StoneCarver's Kiln Build

[StoneCarver]

compact units with digital temperature/humidity control.

What I would find interesting is to see how they provide humidity. Providing heat is easy. I'm finding ultrasonic humidifiers need to be sanitized regularly. But if the humidifier was inside the kiln then the heat might suppress bacterial and mold growth in the humidifier. But at the same time, it would be nice to not have to open the kiln to refill the water reservoir of the humidifier.

 

[StoneCarver]

I'm done testing. I loaded it with almost my entire crop of RedRose. I'm surprised by how much tobacco this thing will hold.
I have one fan in the back corner blowing upwardly. I'm wondering if I ought to have another fan caddycorner to the back fan and have it blow downwardly. The fan turns on when the humidifier is turned on. Idk if its necessary but I'm going with it.

Some of those leaves were almost 3ft long prior to color curing. I loaded the kiln last night. They've been in there 24hrs now. The tips don't seem to be crispy. So I guess they are staying well humidified and not getting dried out by the stove. The upper portions of the leaves are well limp. When I opened the door, the odor that came out of the kiln almost made my eyes water. Something's happening.
Sorry about the blurriness. That's what tripods are for and I don't have one.

Here's a close up of the stove and humidifier nozzle. The meshy looking metal thing on the stove is my current attempt to have a heat diffuser. That way the heat shouldn't go straight up the middle of the tobacco leaves. You can see that there doesn't really seem to be much water condensing on the walls and running down in beads. But the humidifier nozzle does dribble.

 

[StoneCarver]

Last weekend, I rerouted the hose for the ultra-sonic humidifier to route it down through the middle of the kiln. I also put the small cook pot back on the stove, filled it with water, and covered it with a sheet of aluminum foil with three pencil sized holes punched through it, and finally put the perforated metal heat diffuser on top of that. The small cook pot is now under the humidifier hose's nozzle. Now, when the hose dribbles, it dribbles into the cook pot instead of on the kiln floor. Now I'm wasting much less water and much less water is dripping out of the bottom of the kiln. In fact, I haven't yet seen any dripping out of the kiln now. I'll try to take a picture later today. Of course, the hose nozzle isn't too close to the stove; I don't want to risk any melt-downs and fires.

Speaking of safety, I really like having that perforated sheet metal on top of the stove/cook pot as it catches any tobacco leaves that fall. This way there's less risk of damage to any fallen leaves.

 

[StoneCarver]

So, I've been running the kiln with the pot of water on the stove for a couple weeks now and its been working better than using the ultra sonic humidifier. The u-s humidifier hasn't even been turning on. However, I do like having the u-s humidifier even if it rarely runs because it serves as a back up for when the pot runs dry. Also, the u-s humidifier will quickly re-humidify the interior of the kiln after I open the door. The pot of water on the stove takes much longer to re-humidify the interior. Otoh, when I was running the u-s humidifier as the sole source of humidity, the lower portions of the leaves (those closest to the stove) tended to be dry. Now, they are fully in high case. I find I need to check the pot of water about every 3 days or so as that's about how long it takes for it to evaporate all the water. Also, I don't have water streaming down the interior walls of the kiln since I used the suggestion of having a sheet of aluminum foil with three pencil sized holes in it to cover the pot of water.

Again, the kiln is running at 125F and 80%rH and holds very close to that.

 

[The Haroo ln]

The foil 'lid' with holes was the best change i made to my crockpot. Its helped me dial the RH in perfectly.