Mylar Bags and Oxygen Absorbers: A No-Nonsense Guide
How many absorbers per bag, what you can't store this way, and the iron-and-ironing-board trick.
Mylar plus oxygen absorbers is how dry staples go from "a year" to "decades." It's simple once you know the numbers.
How many absorbers?
- 1-gallon bag: 300cc
- 5-gallon bag: 2000cc
Open the absorber pack only when you're ready to seal, and work fast. Store the leftovers in a small mason jar.
What to put in those bucketsLong-keeping recipes worth sealing away, from The Lost SuperFoods. see the foods →Good candidates
White rice, dried beans, wheat berries, rolled oats, pasta, sugar (no absorber, or it turns into a brick), salt (no absorber).
Never this way
Anything moist or oily: brown rice, nuts, granola, jerky with fat. The low-oxygen, moist environment is a botulism risk.
Sealing
A clothes iron on the cotton setting, with the bag edge laid over a board, works fine. Seal, then wait a day. A good bag pulls tight like a brick.
Label each bag with the contents and date in permanent marker. Then put the bags in buckets, because mice love Mylar.
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