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I purchased 100 oxygen absorbers from Sorbentsystems.com a while back. They came vacuumed sealed in packs for 50.

I never claim to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Am I missing something? Wouldn't I be wasting my time using these packets of oxygen absorbers?
 
I think the oxygen absorber packets and the little "pill" packet have tiny cuts in them to allow air to flow into them. If you look real close at them you may be able to see them.

It looks like the "pill" packet has them in the picture.

That is the way oxygen absorbers I have used were.
 
From what I have been reading( as I am not the sharpest knife either:s0114:) Once you open he packs you want to seall them up right away. Once you break the seal they start absorbing oxygen. I saw a video of a guy who once he opened the pcak put the rest of them in a ball canning jar and sealed it up with a lid. And yes I think they work he way you get them so yes they absorb through the packet.

What are you planning on using them for? I have some that I plan on throwing in some 5 gallon buskets here in the near future.
 
Could be. what about the oxygen absorber packets? They are sealed tight. Are they supposed to draw in air threw the plastic packets?


Yes the oxygen absorber packets draw air through the plastic through tiny cuts. That has been my experience with them.
I don't think you "open" them to use them.

No "instructions" came with your set?
 
5 gallon buckets also. I had used 50 of them already. I went to make some more buckets but found that I had a few extra heavy duty ziplock freezer bags with rice, powdered milk, cornmeal and those absorbers in them. I had tried my best to get most of the air out of the bags and thought the absorbers would remove the rest. It looks like it did nothing. I wonder if all my past effort was in vain.

Just for information. Here is what I did. My wife and I did.

Food grade 5gal buckets, new rubber gasket lids, non scented trash bags, quart and gallon size heavy duty freezer double seal ziplock bags and food.( rice, beans, oats, salt, noodles, pancake mix, etc...

We put the food contents inside the freezer bags, put in a 504 Oxygen Absorber packet, tried to press out as much air as possible. Put a trash bag inside the 5gal bucket, placed the ziplock bags of food inside the trash bag, filled the bag inside the 5gal buckets as much as possible, tried to remove all the air we could out of the trash bag, hammered the new lid on the bucket.

I have read that (3) 500cc absorbers would be sufficient for a 5gal bucket that is mostly filled with food.(even noodles). We put in like and average of 7-8 bags with each having an oxygen absorber in them. Over kill? Probably.

I think it was a waste of time now. I hate to open up a bucket but I am going to just to see if I am right. Stink!
 
you just put the packets into the cans or mylar bags that you intend to seal. Put whatever stuff you are saving in the container first, then put in the o2 absorber, and seal strait away. Always always always reseal the bag that holds the absorbers. If not they will cease to work for future endeavors. Do not open the o2 absorbers. They (correct me if I am wrong) use some sort of Iron/Iron Oxide type material that absorbs air. Its basically the same thing as those little hand warmer deals they sell. If you need help with it let me know, but its pretty simple to seal up some foods and what not using them. Done it a few times and will probably do it again.
 
you are going to want to get some mylar bags and probably do it over. Trash bags and freezer bags are still permeable to gases and will let air or whatever through. Same thing with the buckets. Even food grade buckets will off gas a bit and are not the best for long term use. I have some 5 or 6gal mylar bags if you want some (west side of hillsboro ;) ). I will need a few of them here pretty quick, but not that many. I think I bought 50 and only used 10 or 12. If you want some let me know. I got them from Sorbent systems a couple years ago. You can also get some of the smaller ones if you want to do smaller portions, but I don't have any of those.

-Dave
 
I am not an expert but agree with Cheese. After watching vids and reading up on it I think the extra few dollars is worth it to get the Mylar bags and seal it in there and then put it in a bucket.
 
I was afraid you were gonna say that. I too have heard about the mylar bags. I was hoping the way we did it would work. I too have seen the videos on mylar bags and how to seal them. I was just trying to save a few bucks. Thanks for the offer The Cheese. I am on the North East side of Portland and would take your up on you offer if we lived closer.

I will open up a bucket tomorrow to see what had happened. I will still use the freezer bags for dividing up the food. How long do you think it would take to use up 5gal of salt? 5gal of baking powder? :D

Thanks for your comments everyone.
 
If you opened the bag with the absorbers, it's probably toast by now.

Those things start working immediately.

When I've used them, I cut open the bag, grab the ones I needed, quickly toss them in the buckets and seal.

Then take the remainder, put them in a zip lock, and put that inside another bucket that has a gamma seal.

Now that I have a vacuum sealer, I'll just reseal them after I grab what I need.

Bottom line is, don't let the packets be exposed to air for any length of time longer than needed.
 
NitroPak has <broken link removed> These are more expensive per bag than the ones you have to seal with the hot sealer, but with the benefit of easy resealing and not having to buy and expensive sealer. Depending on how much food you are sealing, it may be more cost effective to use the ziploc mylar bags.
 
salt, a long time. Don't know if I would even bother with the O2 in the salt. Definitely don't do it with sugar. For some reason it turns sugar into one solid mass. As for the baking powder, a couple things. Once it is opened it has a limited life span, or so I am told. Also, a lot of BP contains aluminum. Rumford brand does not and it actually works a lot better than the aluminum stuff. And Aluminum is not really a good thing to have a lot of in your body from what I hear. Really for me, we keep about 5-6 cans on the shelf (unopened) as we don't go through a ton of it. I base a lot of what we store on how much, approximately, we go through in a year. Some stuff keeps really well indefinitely, other stuff gets real bad real quick like freeze dried stuff. Once you open a can of FD stuff, it wants to immediately start rehydrating. Thus when you open a can of freeze dried something you really want to plan to use it up relatively quickly. Thats why I don't do a lot of FD stuff. Mainly berries as they make great snacks for the kids.

How we have our food stuffs situated is so that we use it and restock it regularly. When I open a can or jar or bag of something I date when it was opened. That way I can monitor how long it takes to consume. Then I know how much to have on hand. Like peanut butter. From this I have gathered that under normal circumstances we use 1 48oz jar of Jif per month roughly. 12 jars and we are GTG or add 20% for just in case.

Anyway, I might be heading out to miluwakie tomorrow evening if you wanted to meet up. Will probably be at the Gun Show on Friday as well.
 
The Cheese, are you suggesting that using O2 absorbers in sugar storage will turn it into a lump? I have never heard this.

ALso guys...I heard that trash bags are treated with pesticides and should not be in contact wit h your food at all. I have used vac pack bags and Mylars in my stores.
 
The Cheese, are you suggesting that using O2 absorbers in sugar storage will turn it into a lump? I have never heard this.

that is what I was told at the LDS dry pack cannery. And if you think about it, sugar never really goes bad as long as its kept in an air tight container and what not. Just like with salt, I see no need to suck the air out. Simple solution to this problem is to keep a year's supply of sugar on hand, and rotate through that supply over the course of the year. This is the way all of your food storage/supply should be anyway.
 
HMMm? I have put my sugar away in Mylar bags inside 5 gal buckets. Inside the Mylars I put O2 absorbers. Seems to me that removing O2 wouldnt directly have any effect on the sugar...but I was just thinking... they do generate heat when they are working...that might do it. Oh well, I will wait a year and check my sugar and see how it is doing.
 
HMMm? I have put my sugar away in Mylar bags inside 5 gal buckets. Inside the Mylars I put O2 absorbers. Seems to me that removing O2 wouldnt directly have any effect on the sugar...but I was just thinking... they do generate heat when they are working...that might do it. Oh well, I will wait a year and check my sugar and see how it is doing.

I am not sure, but maybe when its sucking out the air it compacts it some how, or maybe there is some sort of chemical reaction taking place or something. I don't know. I do know that I have used sugar that was 2-3 years old out of a #10 and it was just fine.
 

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