Humidity, Tangiers, Acclimating, Etc.

[GreatPigHookah]

I’ve seen a lot of posts about Tangiers, acclimating, and humidity. There seems to be a bit of confusion, myself included, about what conditions merit acclimation, what humidity is, etc. Eric @ Tangiers has posted on this board that the absolute humidity differences from location to location can cause humidity shock and result in the need to acclimate Tangiers. OK. Fair enough. So what is absolute humidity? What is the dew point? What is relative humidity? What the hell does this all mean?



Absolute Humidity

Absolute Humidity is the mass of water vapor in a given volume of a gaseous mixture. In our case, the gaseous mixture is air. Usually we express this in grams per cubic meter. Simply put for our purposes, it is a measure of the actual water vapor content of the air. The absolute humidity changes as air pressure changes. So as weather fronts and various seasons move into your area, the absolute humidity will change over time, most of the time, relatively slowly.



Dew Point

The Dew Point is the temperature to which a given volume of air must be cooled, at constant pressure, for water vapor to condense into liquid water, hence the formation of “dew” – the water that you find on the lawn in the cool hours of the morning or the frost you get at colder temps in winter. The dew point is a saturation point, and is a good indicator of the absolute humidity : The higher the dew point temperature, the more water vapor in the air – the lower the dew point temp, the less water vapor in the air.



Relative Humidity

The Relative Humidity, R.H., is the most common figure bantered around because it’s application to how it makes us humans “feel”. If the R.H. is high, say 90% R.H. and we are outside working in 80F heat, it may “feel” to us like it’s 87F out, because our sweat won’t evaporate as readily because the air is already almost saturated with water vapor. The evaporation of sweat is what cools our bodies, so we feel uncomfortable and sticky when it’s warm and humid. Now, to the point, the R.H. is the ratio, expressed as a percentage, of the amount of water vapor in the air divided by the amount of water vapor in the air at the saturation point (dew point). So, when the weatherman says the R.H. is 60%, he means the air currently is 60% saturated with water vapor at the current pressure and temperature.



OK, now we know what these things mean, but how are they related? You can calculate the absolute humidity from the vapor pressure, temperature, and a constant known as the ideal gas constant for water vapor, using the ideal gas law. You’ll first have to calculate the vapor pressure from the dew point temp. I’ll skip boring you with the formulas and just show an example and the results. The formulas can be found in textbooks and all over the internet if you are interested, but be careful, there are literally tons of formula variations that approximate the data, and many only work for certain temperature ranges and conditions.



Suppose we have the following environment outside (It was a foggy day, you can tell from these conditions):

Temp = 37F

Dew Point = 35F

RH = 92%

The absolute humidity works out to be about 5.4 grams/cubic meter.



Now, lets go inside the house where the dew point hasn’t changed (same air inside and out, i.e. no humidifiers or dehumidifiers running, or 42 people crammed into a small room, etc.), but the temp is now 68F. We now have:

Temp = 68F

Dew Point = 35F

RH = 29.5%



The absolute humidity works out to be about 5.1 grams/cubic meter.



Notice the RH is vastly different, but the absolute humidity is pretty much the same as before (the calculations are not exact, either). So you probably won’t need to acclimate your Tangiers from inside to outside if you had acclimated it in these conditions previously.



Now let’s seal up our Tangiers and ship it across the country where we have, outside:

Temp = 68F

Dew Point = 25F

RH = 21%



The absolute humidity works out to be about 3.4 grams/cubic meter.



The relative humidity hasn’t changed a bunch from the previous indoor conditions, but the absolute humidity has! Now we may be in a situation where there needs to be some acclimation. I say may, because we, or at least I, don’t really know for sure. All this shows you is how relative humidity, absolute humidity, and dew point can change, but there are a lot of other things we don’t know. How big a change is enough to affect the tobacco to the point of acclimating? Also, it is not only the magnitude of the change in absolute humidity, but also the RATE of the change. The phrase “humidity shock”, to me, implies a rapid change. For the most part, absolute humidity changes slowly in a given area compared to when a package of Tangiers is packaged and sealed in one environment and then shipped across the country to be opened in another – that’s a virtually instantaneous change. Normally fairly slow changing, the dew point can change with changing weather conditions by 50 degrees over the course of a day or two, but usually stabilizes a bit thereafter. If your Tangiers is in an airtight container, would it need to be acclimated again after such a change? I would tend to think so, if the tobacco was really sealed airtight, and you want to smoke it in the new conditions. But fortunately, I don’t store it in an airtight container, so I’m guessing it might not need much acclimating after one of these slow, weather related humidity changes, as it is technically acclimating and changing with the environment constantly. Slow absolute humidity change = no acclimation necessary, Rapid absolute humidity change = acclimation necessary. Basically, my theory is that once you acclimate it in your area, you really shouldn't have to acclimate it again unless you store it airtight or smoke in a location that has humidifiers, dehumidifiers, etc. Any problems you have beyond that are more likely packing or heat management issues. As always, I reserve the right to be totally and completely wrong, but the theory has worked for me so far. Any comments, opinions, etc.?

[momatik]

Haha I love posts like this.

I would have to agree with your theory. It makes a lot of sense.

If the container is air tight and shipped across the states, that would mean that, in theory, the shisha is fine in the package.

Once you open it, then the rapid change you speak of takes place, which is why you need to leave it out and let it acclimate.

Interesting.

+5

[mattathayde]

it makes sense on paper sot going to argue that at all

but when i got tangiers here in va the first time from HS (so cali-texas-va trip) i tried to acclimate it and it didnt work for one of the flavors but it did for the other. 2nd time got it from MNH (so cali-MN-VA trip) it never acclimated up for either flavor i got and ruined 2 things of it, 3rd time i got it from HS again (it was getting drier out at this point) i opened it up and it was fine didnt acclimate at all.

the other thing i have heard eric say is the reason behind acclimation (at least when it comes to when flavors are off) is because the chemicals that create flavors are there is certain amounts and if it is to high or to low it can be a totally different flavor, so if it is to much of the chemical by "acclimating" or more so airing it out you will get it to the right flavor

-matt

[shalowlow]

I think this is a great post too.

Part of the issue here is that people sometimes say, well I live in Los Angeles or San Diego already so I don't need to acclimate.

However, if the tobacco is sealed at a certain humidity, I'm not sure there is a change in the temperment of the tobacco while it is sealed or not.

Therefore, even if I do live in Los Angeles, and I get Tangiers shipped from San Diego, if that package was sealed in October, the absolute humidity very well might be different when I get it in December. Or maybe not.

We also have no idea how much of a change can make a difference from flavor to flavor. Eric has classified a lot of his flavors not by how good the flavor is, but how good it holds up to humidity shock. One tobacco could over a slight change in humidity go to crap, one might be better.

I guess the answer is then to just wait till it smells good, then smoke it. But beware, knowing how excited I get, i'm over there smelling it every 10 minutes! By the fifth time in a 45 minute span, I have no idea what I'm smelling anymore!