Try these tips:

Dampen a towel (not dripping wet, but good and damp), then wrap the hygrometer in the towel for 30 to 45 minutes. Then unwrap it and read the humidity (quickly). If your hygrometer is perfectly calibrated (few are) it will be reading exactly 100% humidity. Most likely, it will be reading somewhere between 80 and 90%. That's ok - if it's reading 90%, then you know that when it is in your humidor and reading 65, your humidor is really at 75%. From now on you can just make this simple adjustment and you won't have to mess with the calibration screw. Feel free to send us a note if you have any questions.

Wanna get a little more technical?

No problem. Luckily, as nature would have it, when salt and water (NaCl and H2O for you studious types), are in a saturated solution at equilibrium, the resultant humidity is 75%. This gives are a fantastic reference point to calibrate our hygrometers.

Here's the procedure you should use:

Get a bottle cap of some sort - like the kind you might get off of a beer! Fill it with regular ole' table salt. Then drop a few drops of water on the salt. DO NOT put to much water on the salt. The salt should only be damp, and not a liquid solution. It should be like moist sand, not like soft mud.

Then put the bottle cap of salt and your hygrometer in a see-through, sealable container. I like to use a large freezer bag. Seal the freezer bag or other container. Wait several hours (about six). The humidity inside the bag will be 75%. Compare it to your hygrometer. You will then know exactly how far off your hygrometer is, just like with the damp towel test, above.

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