Vacuum Sealing Jars in the Freeze Dryer - How Much Air is Left? Too Much!
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- Leaving oxygen in the containers with your food is not a good plan. Vacuum sealing jars leaves some oxygen in the jars. Not near as much as I thought, but still too much!
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Before buying a freeze dryer, perhaps research to find out more about the downside of the machine; some people have problems with their machine and it's big and heavy and hard to return!
When trying to decide what to freeze dry you can start by asking why.
Start by asking yourself this question. Why are you freeze drying food? Knowing this should help you decide what you should freeze dry first.
I'm freeze drying because:
Just to freeze dry leftovers?
You want to make your own food for camping/backpacking?
For if/when the SHTF?
For a short term emergency?
You have your own garden and want to freeze dry the food?
You love Costco but don't have a family of 6?
You are good at finding the food sales but only have 1 freezer?
When you cook homemade chili just for yourself you make 10 gallons? Because you have 3 full freezers and are worried about power outages?
If I knew then what I know now, I would have freeze dried things in a different order. Or maybe not, because I started freeze drying because we had 3 full freezers, I was thinking of getting another one, and I decided I should buy a walk-in freezer instead. I started looking into walk-ins and realized they were expensive to buy (even used ones) AND expensive to own and operate. Then I found out Harvest Right was making home sized freeze dryers. One of my first thoughts was "I like Mountain House!" I have used their food for backpacking almost 45 years and we even kept some in our travel trailer, for just in case.
Freeze dried food will stay fresh for many years and be ready and waiting when you need it.
We do videos showing how we are using our Harvest Right Freeze Dryer to freeze dry food for long term storage. (We have the medium size machine that we got in August of 2017) We talk about how to load and unload the freeze dryer, how to know if the food is dry, is it better to freeze dry raw food or cooked food, and do a few taste tests. Freeze dried food is also great for prepping or just for camping and snacking!
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We have been buying oxygen absorbers and 7 mil Mylar bags from PackFreshUSA since early 2018. During all that time (1000's of bag and oxygen absorbers, and about 6 year before before we added this affiliate link) we have been happy with the products and service we have received from them.
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Before buying a freeze dryer, perhaps research to find out more about the downside of the machine; some people have problems with their machine and it's big and heavy and hard to return!
And if the jar had been full and an oxegen absorber was already in the jar the experiment would have shown you that this method works for dry storage.
Agreed! 100%
And again, that's the point (which I completely failed to make in the video!) - People are being told that they don't need oxygen absorbers if they just vacuum.
👍👍👍👍👍
Thank you. I appreciate the tests you do, and will start adding O2 absorbers to my jars. It is an easy thing to do, but previously I didn't think it was necessary
At least it can be a tiny O2 absorber! 😄 The test surprised me - I thought there was going to be more air left than there was. Good to know.
Maybe someone could try the same experiment with one of the hand-held jar vacuums that people talk about. I just saw that they make a jar attachment for the FoodSaver for as low as $12 - Maybe I'll give that a try.
@@SchoolReportsI just tried with a handheld rechargeable jar vacuum. Your results were much better than mine. I ran it 60 seconds, then when I opened it under water, the air was just slightly under half of the jar.
I didn't measure, but I did repeat it twice with the same result. I had assumed the vacuum was doing a much better job than it was.
@@Marigold106 Thank you so much for that information!
I was sure they wouldn't do as well as the chamber, but wow!
You just saved me a few bucks - I'm not going to bother to get any jar vac. It's not like I'd actually use one in real life, I'd only be getting it for the testing.😁
@@SchoolReportsI just tried it in my Avid Armor chamber vac and it was much, much better, at 87 gms of water.
Honestly, I was kicking myself for buying that after I discovered the hand held one, but clearly there is a reward for the price
@@Marigold106 Thanks! You're a gold-mine of information!
What a huge difference; all but 87cc of total air removed is so much more respectable than 1/2 the jar!
That brings it down to only about 18 cc of oxygen left.
I use mason jars for the items I want to have to cook with or snack on over a few months. I vacuum seal and use a desiccant packet because I live in a humid area. So far so good. I also keep them in a black stoarge ben to protect from light. Other things go in mylar with O2 absorbers.
Do you think the amount of oxygen would be less if you had the jar filled with something or would it always be 4.4cc left regardless of the amount of starting volume?
I believe it should be close to proportional with the _air volume._ The amount of pressure difference required to push the air out is still going to be the same. (assuming the same size and weight of the lid) But on this point I readily admit I could be wrong.
Most freeze dried foods are way over 50% air by volume, some 90% or more, so even if that were taken into account, the bottom line is that there is still oxygen in the container if no oxygen absorber is added. A jar "filled" to the brim with tomato slices is still almost all air! A little oxygen goes a long way. That was all I was trying to say - Don't forget the oxygen absorber even if you vacuum. Apparently I just did a bad job saying that! 😁
Excellent video.
I find it amusing that people get kind of defensive about vacuum sealing over just dropping an O2 absorber in the jar/bag/can... it quite literally requires almost no effort and is orders of magnitude more effective to just drop the packet in 🤣
Thank you!
I'm not against vacuuming, I'm just too lazy and it's not better than using an oxygen absorber. I just want the fastest, easiest way to get the best long term results. (oxygen free) I'll keep looking to what commercial companies are doing and follow them.
I do NOT recommend using the FD as a vacuum chamber for doing this. As stated it takes a very long time. We use a spare vacuum pump and a special lid to vacuum seal each jar. We get down to approximately 25 Hg of vacuum on each jar. To overcome the tiny amount of air left a very small O2 absorber is/can be put in the jar. One very important reason for putting a vacuum on the jar is to seal the lid. You cannot hand tighten the ring on the seal enough to allow the O2 absorber the airtight area it needs to do its job.
We have pulled food that is well over a year on the shelf using the above WITHOUT an O2 absorber and it was perfect.
Thanks, great comment!
I hoped I was making it clear that I _also_ do not recommend using the FD as a vacuum chamber for doing this.
I think the whole method is too time consuming with little or no benefit.
Am I missing something? Down to 25 Hg is not much of a vacuum. That's only down by about 15%. Or do you mean it's down by 25 from 29.92 to under 5, which would still leave about 15% of the air. (Or 25 mm Hg? Which would be about 97% vacuum) The one I did here was down by more than 99%
A full vacuum is only about 14.7 psi - I'm pretty sure hand tightening the ring could exert more force than that on the jar-to-seal contact area. The contact area is small and the screw force is great. But I suppose I could be wrong.
Regardless, I don't use jars. A viewer asked if it _could_ be done in the chamber and that's the only reason I was doing it. If I'm doing it, I'm collecting data. I have no interest in using the method.
I love your channel BUT on this point your missing the point. For people who want to dry jar beans, rice, and pasta this is the perfect way to extend the life of the product without haveing to cook the stuff and freeze dry it. And as for running the machine a long time to complete the process you would put on the test mode Vacuum only for like 3 minutes, your vacuum pump is 7cfm 1 horse, it's way strong enough to vacuum the tank in a few minutes, think about it, you have an analytical mind think about it before you cast judgment.
I guess I didn't do a good job explaining.
People are being told that they don't need oxygen absorbers if they just vacuum. The point I was trying to illustrate is that they DO still need to use oxygen absorbers if they are storing in this method - that there will still be a bit of oxygen (albeit a small amount) in containers that have been vacuumed!
I’ve watched several of you experiments that show that there is still air left in the jar after either using an oxygen absorber or, in this case, the vacuum function from the freeze dryer. With the OA, the volume that is left is comprised of mostly nitrogen. In this case, it is presumed to be regular air that contains oxygen.
Since you are generally using the same technology that a barometer uses (which shows the height of the mercury in a vacuum filled tube and the height of the mercury is related to the surrounding air pressure, is it reasonable to assume that the jar would contain nothing but water if a pure vacuum were achieved? Are we not overlooking the fact that the water in the glass has quite a bit of weight when contained vertically (similar to the mercury in a barometer and that this weight, being pulled downward by gravity, would leave a void at the top of the jar, and that this is probably less than the surrounding air pressure? It could actually be close to a perfect vacuum (although that may not be likely).
In any case, the actual volume of remaining oxygen is probably less than what it would be if the void were filled with normal air which, in your experiment, is around 4cc.
I’m certainly no scientist, just making an observation based on my limited knowledge of the principles of how a barometer works.
Great comment!
Yes! It is regular air *_if_* they don't add an oxygen absorber! If they do, it will be almost 100% nitrogen.
I apparently did a very poor job explaining my purpose of this video. (Besides that a viewer had asked) 🤣 It wasn't to tell people not to vacuum, it was just to show that there is still going to be a bit of air left.
The problem is that people are being told that _they don't need oxygen absorbers if they just vacuum._ The point I was trying to illustrate is that they DO still need to use oxygen absorbers if they are storing in this method - that there will still be a bit of oxygen (albeit a small amount) in containers that have been vacuumed! And that they have no way of knowing how much from jar to jar.
For a water column (like a barometer), the vacuum bubble starts after the column is about 33.9 feet high, so while there is some effect due to the water height, at 4 inches high I don't think it is enough to matter for this use. I would stand by my measurement of 21 cc of air and my calculation of about 4.4 cc of oxygen. (plus or minus a couple percent)
I store most all my stuff in mylar, when I use mason jars it is for short term, I use an OA and I vaccuum seal them , with my sealer attachment or I use one of those little portable ones. to much hassle to me to take the shelf out of the freeze dryer and go through all that. I usually don't do that many jars. thanks for the experiment.
I don't know how many people actually do that (I assume it's _very_ few), but a viewer asked, and I had never done it, so why not give it a spin. It's hard to imagine doing that very many times. (And where do you put the food while you wait for the chamber to defrost, drain, and dry?)
For me it was the perfect time to test it, while I was changing my sister's drain valve, changing her door seal, and doing the vacuum test anyway.
Warning use a good brand of jars, I bought a cheap brand and the jars imploded in a vacuum chamber.
👍👍 I wouldn't do this with any jars, except to show that there was still air left in the jars, because someone asked. I'm just not a fan of glass jars for freeze dried food.
Have you considered buying the five shelf unit from Harvestright? I bought one for my 2022 freeze dryer, with five trays I can process ~25% (or more) product in the same amount of time using roughly the amount of electricity.
If I remember correctly the five shelf unit was ~$430 and I bought two more trays with silicone tray liners for ~$60, (I now have two sets of five trays with HR liners).
$500 total is a bit pricey but with the additional throughput I feel it was worth the upgrade. I called HR support to order.
Keep up the good work!
I did consider it for a few minutes when it first came out. And decided it wasn't for me. If I were just starting out I would have leaned more toward getting one, but at this stage in my freeze drying I don't really need the slightly faster drying times it should give me. I'm more in the maintenance phase of freeze drying now - rotating stock and replacing what we use. We even plan to send some off to the kids to make more room for new stuff!
Having 5 trays won't give me any more capacity per load because that is a function of the ice (water) load of the cold trap, and that doesn't change - I'm already loading it to the maximum water load. I would be able to dry the exact same amount, just spread over 5 trays instead of 4, and therefore it should dry faster. I love the idea, I'm just too cheap to get it at this stage when we really don't need faster times. (And I'm sure I could convert mine myself if I wanted to)
Plus, I have access to my sister's machine, so that's another 4 trays at a time I can use when needed!
@@SchoolReports What do you consider slightly faster? Do you allow the machine to tell you when food is done? Drying times are considerably faster in our experience.
@@stevenfeil7079 20 - 25% faster is what I would expect by putting the same food on 5 trays instead of 4.
I would never let the machine "tell" me when it's done. The machine doesn't know, it can't know, it has no way of knowing and I would never trust any freeze dryer on the market today to "know"when it's _actually_ done. I come from a food manufacturing background - and we didn't just trust the machines - we checked, every time.
Between our two machines we have done about 800 batches (and checked them) and the machines have only been _close_ to correct maybe 10% of the time.
If using jars and vacuum sealing I would still use OA for sure.
Exactly! I heard from a number of people saying that they had been told that if they vacuum, they don't need to use oxygen absorbers!
So what is the weight of the lid you used?
10 grams
This is why you use OA’s with your “Chamber vacuum sealer” , not the FD’r.
Canning uses intense heat kill pathogens and to creat a vacuum in mason jars, so yes, the lids and rings are made to let a safe amount of oxygen to be released from the jars. 😃
Yes, they are designed for the normal canning process, not for storing freeze dried food. With freeze dried food they are going to need oxygen absorbers, and there is still the other issues of being clear, breakable and heavy.
@@SchoolReports , I agree. I have only ever used them for STS. Anything that approaches 1 year, I open, put in a fresh OA and re vacuum seal in my Vacmaster. ( I rotate -fifo, all of my FD’d food storage.) I use 7 mil mylar and seamed cans for long term storage.
I also have been gas flushing everything since since I was introduced to it in 2018. 😃
Thank you for this video. There are so many new users that just vacuum seal w/o an OA and they are going to be devastated when they need their food storage the most and it’s rancid. 💔 ( That fact honestly breaks my heart)
@@kimmididwhat You already know what you're doing!
I, too, feel sad about the people that are following the advice that no OA are needed if you vacuum. People have told me that they have even been told they don't need OA when bagging in, and vacuuming, FoodSaver or Sous Vide bags. These bags won't do the job even _with_ OA.
Nitrogen flushing into the drain valve when opening the chamber to get nitrogen into every nook and cranny of the food (and maybe the bags, too:), has been on my list from almost when I got the freeze dryer, but I just don't get out and about much to get things done. 😁
I store freeze dried apples in a half gallon mason jar and I use a 300cc oxygen absorber and I vacuum seal it with a portable vacuum sealer because I think it helps the oxygen absorber last longer since my kids get into the jar and reseal it multiple times. This isn’t for long term storage though so probably not necessary 😄
👍 That sounds like probably the right way to think about them and to use them. (Jars, portable vacuum sealers, and extending oxygen absorber life) Freeze dried apples are SO good! (Half gallon might be single serving size) 🤣
@@SchoolReports they are so yummy! my kids do sometimes eat them up in one sitting. And then I tell them to drink water lol
😁 I believe we have freeze dried more pounds of apples than any other single food item. And yet, because they are so good, we only have a couple bins of them! We have done at least 6 or 8 varieties of apples.
I saw this experiment done on another Chanel and I had to go back and watch it to see if he had the same results but he never takes his hand off the top (bottom) of the jar so I can tell if there was any air left. My problem with oxygen absorbers is they either need water to work or introduce water depending on if they are a B or D type.
I tried it a few times and this was the best I could do - about 20 ish cc of air left in each time. (If I let it vacuum down that low each time) I only did it at all because a viewer asked. I just don't think it a great to seal because I can't _know_ the oxygen has been removed.
I've only used the D type. I like the fact that they have a controlled (and minuscule) amount of moisture built in, so I can trust it to work the same each time.
@@SchoolReports thank you for doing it. It has sent me back down the rabbit hole though. I’m going to have to do some more research.
@@CornPopPomade I'm with you down the rabbit holes!
I only know enough to know that I know very little! 🤣
People have no idea how much time I spend after they leave a seemingly simple, innocent comment or question. Or how many times I try a thing like this vacuuming to see if I keep getting the same results - especially if I find the results surprising. I was quite surprised with this one; I thought it would leave a lot more air in the jar, maybe 100 cc or more. At least now I know if I ever want to do it this way I could use tiny oxygen absorbers!
Such a great video. I really enjoyed how you show the amount of air that is actually left in the jar after the vacuum process.
If one was "set" on using glass jars, I think I would argue in favor of using the freeze dryer to vacuum seal -- IF an oxygen absorber is also placed in the jar, for solids being stored. But, I am unsure about liquids. Are there readily available oxygen absorbers that can be placed in "liquids"?
🤣 Truly, I only did this because a viewer asked about vacuuming jars using the freeze dryer chamber. I think it's a slow, cumbersome, not very useful method for doing this. And if they don't add the oxygen absorber (as you mentioned) it's likely going to fail. (Honestly, I think it's a bad idea and I told the viewer that asked about it that I thought it was a bad idea. Just put the oxygen absorber in the jar and seal it - no need to vacuum) But without trying it I was just guessing, and I was surprised that there wasn't more air left in the jar, so I did learn something.
I wouldn't even try anything with liquid - I hope I didn't say anything about doing jars with liquid in the video!
@@SchoolReportsMy thought is that oxygen absorber will have less work to do if there is less air in the jar. It would probably be "faster" to use a simple canning jar vacuum -- I see them being used in a lot of videos. And I realize you don't see the utility of this do to the slow process, BUT, if you get a superior result vs the other method, it might be worth the extra time. So, actually, if you had a way to compare those 2... it would be interesting. I don't think you mentioned "liquids", so rest easy!
@@marcfruchtman9473 Any way that we end up with no oxygen in the containers is good. You are right that in a vacuumed jar the oxygen absorbers would have less work to do and you could use smaller ones.
I'm just lazy. If I can get the jar to no oxygen by just dropping in an OA that's my method.
I vacuum seal my jars and also add an oxygen absorber. I don't plan on keeping food for 24 years anyway. Even oxygen absorbers won't take out all the air. That is hard to measure since by tipping the jar on it's side it is more apt to pull in water. Kinda like trying to empty water out of a jar.
Sadly there’s a lot of bad information being shared in certain freeze dry Facebook groups. I’m only in one now and cringe at comments. If I have time I comment to look for your channel, but it gets tiring. Thank you for demonstrating so many things to disprove the theories. We learn much from you, thank you!
Thanks!
I'm sure I have, and will, get things wrong, but that why I like to test instead of assume.
And I'm happy to note it when I get it wrong, and I'll change my process when someone shows me a better way. (with proof:) I've changed the way I do a few things based on viewer comments/suggestions. - The way I use the thermometers now (almost no drilling) and the way we rotate the trays are two examples of viewers suggestions!
Yes. This channel and PhilAt4800feet does alot of testing and demos too!
@@SchoolReports yes, I’ve watched you since before you turned the camera to include you and have seen you evolve on some things, but also how you test and learn and teach. Harvest Right should point people to your channel with every sale.
@@SchoolReports please remember, no air plus moisture = botulism
@@davidmiedema2950 True, of course. No air plus _lots_ of _available_ moisture puts it at risk of botulism.
However, botulism needs a lot of available water and a pH above 4.6. Once the water activity (aw) level is below 0.94 (1.0 is pure water) botulism isn't an issue, so even with poorly freeze dried things it's other nasties (molds, fungus, yeast) we need to worry about, not botulism. With properly freeze dried and stored foods we should be well below 0.1 on the water activity scale.
I don't think that the jars can take the low temperature of a freeze dryer for long enough to seal the jars
It not about being freeze dried in the jars, it's just vacuum sealing the food in jars after it's already been freeze dried. The jars never need to get cold. It's about using jars instead of using Mylar bags. A couple of viewers asked about vacuum sealing jars.
@@SchoolReports I am sorry, I don't really understand the dynamics of freeze drying, that is why I started watching your channel. I didn't know that you could run it without it getting cold. I can, dehydrate and vacuum seal for now but you can get a hand held vacuum sealer for like 20 dollars that works in 30 seconds so I didn't understand why anyone would vacuum seal in a freeze drier so I thought you were going to test freeze drying in a jar lol 😀 😉 😜. Sorry, my mistake.
@@kathithompson5951 No Problem! Your comment just pointed out the fact that I forgot to say in the video what the whole point of the video was! Which was that this is not a good idea.
Doing the underwater test can also show them (If they care to do this test) how much air is still in the jars that have been vacuumed using a hand held vacuum, in 30 seconds - Or any amount of time with a hand held jar vacuum. It will leave a lot of air in it. Even more than the chamber test did.
I don't understand why anyone would want to vacuum seal in a freeze drier either, but I've been asked about it. I assume it was because they were told somewhere that it's the way to go, with showing the downside issues.
Thanks so much for watching and for commenting!
Great information. I use mason jars for food that I am going to make meals in a jar for and use within a pretty short amount of time. It's good to know you should at least put a oxygen absorber in when you vacuum seal.
Thanks! That's all I was really trying to say - Don't forget the oxygen absorbers if it going to be stored a while!
Totally agree! Thanks for sharing the details and making sense 👍
Thanks!