Mylar and bucket question

[ibetiny]

I've got a question for anyone who uses 5 gal buckets and Mylar to store food.

I get free buckets from a local bakery here in town but I only can get 1 or 2 a week. These are very good grade buckets, much better than the ones at H.D. or Lowes.

My problem is this: When I buy O2 absorbers I have to use them all when you open the package. That means 20 to 30 buckets at a time. I have enough food and O2 and Mylar for 30 buckets but not the buckets.

My question is this: If I use a bucket that I have on hand to fill the Mylar with food and then seal it. Is the Mylar strong enough to remove from the bucket and store in a large tote till I acquire more buckets, and when I do get the buckets, how hard would it be to put the Mylar back into a new bucket for storage?

Outside the box thinking is encouraged.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

[LizardKing]

I saw a post somewhere recently about this. O2 absorbers basically leave a nitrogen rich atmosphere, so the easy way to do this is to get a bottle of nitrogen and then you can fill a bucket with it and no harm done closing the valve and leaving it till you get another bucket. Sounds like a good idea to me, since I had the same question about the absorbers.

[eeyore]

Might want to watch this one and the one part two also. It should give you a good start and will answer many of your questions.

https://www.survivalandpreparednessforum.com/showthread.php?241-One-of-my-favorites

[610Alpha]

You might try resealing them in another vacuum sealed bag using a hand pump or if you have a heat sealer just reseal the original package.

Are there any restaurants or nursing homes or schools or any place that serves food at all in your town? try asking them for buckets too. My wife works at a mursing home and I saw buckets in their kitchen and yesterday after church we ate at the local greasy spoon with the family and I saw buckets in the back of their kitchen too.

Thanks for the link eeyore, I need to re-watch that video.

[crossbow]

I've got a question for anyone who uses 5 gal buckets and Mylar to store food.

I get free buckets from a local bakery here in town but I only can get 1 or 2 a week. These are very good grade buckets, much better than the ones at H.D. or Lowes.

My problem is this: When I buy O2 absorbers I have to use them all when you open the package. That means 20 to 30 buckets at a time. I have enough food and O2 and Mylar for 30 buckets but not the buckets.

My question is this: If I use a bucket that I have on hand to fill the Mylar with food and then seal it. Is the Mylar strong enough to remove from the bucket and store in a large tote till I acquire more buckets, and when I do get the buckets, how hard would it be to put the Mylar back into a new bucket for storage?

Outside the box thinking is encouraged.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

if you ,have a food savor, you can put the extras in a food savor bag and re seal them, or if you have some mason jars, put them in mason jars and put the lids on tight.

[1Admin]

Where possible the best approach is to open and use all the absorbers in one packet at one time. I have had and others have reported, "spotty" at best luck with re-sealing the absorber bag as well as the mason jar deal.

Not sure what quantity they come in now, but D2000 CC absorbers always came 16 to a bag back in the day. Heck I still have absorbers from when we had the cannery in 98 and 99 that STILL pull an excellent seal.

All this guff about "it's hard to know if they are still working" is stupid. Seriously. You can't read instructions? The little pill or indicator doesn't explain? Further than that, you can't pull a bucket lid back off a few days later and visibly see the mylar sucked down?

Further, it's been shown VERY CLEARLY in tests that were sent to Pillsbury labs in the late 90's that oxygen absorbers work exponentially better than simply nitrogen flushing. A guy named Skip Thomsen (IIRC) put out a booklet in the late 90's wherein he sent in samples from all the major companies to Pillsbury labs for testing.

The companies that used oxygen absorbers had the LOWEST residual oxygen content in the cans. The places that did only nitrogen flushing (one of the old school methods) had the HIGHEST (upwards of 20%!!!) residual oxygen content.

So don't believe everything you read on the internet. If you can take the time to look carefully at a package, see if the pill or indicator is still a good color (as denoted on bag), use them correctly (that means not trying to save them for use 3 weeks later after opening the bag) and visibly check the mylar a few days after sealing, you can tell FOR 100% SURETY that the absorbers are working. Nitrogen flushing or dry ice purging doesn't give the ability to "check it" later for completeness of oxygen removal. I like Rawles as much as the next guy, but he dropped the ball with the "nitrogen flushing is better than absorbers" statement.

Why else would pretty much a WHOLE INDUSTRY change over from nitrogen flushing to absorbers?

To answer the OP- once the absorbers do their job, the mylar should "form" to the inner shape of the container. You MAY be able to get them back into buckets later, and you may have a time with it. When we pack in buckets and transfer the sealed mylars into barrels (like on that bucket packing video), we make sure the sealed mylars get into the barrels within 30 minutes or so.

And their is nothing wrong with doubling up absorbers if your just short of a full run. In other words, if you have 12 buckets to pack and 16 2000cc absorbers, it won't hurt anything for a couple buckets to have (2) absorbers in there.

We've done this for years and have never had any problems with it.

Good luck! If you have any other questions just post them.

[Klayton]

I cannot seem to find one, is there a PAW video of the actually showing you the steps of putting the mylar into the bucket, filling it with items, throwin in an absorber and sealing the mylar than the bucket?

[crossbow]

I cannot seem to find one, is there a PAW video of the actually showing you the steps of putting the mylar into the bucket, filling it with items, throwin in an absorber and sealing the mylar than the bucket?

here are many on this page

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW7_cTn6YpE&feature=related

[Lowdown3]

Thanks Crossbow.

I also pointed a domain there a few years ago to make it easy to share with people. Simple domain to remember-

https://www.bucketpacking.com

Goes right to the packing series 1 video.

Good luck!

[monkeybird]

The supplier of my Mylar and O2 absorbers (US Emergency Supply) sells an O2 package resealer clamp. It's only a few dollars and works well. I tried the mason jar and the pill turned blue and they were useless. I ordered and used the resealer clamp. It was about a month before I used them again, and they did work. You clamp the original bag with the pill inside, so you can see if they're good.

It worked for me.

[Klayton]

Thanks for the link guys.

[Denmother]

If you are using mylar bags, you don't REALLY have to use buckets! I use 1 gallon size mylar bags and o2 absorbers for almost everything (there are only 2 of us) and I think I have a total of 20 buckets in use. Other than that I use totes and boxes. I bought book totes to store my bags in from walmart, fred meyer and target. They are cheap, about $3 or $4 each. Not free, however, if you can get free stuff all the better. When the totes became too expensive, they are up around $5 each now, I started just using boxes. I fill my mylar, put the o2 absorbers in, seal the mylar and stack them in boxes. Then I just stack my boxes. Be sure to use smallish boxes not great big huge ones. As an example look at the book box size ones from uhaul or orange boxes from your local grocery store. I can fit almost 10 gallons of mylar bags in one of these! Ask at your local grocery for the boxes and you're good to go. All the bucket or box is for is to make the mylar easy to handle and keep it from getting punctured from anything sharp.

If you do as you suggest, use the bucket to fill the mylar bag, then pull the bag out and all that, then you are going to have a hard time to get the mylar bag full of food back into the bucket as it will loose it's shape when you pull it out. I've tried it and it's a real pain in the rump.

As for the o2 absorbers, if you are absolutely adament that you want to have your mylar bags in buckets, you can reseal the o2 absorbers 2 ways. NEITHER way is going to keep your o2 absorbers for a long time though. The first is to vacuum seal your absorbers into a vac seal bag. keep in mind that the bags for your vacuum sealer ARE NOT AIR TIGHT! They will leak air in no matter how good of a seal you have on them. This will keep them until you get more buckets. The other is a jar which is much closer to air tight. put the absorbers in a quart jar, and seal the lid on using your vac sealer. Glass is pretty much air tight. :D Just bear in mind that there is no method for really keeping your o2 absorbers, it's better to use them all up in my mylar bags as soon as you can after opening them.

I would just do a run of sealing and fill all your mylar bags, put in your o2 absorbers, and seal them then store them in boxes/totes rather than wait for buckets. Boxes are cheap(FREE!), easy to find at your local grocery store or from someone who's moved recently, and provide close to the same protection as a bucket.

[Klayton]

Thanks Denmother!!

[ibetiny]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I got together with another forum member who lives near me and they suggested a local recycle place which has buckets and lids for 50 cents each!! So now I have no reason to try to save O2 absorbers. Going to the local COOP I can get wheat for 8.00\60 #, corn for 5.00\50 #, oats for 5.00\40 #. That means I have NO excuse not to stock up.

This place also has 55 gal drums for 7.50 each (food grade), so now I'm thinking about putting back about 4 drums of wheat, 2 of corn, 2 of oats, 1 of rice, and 1 of sugar. This would cost around 800.00 including drums, food, O2 absorbers and 55 gal Mylar liners. That would be a good goal and I think I could do that in like 6 months or so, 2 if I don't count the sugar or rice.

Thanks again for the feedback as my problem was solved with the help of forum members.

[1Admin]

Denmother-
Be careful with the rodent issues. They can be a problem with the totes and definitely with the cardboard. Mylar is NO barrier for rodents.

Buckets are nice cause they stack well (with decent lids), are weatherproof and can be carried one handed- a plus in a bugout.