k0xxx
Mr. Sunshine
We too use canning jars and our vacuum sealer to remove most of the air. Also, we bought a boat load of the 300cc absorbers very cheaply on eBay, so we add one of those in each jar. It seems to work great.
Dehydrating Fruit - How to store it
- Thread starter Veggie PAK
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Do you live in an especially humid area? Just asking, because it seems to me (but it doesn't get very humid here) that that is way overkill. If the food is sufficiently dry it will keep for ages in tightly capped glass jars. Using your vacuum sealer, IMO, isn't really necessary, but can't hurt, and might help if there is a fear that moist air could get into your jars. If using the vacuum sealer why would you also use the absorbers? If the air is pulled out by the sealer surely there is nothing to absorb? They may have been cheap, but they might be better used in another way, I would think. In the old days, before the advent of fancy things like oxygen absorbers etc, food was dried just because it kept so well without extra stuff being done to it. In some parts of the arid west dried food keeps very adequately in paper bags.k0xxx said:
Bimpnottin
Lovin' The Homestead
We put our dried fruit in the mongo plastic containers that animal crackers come in from Sam's. 
Tried some in ziploc bags last year and the Dam@#%%$##
mice got into them and I had to pitch them. They haven't figured out the lid on the plastic containers (yet) but my 2-year-old has! :/
i did peach slices along with the normal apple and pear slices for fruit - kids LOVED them. I did leave the skins on, and the neighbor thought they were moldy. They weren't, just fuzzy from the skins.
Tried some in ziploc bags last year and the Dam@#%%$##
mice got into them and I had to pitch them. They haven't figured out the lid on the plastic containers (yet) but my 2-year-old has! :/i did peach slices along with the normal apple and pear slices for fruit - kids LOVED them. I did leave the skins on, and the neighbor thought they were moldy. They weren't, just fuzzy from the skins.
k0xxx
Mr. Sunshine
No it's not especially humid here, although O2 absorbers wouldn't help with humidity if it was, for that you need desiccant (silica gel).ORChick said:
I bought several hundred larger absorbers (2000cc) for storing away grain, beans, etc., and received a couple hundred of the 300cc absorbers for free with my order. I tried giving them away on Freecycle and no one wanted them so, since they will eventually loose their effectiveness, we decided to put them to use. Overkill? Maybe, but since they were free....
We live in a very humid area here. I store all my dried veggies in canning jars right on the counter but the fruits I store in zip lock bags and put them in the frig. I just don't think you can get the fruits completely dry so I don't take any chances.
TanksHill
Super Self-Sufficient
Not to get off topic but I need an oxygen absorber lesson. I bought a bunch of the, I think, 5000cc for 5 gallon buckets. They came with minimal directions. something abut it turning blue when no longer working.k0xxx said:
So If I open the huge bag pull out a couple what do I do with the rest? Do I shove them in a zip-lock? Do they need to go into an airtight container?
Just not to clear on the process.
Thank, g
This is from a book I got out of the library the other day - "Food Drying with Attitude" by Mary Bellbecky3086 said:
"Herbs are ready to be stored when they are dried to the crushable stage. Dried food containing vitamin A, like carrots, are best stored in a dark place. Vitamin A is light sensitive and can be lost when exposed to light for longer than 6 months. Fruit can depend on the amount of natural sugar, because sugar will act as a natural preservative, meaning that sweet fruits don't need to be dried as fully as less sweet fruits. All vegetables are dried until hard. Meat made into jerky should bend like a green willow when dry"
k0xxx
Mr. Sunshine
Hi ya THTanksHill said:
Most O2 absorbers that I have purchased are packed twenty to the bag. Each of these bags would have a pink pill looking object that will turn blue when exposed to O2. When I bought the large amount mentioned in an earlier post, the bags of twenty were packed into larger bags.
We tried to make sure that we only opened the twenty packs when we had enough containers ready for them. It didn't always work out perfect, so we would put the extras in a pint canning jar, along with the "pill", and then seal the jar with the vacuum machine. The absorbers, specially the larger ones, would easily seal themselves in the pint jar, but we figured vacuuming would save more of their capacity for when we actually needed them.
So, to make a long answer even longer, yes they should be put into some type of airtight container.
I apologize to the original poster for the OT posting.
