New v16's

Wailin' said:

Has anyone tried the new v16's. They come in a much bigger box and are individually wrapped in a green sealed plastic. The label reads "barrier packaging". It also claims each reed is sealed at ideal humidity level.

A piece of adive on the insert states that the reeds should be kept at a humidity level between 45% and 70%. How is that done?

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Finally!, a question I can answer! I also belong to a Cigar Bulletin Board and am much more knowledgeable about cigars. Buy a small humidor from Holt's - they sell scratch and dent humidors really cheaply- and add some Boveda pads at 65% Humidity. I believe Rico might sell their own Boveda pads at a lower Relative Humidity which would be better I guess.
Or, place the reeds in a plastic bag in an airtight container - Tupperware type- with a moist paper towel and put them in your fridge.
If you have any questions-PM me.

I've never tried the ones in the individual sealed wrapping, but I have used the regular ones in the box. IMO, there's only a few good reeds that work well in the box (sounds familiar Vandoreon user's?) and the other reeds are usually to dull and thick to sound good. I'm planning on trying other reeds before I start using Vandoreons again.

65% and 70F
Check out JR Cigars, they have an article on storage.
http://www.jrcigars.com/index.cfm?page=jrcu_storage

Wailin' said:

Has anyone tried the new v16's. They come in a much bigger box and are individually wrapped in a green sealed plastic. The label reads "barrier packaging". It also claims each reed is sealed at ideal humidity level.

A piece of adive on the insert states that the reeds should be kept at a humidity level between 45% and 70%. How is that done?

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Keep'em in your refrigerator.

jazzbluescat said:

Keep'em in your refrigerator.

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...or on the wet side of Hawaii

The refrigerator is not running at 70F or at least mine isn't. Reeds need to be kept at 65% & 70F. My refrigerator runs colder than 70F so that my beer will be ready to drink. Don't keep reeds in the frig...........

speyman said:

The refrigerator is not running at 70F or at least mine isn't. Reeds need to be kept at 65% & 70F. My refrigerator runs colder than 70F so that my beer will be ready to drink. Don't keep reeds in the frig...........

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Temperature is irrelevant unless it is very high. RH is all that matters.

Temp

3 Olives said:

Temperature is irrelevant unless it is very high. RH is all that matters.

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Temperature is relevant to cigars and what is the difference between cigars and reeds. I guess you could smoke both of them. Check out the link on cigar storage that I have above. They call for both temp. and humid settings. I've stored my reeds in a cigar humidor for years and have no problems. The reeds require minimal wetting to get them ready for playing. I keep the reeds in boxes and reed holders.

speyman said:

Temperature is relevant to cigars and what is the difference between cigars and reeds. I guess you could smoke both of them. Check out the link on cigar storage that I have above. They call for both temp. and humid settings. I've stored my reeds in a cigar humidor for years and have no problems. The reeds require minimal wetting to get them ready for playing. I keep the reeds in boxes and reed holders.

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I smoke cigars so I also store them. They need to age but not dry out. Cigars are much more affected by extreme Temp and/or RH - mold and cigar beetles. However, any average Temp for a home is fine for cigars. I would expect most people would keep their reeds in their house. It is the RH that matters. You can buy inexpensive devices to measure RH if you want to.

FWIW-I just moved a Hygrometer from a humidor and put it on the counter-RH is stable at 51, so you can probably just sit your reeds out.

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My Javas came packaged like that. They're called the Vandoren Flow Pack.

I'm not into doing anything special like adjusting or worring about their humidity anymore but I do find a high rate of playable reeds so far.

What I don't like is the larger box that the 5 reeds come in. I can't cram as many in my SKB case as I did before. I used to put 2 of the old boxes and my mouthpiece in the mouthpiece slot but now if I put one new box in the same place there's no room for the mouthpiece or a second box.

speyman said:

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The RH in my home is 51% and that is within the range. Store the reeds in your house-not your car, garage, attic, bathroom, or crawl space and they should be fine.

Store

3 Olives said:

The RH in my home is 51% and that is within the range. Store the reeds in your house-not your car, garage, attic, bathroom, or crawl space and they should be fine.

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NS. I'll agree with that as long as your at 70F and 65%. You won't find those conditions in your refrigderator!!!!!!!!!!

I started using a cigar humidor a few months ago for storing reeds (at about 55% humidity), and to my surprise, it has actually helped quite a bit. Granted, I'm lucky if the humidity in my house is over 20%... If a reed dries out too much here, it actually makes an audible sound, kind of like rice krispies! That can't be good...

jazzbluescat said:

Keep'em in your refrigerator.

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Cat's right - My fridge holds at 52 RH, so the fridge should be fine.

I believe that reeds really should be at 70 degrees and 50 percent humidity. Just like books.

I like the idea of the Vandoren reed humidor but when I first saw it at NAMM they indicated it wouldn't be out for awhile. My solution was to get a humidistat of eBay and use a plastic zip lock bag. It was just a matter of getting the right amount of reeds in the bag to keep the humidity where I wanted it.

By doing all that I found that once I had a reed prepared the way I like that it played the way I liked longer. I also found that I didn't have as many reeds go from being just right to not right.

The advantage of the plastic bag is that it easily fits in my case or in my sax bag.

jazzbluescat said:

Keep'em in your refrigerator.

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This refrigerator concept is new 2 me. Someone explain this please. Wouldn't want to lose precious reeds to experimentation in the refrigerator.

Wailin' said:

This refrigerator concept is new 2 me. Someone explain this please. Wouldn't want to lose precious reeds to experimentation in the refrigerator.

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since the temperature is lower in your refrigerator compared to the air in the room that contains the refrigerator, moisture will condense when the air goes from outside to inside the frige...therefore that air will always be more humid than the air in your house. since virtually everyone has a refrigerator, it's an easy way to have an always humid enough atmosphere for reeds.....
that being said, i've never tried this personally so i can't vouch for it....
it makes sense though. even if it doesn't work, it's definitely not gonna hurt your reeds.