Airlock Bag System

[Owly055]

The mylar bags used for canning things are available, and can be vacuum sealed.  These are called retort pouches, and are not cheap.  They must be sealed with as chamber type sealer, and the sealer should have a double seal and needs to be able to be adjusted hotter than normal.  Chamber sealers are heavy, and expensive, but infinitely superior to a foodsaver.  The bag with it's contents is placed in the chamber, and the whole chamber is evacuated.  The bag does not suck down.... All the air is evacuated, and the bag sealed, and when the vacuum is released, atmospheric pressure pushes the bag tightly against it's contents just as is the case with a foodsaver... only far better.  The result is that liquids are  not sucked out as with a foodsaver.   They do not require special bags.   The retort pouches can be pressure processed just as with a jar.   As there is no air space around the contents, the extended processing needed for "dry canning" is not necessary.

                                                                 H.W.

[Phantom Jim]

So the meat is vacuumed and sealed in the retort bag and then canned?  That sounds really good, that is if the equipment is not too expensive,

[Owly055]

So the meat is vacuumed and sealed in the retort bag and then canned?  That sounds really good, that is if the equipment is not too expensive,

Unfortunately it is NOT cheap.   The cheapest chamber sealer I can find is $433.   That's not really bad considering you can use smooth bags for vacuum sealing instead of the expensive foodsaver bags.... and you can seal things with liquid as it won't suck the liquid out.   They are large and they are heavy, but there is absolutely no reason a person couldn't build one to use an ordinary compact refrigeration vacuum pump.  "Impulse sealers" are readily available in many sizes and fairly inexpensive.  My inclination would be to build one with a good double seal impulse sealer with adjustable sealing temperature so it would seal the mylar bags.  They are nothing more than a rectangular vacuum chamber with a built in impulse sealer.   Your local Cabellas will have one in stock.... sportsmen and commercial processors love them.   Prices run up into the thousands for some of the commercial ones.
     Mylar bags are also not cheap, but there is absolutely no reason why they cannot be reused.   Cut both seals off, and clean them.  Of course if you are pressure canning, if there is stuff that you happen to miss, it's not an issue.

                                                                            H.W.

[Phantom Jim]

Using cost and benefit analysis, I think will pass.  I have the canner, the jars and the lids are cheap.

[CharlieJ]

Yep- canned many jars at anchor on my kerosene stove and a pressure cooker

[Phantom Jim]

After Ike roared through in 2008, we used the massive canner (Grandma's huge canner) to put up the meats that were thawing.  I sterilized the jars and lids and crammed the raw meat into the jars and "canned away"!  We were able to save all the meats.  We did lose some condiments and frozen vegetables.  We picked the items of greatest value to save.

Raw pack meat looks pretty vile in the jars, but we could not precook the items to be canned.  It still tasted great, we just had to clean the meat before use.  It was helpful that we have a gas range to cook on, otherwise we would have lost most of our freezer items.