf.

If you allow the bags to be stored in a colder area than typical room temp, moisture may condense. Stable temp minimizes the cat and mouse game.

Bob

 

[WildSevenz]

That's exactly what I was wanting to know Bob. Thank you very much.

 

[GreenDragon]

Also, storing the bags within another container helps to maintain your target humidity. I have several large Tupperware tubs I purchased from the hardware store that I keep my WLT bags in. I have one tub for my cigar tobacco, and one for my pipe tobacco , and a third smaller tub for my Latikia. I keep a large Bovida humidity control packet in each tub.

 

[RandyL]

I'm hoping someone can help me here. New guy, looking to soon roll my own and a question.

WLT ships leaf at around 12-18% moisture. How do they achieve this? I assume its done via a specific humidity at a given temp. My question is, what would that that humidity and temp typically be?

Thanks.

I keep my filler in a large Rubbermaid tub and have opened bags that are over a year old that are still in the same case as when I got them. The bags that Don ships in are fantastic. Like Bob said just fold them over a few times and clip them shut.

 

[SmokinSasquatch]

Regarding humidity control here's a fun link I found, I have several of these in various tupperwares, humidors and tobacco (formerly ice) chests in my house and this seems to work as indicated according to my Caliber IV so long as the temperature is in the neighborhood of 70°F:

https://www.teaforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=177

I imagine you could modify the salt/sugar ratio to some degree to tweak it in for whatever temperature you keep your house at and your preferred humidity. So far I've been happy with 70% for my leaf.

 

[Jim D]

Regarding humidity control here's a fun link I found, I have several of these in various tupperwares, humidors and tobacco (formerly ice) chests in my house and this seems to work as indicated according to my Caliber IV so long as the temperature is in the neighborhood of 70°F:

https://www.teaforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=177

I imagine you could modify the salt/sugar ratio to some degree to tweak it in for whatever temperature you keep your house at and your preferred humidity. So far I've been happy with 70% for my leaf.

That is cool. Now I have two reasons to go to the canning section, one for the jars for this experiment, and the other to get ascorbic acid to experiment smoothing out some leaf.

 

[Rectifier]

Regarding humidity control here's a fun link I found, I have several of these in various tupperwares, humidors and tobacco (formerly ice) chests in my house and this seems to work as indicated according to my Caliber IV so long as the temperature is in the neighborhood of 70°F:

https://www.teaforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=177

I imagine you could modify the salt/sugar ratio to some degree to tweak it in for whatever temperature you keep your house at and your preferred humidity. So far I've been happy with 70% for my leaf.

I missed this post the first time around, this is really interesting information. Digging deeper, following the link (4) to the patent description shows in addition to using the 6:25 sucrose:NaCl solution to achieve 70%RH, potassium citrate, a common food additive, will maintain a RH of 62.9% in saturated solution. Adding glucose will drop this to 60%. There is lots of opportunity to design a custom humidity control solution for exactly the moisture content you want to maintain in your humidor, without having to purchase packs or beads.