Dear Steve and Linda- I read with great interest your article about vacuum packing food and clothes. (To read the article, click here.) We are planning on cruising the Caribbean in a few years, and I have a few questions if you don’t mind.
When you said that you vacuum packed cereals, how did you do that without crushing the cereal to crumbs? (Did you buy any of the Tillia hard storage containers, or use glass mason jars?) How did you vacuum pack flour into bags, without the flour being sucked into the machine?
Finally, how in the world do you get jackets into the little bags for the food/fresh saver? I can see using the bags sold to be compressed by a vacuum cleaner, as they are quite large, but haven’t had much real success with them keeping their seal–but I may have had a bad batch.
Thanks for your help. Beth
Hi Beth: The cereals we vacuum packed – Grape Nuts, oatmeal, Familia, were not bothered by the pressure. Only problem was keeping the bits from clogging the seal area. This was most easily done by leaving the cereal in its original bag, and cutting a small hole at the end of the original packaging to get the air out (this hole was placed away from the seal area).
For clothing we used the largest size vacuum bags. We also used the roll up type bags which allow you to roll the clothes while expelling air (sold in most luggage shops now).
Regarding the sealing itself, we have found that this has to be done carefully, and that you need to allow the sealer to cool down a bit between cycles. I would say we have on average an 80% success rate; i.e. we have to redo about 20% of the seals. Steve
Posted by Steve Dashew (November 30, 1999)
