# Dry Food Packing Using Oxygen Absorbers
> Setting Up: First, don't open the oxygen absorber bag until you are ready to preserve your food. After you open the bag the oxygen absorbers immediately start to absorb oxygen out of the air. So you have to work fast. If you are not planning on using all the absorbers the day you open them up, may I suggest you have a small jam jar set aside. This jar shouldn't be any larger than what you need to hold the excess absorbers. It takes a large mouthed quart jar to hold 50 absorbers. Just like if you were canning produce, get a new lid and boil it in water to soften the rubber seal. Open the oxygen absorber bag and place the absorbers you don't plan on using during the day in it. Put the newly boiled lid on top of the jar and tightly screw down the ring. The absorbers will absorb the oxygen in the bottle then stop working. As this happens the lid on the bottle will pop down, reflecting the partial vacuum that is now inside the jar. You could also iron the oxygen absorber bag shut with the unused oxygen absorbers inside. This is probably the better solution if you will be using all of them the next time you open it up. For the oxygen absorbers you plan on using during the next hour or two, have a zip log bag set aside to put them in. After they are in the zip lock bag, push out all the air and zip it closed. This will work for you temporarily, but is not a good solution for long term storage of the oxygen absorbers. Use the bottle, or iron the original bag closed for that. At this time you should also be ready to do your packing operation. Be sure all the food you want to preserve, the cans or buckets, mylar bags, heated clothes iron or Eurosealer and board are on hand.
> Pull the bag over the top of a 1 inch board and then... Iron it closed. Now pack the bag down inside the bucket and seal the lid.
The operation: Open up the mylar bag and put it into the plastic bucket. Then pour the food you are planning on preserving into the bag. Be careful you don't over fill the bag. If you get it too full after the operation is complete you won't be able to get the lid on the bucket. With the bag full of food, throw two or three 750cc oxygen absorbers in the bag on top of the food. (See the 'short lesson on oxygen absorbers' for how many absorbers you need for a given application.) Now, lay a board across the top of the bucket so one edge of the board is half way across the top of the opening of the bucket. Lay the bag over the top of the bucket and using the clothes iron or Eurosealer, iron the bag shut. Now that the bag is sealed closed, you can put the lid on the bucket and seal the lid down. It's as easy as that, your finished with that bucket. If you are filling lots of buckets at the same time, you might consider filling ten or more buckets at once. Have all ten of the buckets at the stage where the oxygen absorbers are to be thrown in. Then quickly add the absorbers to each bucket and quickly iron the bag shut. This would save your oxygen absorbers from having to be out in the air any longer than necessary. Before you started sealing your first bucket, you'd pull 20 absorbers out, lay them side by side, and complete the process on each of the ten buckets as quickly as possible. With a little practice, you should be able to easily seal the ten bags in 5 minutes or less. With all the bags ironed shut, install the ten lids on the buckets, and you are done. If you are so lucky as to have access to a canning machine, the job is even simpler. Just toss an oxygen absorber on top of the food before you seal the lid on the can. It's as easy as that. If the oxygen absorbers are working they will create a vacuum. After a few hours the lids on the cans will pop down or the mylar bags will pull in around the food in the buckets.
Menu| Y2K Updates | Discussion Forums | Used by Permission: Walton Self Reliance Homepage Al Durtschi, E-mail: mark@waltonfeed.com All contents copyright (C) 1997-1998, Walton Feed.