Water Pillows
They don't say what's in the packets (except that its non-toxic) but I would be surprised if its not fine ground Polyacrylamide (see Water-Gel Crystals). While they don't regulate humidity, they are handy for reviving dry tobacco. They have a non-porous bottom and can be set directly on the tobacco. Putting the pillow in the plastic bag will slow things down considerably because of the pillows reduced exposure to the air. They typically sell for around $1 each (e.g. LB) but can be found for as little as $.50.
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- Re: Water Pillows
- Posted by Dave L on Sunday, 09-Dec-2007
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Putting the pillow in small tin makes it easier to use and store. So far, rust isn't an issue. I found the tin at Specialty Bottle, the same place I get my jars (lousy picture but you can also see their new/better lids).
- Re: Water Pillows
- Posted by stickchick on Sunday, 09-Dec-2007
As a fierce defender and practitioner of tightwaddery :-), I find that any good painted and plastic coated (on the inner side) jar lid works well to hold both moistened sponges and water pillows on top of my tobacco inside my homemade humidor (a recycled attractive cookie jar from a Knott's Berry Farm gift pack with a mason type seal and closure). Haven't had one mold or rust yet, but I've only been doing this for 3 months. Hope this suggestion is helpful to some.
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I don't know why (with my fondness for 2x tape) it took me so long to come up with this one, but a bit of 2x tape to hold the water pillow to the lid is much more convenient.
- Re: Water Pillows
- Posted by Mike T. on Friday, 22-Jun-2007
I recently bought 3 Water Pillows from LBSS. I soaked one in non distilled water and placed it into a bag of dry tobacco without the plastic bag the Water Pillow came with. After 4 hours the tobacco was moist, and smokable.
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- Junk
- Posted by Smokin n Jokin on Tuesday, 13-Mar-2007
Stay away from this stuff. It's totally bogus. I tried to rehydrate one of them a second time. Not only would it not rehydrate it polluted the distilled water I put it in.
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- Re: Junk
- Posted by JerzyJoe on Tuesday, 13-Mar-2007
Stay away from what stuff???
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- Re: Junk
- Posted by JerzyJoe on Tuesday, 13-Mar-2007
Thank's.... All I had to do was scroll to the top. O well! Thank's anyway. I thought you were talking about a brand of tobacco.
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- Re: Junk
- Posted by Dave L on Monday, 19-Mar-2007
If you used the pillow in its bag and tucked in the side of the tobacco bag like they show here - where the pillow has almost zero exposure to the air and tobacco - it would probably take a year to revive dry tobacco.
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I don't know what happened to the one you left in the sun. The only way you'd get polluted (non-toxic polymer) water is if the packet ruptured in some way (leaving it in water for more than the recommended 20 seconds could do that... swelling in the heat maybe?). I've (re)hydrated new, partially used and completely dried out ones and the only thing I noticed was that the dried out one was a bit slow to recover.
Functionally and structurally there's nothing about these that rates the junk label. Functionally they are equivalent to any other unregulated moisture source that has the same volume/surface area.
- water retention pillow
- Posted by Smokin n Jokin on Tuesday, 06-Mar-2007
I tried some of these. They absorb water real well but don't seem to be too good at releasing it. I've had one of them in a bag of really dry tobacco for three days and it's just like the day I put it in there. They might be good for something but not rehydrating tobacco.
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- Re: water retention pillow
- Posted by Dave L on Tuesday, 06-Mar-2007
I was just going to write how much I like them. I had one (in its bag) in a plastic container, with a number of baggies containing miscellaneous tobaccos (6oz? total), for a week or so and it revived them all quite nicely. What was neat is that the pillow shrunk, you can tell when it needs more water (not for a while yet).
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Conditioning tobacco is all about volume and surface area (primarily the tobacco but also the moisture source). For the Coresta Method 42 (pdf) loosened tobacco is spread into perforated trays to a thickness not more than 3/4". Tobacco is conditioned using a salt solution, in shallow trays that cover the bottom of the conditioning chamber, and forced airflow for a minimum of 72 hours and not longer than 10 days. For me conditioning (moisture + or -) typically takes weeks because my tobacco is 6" thick and only a 5" diameter circle is exposed to the air (and the water pillow or whatever).
The pillows (out of the bag) should be faster than any regulated moisture source (Credo-like, beads, Boveda, etc) that typically doesn't allow the environments RH to exceed 70%. My hygrometer needs a battery so I cannot confirm that the pillows are unregulated. Any unregulated moisture source, given that all other conditions are the same, will be just as fast as another.
- Re: water retention pillow
- Posted by Smokin n Jokin on Tuesday, 06-Mar-2007
I've had one sitting out in the Arizona directly overhead bone sweltering 82 degree sunlight for four hours and it hasn't lost any moisture yet as far as I can tell.
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- Re: water retention pillow
- Posted by Dave L on Tuesday, 13-Mar-2007
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My one week experiment is far from scientific. It looks to me like the pillow evaporation rate is pretty darn close to that of open water. The picture doesn't work very well because you cannot tell that there's air in the pillow, most of the water is gone.
- Re: water retention pillow
- Posted by Scott Morehouse on Tuesday, 06-Nov-2007
I like these. I use them to help regulate my cigar humidors in the lower trays. Though they give off water a bit more slowly, I don't have mold problems like I have had occasionally with the larger silica humidor humidifiers. Those give off water to quickly. Some of the smaller florist foam humidifiers would probably work equally well for this application. Best of luck.
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