Adding Humidity to Fermentation Chamber

[JerBear]

So I've had my drying chamber up and running for a couple months now and after working through a couple small kinks things to seem to be going nicely and I have some whole muscle items drying. Now on to fermented sausages.... I got my chamber all built and purchased only a temp controller in the hopes that a tray of water at the bottom of the chamber would be sufficient to raise RH to 80%+ but so far no go. The temp is holding steady at 75-degrees F but the RH is stuck at 60%. I want to get this figured out before putting sausages in there but realized that adding fresh/moisture rich sausages might give me the necessary RH bump I need. I'd rather not have to purchase the additional humidity controller and humidifier if I can avoid it.

Couple points of reference...the chamber is a bakers rack with a plastic sheath for bread proofing and the heater I'm using is a small Crane ceramic heater plus big tray of water (hoping greater surface area would equate to greater humidity) with a couple quarts of water in it. The base of the unit is essentially open but I out a full sheet tray in the lowest slot so it's mostly closed up.

[NCPaul]

I ferment in my oven and I raise the humidity by hanging a paper towel at right angles into a tray of water. The towel draws the water up and it evaporates. Grisell worked this out for small chambers.

[JerBear]

Forgot to mention that this is a dry run and I've also heard from a couple other sources that once I get meat in there it'll be fine. I'm going to try to get something in there tomorrow night... If that doesn't seem to do the trick I'll be adding the paper towels! Thanks NCPaul.

[Wunderdave]

Jerbear, when I ferment sausages I hang them in a closed environment like a rubbermaid tub or my oven. The water inside the sausages is more than sufficient to drive the RH in a small box to 85% plus.