Reducing Humidity - Various Experiments

WINE TALK
1

I have a ~150 bottle fridge at home where I store most of the daily drinker wines. Occasionally in the summer, the humidity gets noticeably high inside the unit causing many of the labels on these bottles to wrinkle. While this isn’t a big deal since i store my nice bottles in a humidity controlled cellar, i’ve been experimenting with homemade remedies that I wanted to share.

Experiment 1 - I used the cardboard inserts that are typically found in cardboard wine cases. Laying a couple of these in my fridge seemed to work…the cardboard did get slightly damp - presumably from adsorbing the ambient moisture. Since the cardboard was lying on top of some bottles, the damp surface of the cardboard seemed to transfer some of its moisture to the surrounding bottles, so I abandoned this idea.

Back to the drawing board…

Experiment 2 - Just last week with the remnants of Hurricane Issac moving through the Midwest, the humidity levels in Chicago really soared. Bottles in my cellar were noticeably damp…so my girlfriend suggested I put some rice into the cellar. I shifted around a number of bottles, allowing for a paper plate of normal white rice to be set in place. It’s been about 72 hours since this experiment began and the moisture on the bottles have reduced to almost zero. So while my observation period has been short, I like the direction it’s going.

I’m interested to hear if other people have dealt with this problem.

2

Been monitoring my cabinets with a Lacrosse unit that gives me a 1 week trend of temp and humidity for the last month or so. Amazing to see some of the humidity swings with very little temperature change. Only see the condensation issue when I open the door and let fresh air Ito the cabinets. The eurocave keeps a higher relative humidity as compared to the cabinet with the breezeaire unit.

3

Depending on how your storage unit works, you can try using humidity controlling “beads”

They were used in places like museums before to control humidity and of course cigar smokers use them to control humidity in their humidors. There are various calibrated beads you can pick. from 60% to 70%.

4

Or buy some silica gel, which is probably what that humidor stuff is.

Here’s one such place to buy them in various sizes (and looks less expensive than the cigar one):