Beads Turned Brown???

[awsmith4]

Originally Posted by shilala

The brown stuff amounts to free hydrocarbons, aromas and so forth that come off your cigars and wood. The hydrocarbons get in the pores of the beads and are trapped.
They'll get browner and browner. It's pretty cool how it works.

My main concern was that if they absorbed other stuff the pores would become blocked and they would cease to absorb and release water. Also I was thinking of gifting them and wanted to make sure they weren't sub-par