Using a Vacuum Chamber for freeze dried food

Been on the fence for months and you convinced me! Thanks for all you share with us!!

Great find, Phil - much appreciated!! 👏 👏 👏

Awesome!! Thanks for the review!

Super cool! Thanks for all the time you take to show good info, Phil! Cheers.

I have put this on my Christmas & Birthday wish list. Thanks for another great video. Our freeze dryer will be opened Christmas morning. Not so patiently waiting and admiring the crate in the garage here in BC Canada

About a year ago, I bought a vacuum chamber from Amazon. I paid about $135.00 and it included a vacuum pump as well. Works extremely good. We love it! If you want to see how much air is left after vacuum process, just vacuum an empty jar, then open it upside down under water. The air left at the top is how much air didn't get vacuumed out. Using this vacuum chamber will not have any air left behind if done right.

WOW! What a game changer! Thank you for sharing. You are so knowledgeable & thorough in your presentations. I Appreciate that.

I bought mine and it is great!

Wish I would have seen this before I bought a vacuum sealer by Avid Armor. Which is also awesome for marinating meats.

awesome, I did this very same thing about a year ago. it makes it so easy to use your jarred food. I set my psi, at 20 inch, that is pretty tight for the jar lids. much better vacuum then a vacuum sealer, I have never had one come loose. One thing, if you don't have another pump, one of the cheapest, smaller, pumps works great, very small and and space saving. one of the things I would like to add to my set up. is another divider, with a small hose to vacuum bags. that way I could control the amount of air I pull out, and not crush some things. I love your video's. Evie

Thanks Phil!

THANKS FOR THE TIPS.

Thanks, as always, for the hint. The fittings on my Harvest Right are JIC (37º) and used in a lot of US hydraulics. Most HVAC systems use SAE (45º) fittings. I have replaced my poor quality HR vacuum line with an off the shelf hydraulic line to get better fittings and crimps.

Thank you for sharing this! I was wanting a smaller vacuum chamber for reusing nonstandard glass jars. Instead I'm going to get one like this so that I can better package mylar bags also. I have the hardest time finding o2 absorbers that really work like they're supposed to and I order them from different places hoping to have better luck.

Thanks for another eye opener!!

Thanks for the new idea. I have a chamber vacuum sealer and it is a game changer. Just checked through my stored food bags which were sealed using your FD method and found I had to repackage a few to get all the air out. Some Mylar bags had little punctures. 🤔

I know more then one person including myself that is having trouble with the oil free pump. We had an oil pump to start and then purchased an oil free pump. I will rebuild it one time and then it’s a boat anchor. The oil pump still works fine.

For those small cut corners, you could seal them easier with a cheap flat iron made for hair. It’s what I have used for years.

I use half gallon jars to keep my latex paint left overs for future touch ups, good forever. I also tried it for left over tile grout powder, perfect for future touch ups or repair and guaranteed color match. If you keep paint in a metal can it will rust and become useless within six months.

1) You can sandwich the mylar bag between two small thick aluminum square baking pans TIED SNUGLY with velcro! 2) Then place in vacuum pot. 3) WALA! Smooth sides! NO SHARP CRINKS WRINKLES

Thanks so much for posting this (and all videos) I just finished getting a set up just like yours. The pump smoked profusely so I ordered a Demister from Harvest Right for $35 which is working well at removing the oil mist. Whole setup for under $200 and can vacuum multiple bags at once. Many blessings and thanks Phil! ❤

Oh my, I forgot to mention, you can also vacuum, other jars, even the gallon pickle jars, as long as the jars are not to old and the rubber seal is still good. Its, a tad harder to get open, I use a spoon. to lift up on the lid, just to release some pressure. works great, and can reuse them over and over. Evie

You should have affiliate links for all of these tested accessories, tools and such. I’d much rather buy the items you’ve given your opinion on knowing you got something from it too. I don’t think anyone that follows you would think it’s a bad idea.

How to you keep the bags from sucking oxygen back in once you open the chamber? You did not show how you reseal to keep the bags from sucking in air whilst waiting to be resealed. I am new to freeze drying less than a month and I can tell you I so appreciate the knowledge you pass on. Thank you so much.

Hi! there Mr Phil you have the most awesome videos on food preservation, I specially like the one on "are the so call Mylar bags, really Mylar" Wow! great video. Thank you for taking of your time y to do all this testing and making the videos. On this video (Using a Vacuum chamber for freeze dried food) you mention you have a video on "ASTM Puncher test" could you provide a link to this video? Thank you once again for all the work you do to help the prepare community.

Another thing you do when you’re doing your vacuum before sealing Vacuum, then fill the bag with argon gas. It’s an inert, gas, displaces, oxygen, and preserves organic matter. Repeat this process two or three times it’s really quick And you get your oxygen content in your bag down to the parts per million .

Phil, I have a similar setup and have done testing with it using red beans. I found that several of my vacuum packed bags failed over time, not due to being punctured by the food, but at the corners of wrinkles in the bags. Some bags may be better, but it puts a lot of stress on the bags. I decided to not vacuum pack as a result.

Have you tried vacuum packing without cutting the vent hole? I’ve found that if I put my bags in the vacuum chamber, zipped shut and top side up, pull a vacuum of about -25, then allow it to sit a few minutes, the pressure created inside the bags by the vacuum outside them, forces the air to leak through the ziplock seal. When I open the valve to equalize pressure, the bags deflate, and the contents are sealed tight. It allows more time to heat seal, without having to worry about air being reintroduced through a vent hole.

JVR industries sells the same canister "accessory" to go with their vac 100 chamber vacuum sealers

Just be sure to leave enough expansion space in the pot. I've had a bag pop when the vent hole got bent over and blocked so it couldn't release the air.

Super Useful Info. Thanks for the video. I see that this method works well with Jars too. Are there other advantages of this method over standard vacuum sealers like "foodsaver" or similar from Avid Armor?

So several years ago I ordered a dehydrator and vacuum sealer with the intention to preserve food. We were still renting, so we were holding off on a freeze dryer. Well, I never ended up using the dehydrator before I got my FD, and consequently my vacuum sealer was never opened either. Thought it got lost in the move, but my wife informed me she thought she saw it....turned out it was literally touching my HR impulse sealer, I just never bothered to read the packaging xD

This is awesome. Costco has a chamber for 600$ and it was a little too much for me.

Hi Phil- I enjoy your videos and remember one tip you gave about checking for dryness during the extra dry time cycle. It involved turning off the pump, opening the valve, checking for dryness and then either taking the food out, or turning the pump back on to continue. Which video was this? I've been doing this successfully, but someone questioned me and I can't find the right video to tell them to watch. The person asking me wondered if it damaged the pump. Thanks,

I bought a 5 gallon chamber for woodwork about a year back. I'm using a Harbor Freight pump on it. On a whim, I applied a vacuum to it and left it for two weeks. At the end of two weeks, it was still at or near 30". Impressive seal. Instead of the stock configuration, like yours, I blocked the right, put a T on the left and used couple valves there to allow me to start the pump with no pressure on it, even when the chamber was still under vacuum. ANYWAY, thanks for the video. I'll have to test drive it, because I also use both vacuum sealing and absorbers to get as much air out as possible.

Over 70yr. and need some help: I love your videos and thanks so very much. 1. Is there a way to contact you other than a "comment"? 2. Is a 2-step pump better than a 1- step? 3. How to keep food particles from sucking into the pump - or not an issue?

I have the avid armor usv32. Game changer. Can adjust vac pressure, vacs and double seals bags. Even the thickest mylar bags. Also vacs jars up to 1 quart size inside chamber, no hose or attachments needed.

I've been testing out to use vacuum chamber to cook food too! Hahah. Have you notice wierd things with food? I tried to make my own gelatin powder from bone broth. But I think it destoried the gelatin amino chain. (Not sticky) anymore.

Hey Phil. Your videos are awesome. Just purchased me a vacuum chamber and can't get it to seal jars for some reason. Put it together as the instructions said. Any ideas?

what size of oxygen absorbers do you us can you reuse them? .is there a way to turn off the factory extra time off ? I Fell asleep before i got getting my raspberries out and they seemed over done I have a new harvest right. I have learned so much from you thank you

Phil how long after releasing the vacuum do have to seal the bag?

Lista con materiales, precios y proveedores.

Does that lid fit on a 5 gallon bucket? I would like to seal up wheat berries, flour and such.

So can you put glass jars in there? And how big of a jar a gallon a half gallon or what?

Phil, just found your channel- question about the mylar bags- how do you seal them inside the vacuum sealer?

Ok I must be particularly dense, but why the air does not get back into the bag after you open the chamber and before you seal them?

Hi Phil! I'm curious about Nitrogen injection because I've found that vacuum sealing can damage bags (as you well know) but also I find that some foods (fruit in particular but candy also) will turn into a giant ball if vacuum sealed. So I'm thinking about possible ways to vacuum and then inject N2 into the bags. Thoughts?

Awesome. Living legion 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

So I don't have an extra pump, so can I tee off from my freeze dryer and pump system

I want one for freeze drying. Will this work If i first put food in mylar bags and regular food freezer. Once frozen put under vacuum to actually work to freeze dry under vacuum instead of buying harvest $3-4k food freeze dryer. 😅willing to try unless not possible Thanks.

I had a question based on your video "Freeze Dried Skittles in Eight Minutes" where you used the oven to warm the skittles and then used only the vacuum test mode of the freeze dryer. Since the only usage was to create a vacuum, would it be possible to use a device like this? Is it possible to use this for the vacuum pressure to pull apart the skittle after warming in the oven? Such a process would be significantly cheaper than buying a full blown freeze dryer just to make "Freeze Dried Skittles".

Do you absolutely have to use a vaccume chamber after dry freezing? I saw other videos where they don’t use this machine.

Will a 1/2 gallon Ball Jar fit in that one?

Can you store those bags without Refrigeration?

Could you get a Y adapter for the pump you are using for your fd?

So the vacuum chamber will vacuum seal AND freeze dry all in one shot in a matter of seconds to minutes?!

Works better with mason jars in the vacuum chamber

Since the vacuum chamber is effectively removing all the oxygen, is an oxygen absorber still required with this method?

Does this not introduce more oxygen in the bags when they inflated like that?

What wrong with just using a good old vacuum sealer??? curious? my vacuum sealer i use mylar bags in it as well

Avid Armor.....turn key solution...done right every time, Done! Why reinvent the wheel?