My Moisture Meter

[proteus]

Just putting this out there for folks. Maybe some will find it useful. I use a wood moisture meter which gives a relative moisture content for tobacco. Here's a pic. I use it for comparison readings by compressing the tobacco around the prongs.

 

[Doctor Chopper]

I would assume that there are too many variables in this measurement to make it useful. Things such as tightness or compression of the sample, cut of tobacco, amount in contact with instrument, and what is holding the tobacco and its electric conductivity (probably your hand), and conductivity of any casings or additives.

Have you been able to get reliable and reproducible readings? Are you able to actually use the readings to perform any quality control of tobacco moisture content practically? Have you tried to test the instruments accuracy in any way? (perhaps use a moisture pack in the tobacco that has a known humidity, or put tobacco in a humidifier with an accurate hygrometer)

Thanks for posting, this is an interesting concept but I remain a skeptic.

 

[Jbrewer2002]

I asked some questions in this post not to long ago. Idk if it’s accurate or not. I guess you can creat your own baseline and use that to compare against.

Moisture Meter. :: Pipe Tobacco Discussion

So I read an article on smoking pipes the other day and I remember them talking about the perfect % of moisture to keep your pipe tobacco. Proper Pipe Tobacco Humidification | Smokingpipes - https://www.smokingpipes.com/smokingpipesblog/single.cfm/post/proper-pipe-tobacco-humidification I got...

pipesmagazine.com

 

[proteus]

It's a reference tool. Kind of like making up your own ruler - not legal for trade - but as long as the same tool is used the scale is moot. The actual "legal" moisture content could be known using a much more expensive tool. This was I think 30 or 40 bucks at Amazon. Slme are like 150 200 and up.

So what I do is for a given type of maker and tobacco say sutliff aromatics. I know personally I have a good smoke with those aros in my aro pipe in the 28 to 32 range on this meter. Above 32 I know its wetter than usual and maybe I want to dry the batch or pack differently to compensate. Below 28 i might screw on a wet paper towel to the jar and keep doing that until its in the range I prefer.

Same for flakes, vaper, burley etc. Sometimes it's down to a maker and a model. Like say sutliff vanilla cream vs another sutliff. I keep notes to keep it all straight. As long as I use the same meter and technique I can compare my own results but not compare to other people's results.

Its all relative to the person the meter and measuring technique. Its not an NIST or ANSI standard. Its a "me" standard.

I don't like dry straight VA less than 22 on my meter. Some VA like VA slices or SG FVF come in at 18. So I do the damp paper towel and lid technique and raise to about 22 and my smoke session is vastly improved. For me. YMMV.

After some 30 plus years it's been working for me so far. But to save money over buying a proper meter its priceless.