Why use Mylar bags? To help prevent or greatly reduce:
http://www.survivalunlimited.com/buckets.htm
·
Light from deteriorating the contents in bucket
·
Oxygen absorption causing rancidity. No oxygen
for weevils either.
·
Moisture absorption causing mold and organism
growth.
·
Smell from area stored in from entering the
food/water
Excellent for storing anything that you don't want moisture or oxygen
entering. Great product for freezing foods in, and storing clothing, pictures,
even old documents.
Mylar is an industrial trademarked brand name that is often confusing
In
its basic form, mylar is a CLEAR material made from polyester resin. IMPAK
produces MylarFoil bags used in a wide range of industries which require
moisture and oxygen barriers to ensure product integrity. Polyester film,
('mylar') when laminated to aluminum foil provides additional barrier
properties and higher puncture resistance than any metallized polyester structure.
Foodsavers Can't Seal Mylar
Now this
is interesting.... you might want to read this..... it says our foodsaver
machines can't seal the mylar properly....
Because the mylar bag is made out of a multi-layer material you CANNOT
use a regular Food Saver or Seal A Meal unit to seal these bags. Those units
just don’t reach a high enough temperature to do the job.
They do tell you about their machines that will seal the bags, though.
“We offer the lowest cost, easiest to use hi-temp heat sealer for sealing
the mylar foil bags. It has a wide ½” sealing width for very secure, lasting
seals, and you can seal the smaller 1 gallon size mylar bags as well as the
ones used with the 5-6 gallon buckets. There are bigger, badder better sealers,
but a low-end one is $1500 and they jump immediately into the $3500-$4500
range.”
Linda’s
Note: I’m wondering of one can seal them with a hot iron.
yes, you can seal them with an iron. Also, the Dehydrate2store.com site has a video posted that shows a way that you can vacuum and seal a mylar bag with a foodsaver.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dehydrate2store.com/videos/?id=58
I just really have to wonder if the bags and O2 absorbers are really and truly necessary. I vacuum seal my bags in either small quantities that are used within a year or 2 and kept in a dry, dark place, or I vacuum seal large bags and then seal them in food grade buckets, stored in the same dry, dark area. I also store some things in vacuum sealed jars. So far nothing has gone bad; no bugs, mold, and only 1 thing that was stale (bread crumbs I think), but it seems that a person could keep things like this for several years, so again I have to wonder.... are the fancy bags and O2's really worth it? Thanks Linda. Blessings, Beth Hunter
ReplyDeleteI can say from recent experience that O2 absorbers would've saved dry foods I'd saved using vacuum sealed mason jars. Thank goodness I didn't lose much, but any loss is not welcome.
ReplyDeleteHi texxmezz, can you please share your experience? What happened? You used vacuum sealed mason jars and ended up with moldy food? That shouldn't have happened.
DeleteThe Dehydrate2store video is not showing a food saver but a Weston Pro-2300 sealer. I actually found a used one on ebay for $250 and bought it. Also most Mylar bags are not truly Mylar, I found this out recently they are just metalized plastic bags. Real Mylar bags are not very cheap and I buy mine from usaemergencysupply.com and they are 5.4ml thick, not 2ml, so big difference. Be careful it makes no sense to do this with inferior products, even the cheaper copykat foodsaver bags are not as good as the original foodsaver bags. It is pretty complicated and confusing out there! Hope this helps.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up. Since I do not bother with the mylar bags, I never thought about inferior products being an issue. You are right, inferior products are worse than nothing.
Delete