Posted on 01/25/2014 10:01:31 AM PST by Kartographer
Theres a whole slew of things that I want included in my food storage pantry, but many of them dont lend themselves well to the canning process (chocolate!), cant be dehydrated (walnuts!), or arent a great candidate for the classic 5-gallon bucket (sunflower seeds!).
Packing these foods in canning jars and then using a vacuum sealer, such as a Food Saver, to store them long-term is super easy.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesurvivalmom.com ...
Thx for that info. Another reason I’ll stick with Mylar and oxygen absorbers.
I feel like I have a PHD from watching you tube but I learned that you can vacuum seal regular jars like spaghetti sauce, salsa or olive jars. If you own the food saver canisters, you put the filled jars in a canister and pull the vacuum on the canister. It sucks the air out of the jar and works great for preserving.
This is near the top of my list—how to minimize the use of O2 absorbers with repeated access to buckets of food items.
I know what is needed, but have yet to find it. It is a combination of both the absorber AND pulling air from the container before sealing the lid. The solution is a simple vacuum pull on a zip-lockable plastic bag, the bag big enough to insert the bucket in side.
The process is to remove the food item (e.g., scoop of beans) from the bucket, insert the bucket and lid in a suitable plastic bag (that can be sucked down), replace the expended absorber in the bucket with a new absorber, set the lid loosely on the bucket, close the bag, suck it down, from the outside of the bag press or close the lid on the bucket, inflate the bag, and remove the now capped bucket with new absorber inside. Waalaa.
But I cannot find the bag and vacuum big enough to do this.
Started doing this this past summer with my new foodsaver.
The half gallon wide mouths work best. I have sealed oats, rice, baking mix, nuts, quinoa.It was one of the reasons I got the foodsaver.
For what it’s worth, I cook hotdogs in a reuseable salsa glass jar. Put a pack of dogs in the jar, lay it on its side in the microwave and heat full power for two minutes, turn jar 180 degrees and heat 2 more minutes, then stand the jar up on the counter and twist the factory lid (washed with boiling water of course) on and let sit until the ‘pop’ is heard I feed hotdogs to my little raccoon family on these cold nights. The cooked dogs keep for several days. This use has proven to me that the salsa jars and lids are reuseable, several times over.
Yup!
I’ve done the same with bacon bits. My local supmkt has a salad bar, and every time I get a salad, I load up with bacon bits on the bottom.
Then put them in the jar, into the fridge, after a week or so I have a full salsa jar of bacon bits.
Into the microwave, get em good and sizzlin, then the top goes on and back into the fridge. They have all sealed, the top goes in, and they are a beach to open, but I know they’re good.
One of these days I’m going to make a big pot full of soup and seal up a half dozen jars with the soup in them and set them aside in a dark spot, to see if the seal remains in tact. I suspect it will. That will lead to sealing up veggies this summer.
I do not can or freeze anymore. I dehydrate everything. Dried food is lightweight, longer shelf-life, and takes up a fraction of the space. However, I still have cases of jars, so, I pack my dried food in the jars. Plus mice cannot chew through glass.
If you look underneath the lid of one of those salsa type jars, you will see a ring, probably a light tan color.
That ring is pretty much the same as is used in the caps of official canning type jars.
As long as it is clean, and the top is on tight, I’m sure they will seal.
At that point, there is basically one enemy possibly left. The big one! The grand Kahuna!
Botulism.
But if you’ve washed the jars good, washed and prepped the food good, and got a good seal, you’re probably gonna be ok.
And botulism in a can or sealed jar is unmistakable. You won’t have any trouble detecting it. Just pitch the whole thing and try again.
Or save it for starving zombies...
I’m not. That was suggested in the article to keep them dry.
Awwww, good point. I have many 6 gallon buckets of purchased wheat berries and beans. When I started packing my own buckets, I put the beans, rice, ... into one gallon Mylar bags so I wouldn’t have to either use 6 gallons of something or figure out how to repack it.
I never have a problem getting jars at the local thrift store.
You’re lucky. The last 2-3 years, I haven’t found any good prepping things at the big community sale so it may be people are waking up and keeping it for themselves. No camping or outdoor stuff, very few gardening or food storage books and no generators or food dehydrators or hand crank kitchen items though lots of Christmas decorations, older worn clothes and fiction books. A couple years ago, I noticed a big change in items but last year it slapped me hard. Times are changing.
Seeing the same thing at the local military surplus store - looked like it was pretty well picked over (just a few days ago).
Prices seemed to be higher, too.
Thanks to all who answered.
What do,you all think of glasslock instead because it is rectangular and easier to store in less space?
The have plastic lids and plastic ‘breaths’. Not good.
Can you point me to a good explanation as to why? I don’t have any canning or vacuum sealing equipment and have been putting beans and rice in reused spaghetti sauce jars for a few years now. Everything looks fine and I made some split pea soup w/2 yr old split peas this winter and it was fine. Can botulism grow on dried legumes or something? I figured my amateur attempts are better than doing nothing and starving outright but maybe not based on the bluntness of your FAIL comment.
LOL 4 months later?
Any way of on reason weevils vacuum sealing kills and insects.
Two do you think you can get the same results as:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3116028/posts
Thanks for the reply. I had missed the thread earlier but had it mentioned in a freepmail about rising food costs, thus the delay.
Generally I put things in the freezer for a couple days prior to storing it to kill any critters and eggs. But, I will look into a better method when I have the resources. Thanks again.
No problem. I really didn’t mean to sound harsh. And what you are doing is more than most and would still have a good success rate especially for beans.
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