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Chris Fox
Chris Fox
12 years ago

Thanks Jack

It’s got me thinkin, I’ve already got a vacuum pump for AC work and a pressure cooker I don’t use much anymore.

Just wondering how something fine/powdery would work. Like dry milk or flour.

Dee
Dee
12 years ago

Will this vacucanner work with the tattler reusable lids?

markl32
markl32
12 years ago
Reply to  Dee

Bingo, just watched the video and that was my question too.

Ilene
Ilene
12 years ago

I am on several lists that have discussed other dry canning sealers. Apparently if you put an upside down coffee filter on top of powdery things like dry milk powder and such, it helps keep the powder in and not sucked out onto the rim where it can interfere with the seal.

LiCountryBoy
LiCountryBoy
12 years ago

I have to agree that this seems much faster than a food saver.
I have had a couple bad jars over the years.
Maybe one or two at most.

My 2 1/2 year old loved the video Jack.

The mad Vaper
12 years ago

I can see where it would come in handy if you are doing massive amounts of dried product, with different sized jars. But for the most part I get along pretty well with using the food saver and the two different size jar attachments along with my tattler lids. Although I do have all of the necessary parts and pump right in my garage to build one of these. So for that, I appreciate seeing an alternative to the food saver. Always look forward to your reviews and podcast.

CParker
CParker
12 years ago

Looks like a good product and a great vacuum pump. Could use the pump with the individual jar attachment sealers and this would be fairly quick since the volume is small. I have also connected a plastic tube to the foodsaver and pulled a vacuum on mylar bags until they are as hard as a brick and then sealed the bag. This pump would be even better.
Thanks for showing the product.

The mad Vaper
12 years ago

Wow, really you went through 2? I’m actually pretty shocked with that. Did you call the company? I sure as heck would have. I have used tilia brand food saver since its inception. Every year their product seemed to get better and better. In fact I had to justify upgrading when they came out with a new one since my previous one still worked so well. Gave it to my step son. They now have the upright one that takes a little less counter space, but I can’t justify putting out the cash for that one. Mine is only 3 years old or so.
I can say that the first one I ever bought sat in my vacation home and hadn’t been used in quite a while, went to use it but the seals went bad. When I bought it the company offered a ten year warranty on it, so I called them up to see if I Was in the warranty period. Alas I was not, but they had told me that they do sell used ones, that are refurbished returns for $35.00 . This was several years ago so they probably cost a little more now. But for your listeners that want to get one, they might want to try that option. Just call up (don’t have the number handy) but just look up Tilia and ask them about the refurb sales.

Matt H
Matt H
12 years ago

Very cool. One modification that I might do would be to put in a 3-way valve to effectively “t” from the pump to a foodsaver jar sealer. This would allow one to individually seal off jars after use. That way you don’t have to break out the full “pressure cooker” to evacuate just one jar after use.

Matt H
Matt H
12 years ago

Hey Jack,
A warning from a chemist who works with high vacuum pumps every day: don’t leave the pump turned off with a strong vacuum pulled on it for a long period of time. If you do that, what can happen is pump oil will go up your tube and into the canner. It takes a while (more than an hour), but people should be aware of it. I’ve done it with vacuum lines and it’s a pain in the butt to clean out all that oil.

~Matt

Jake
Jake
12 years ago

Jack,
Thanks for the video – well done!

I am very glad you discovered this. I had thought I would get a food-saver w/attachment but you totally sold me. I had a friend who demonstrated on an empty jar to show me how his food-saver vacuum worked. I was impressed but compared to this – it is excruciatingly slow. This method is like the autobahn of vacuum sealing.

If I wanted to convert an existing canner – is it a “one-way” proposition? Can I remove the hardware and use my canner the traditional way?

I recently was given a huge homemade (and very well-made) dehydrator and experimented at the end of the growing season – can’t wait to experiment with dehydrator + Vacucanner.

One of my new favorite snacks:

Dehydrate tomatoes. Place your 1/4 inch tomato slices on your dehydrator screen. Liberally season with salt, garlic salt, pepper, and a meat-rub seasoning (used for smoking/grilling)
Dehydrate until they flake off screen like potato chips – Ummmmm, ummmmmmm, ummmmmm!
For a variation – sprinkle with cayenne pepper or other spicy seasoning.

Dehydrate + Vacucanning = long, long, long time storage.

Cheers,

Dalton
Dalton
12 years ago

Jack. Great video. And to think I almost tossed the old pressure cooker that has a missing weight on it since I’ve bought a new one. My only concern for myself is that if that were ME opening that can of rice, it would have gone EVERYWHERE! Do you think the vacuum pressure could be dropped somewhere between 25 and 29 to avoid the mess I’ll be making? Man, those guys are really on there!

Take care

Pete
Pete
12 years ago

Very impressive, if I had the money I would buy one, but I think I will build one instead.

Joe Terry
Joe Terry
12 years ago

I’ve made a bad jar. (Chipped it with something) But I’ve had one fail on my righ tout of the box.

Brian
Brian
12 years ago

I would consider buying a pressure canner and order a replacement lid from the manufacturer. Then you could do any needed modifications to the lid for vacuum canning and not have to disassemble to swap back and forth. If I had an extra lid it would allow me to find someone with a TIG welder to seal up that little pop-up lock on a lot of the pressure canners.
For that matter if you just buy two canners you could have one lid set for vacuum canning and two bodies. Then while one was being sealed you could be loading the other. Just a wild thought…
Great find Jack!

Tricia
Tricia
12 years ago

Tammy on Dehydrate2Store shows how to use a spoon put into the narrowest thread and twisted can easily open the sealed lids. Have used seal a meal to do jars – look forward to using this method. Thanks Jack.

The mad Vaper
12 years ago

I can definitely see your point on the food saver . I guess I’ve just been lucky. Sorry to hear that you’ve had such bad luck with them. I probably would have moved on as well had I had such problems. But now you’ve got a hard core bulk vacuum sealer. So kudos on that.
Love the reviews and the podcast. Keep em coming. Can’t wait to get my TSP ant silver rounds and death and debt copper. Still waiting on my freedom girls.
Proud to be a member of your support brigade

metaforge
12 years ago

This may be a dumb question, but I’m on a tablet that won’t play the video – can it can wet stuff too like sauces?

Also, when our foodsaver stopped vacuuming good, just needed to replace the little oval O-ring and it was good as new. Just FYI in case it helps anybody.

metaforge
12 years ago
Reply to  metaforge

Yeah just an FYI side note, Jack – none of the videos are showing right on the site using Dell XPS 10 Windows 8 tablet out of the box. It does play correctly if I go to YouTube and play it directly there on your channel, so I know my Flash install is good. Maybe something that you can tweak or update on WordPress? I dunno. Just thought I’d let you know.

metaforge
12 years ago

Ok cool. In hindsight I feel pretty retarded for having asked that, but when I first read about “dry” canning, I thought it meant dry as in “not the traditional waterbath over the flame”. Silly me! 😉

On the tech side – no prob, just wanted to give you a heads up & let you know, cuz I’m sure as you know more & more folks are coming in on tablets, so it’s good for us site entrepreneurs to make sure our content works easily.

metaforge
12 years ago

And yes, your link works no prob – so I’m guessing it is something either to do with WP & how it is embedding the videos or YouTube and how they are sharing their embedded links.

Stu
Stu
12 years ago

Wow, this is really cool! I’m very interested in using this dry pack method. But just one question, do you have to sterilize these jars in any way before using or can you just pull them out of the box or dishwasher and seal away without worry?

Larry Gray(caverdude)
12 years ago

Hey you can combine this with freezing and maybe freeze dry some stuff. Simply freeze it first in the freezer then put it in the vacuum canner. I think you have to leave the vacuum on it til it warms back up and all the water will be pumped out.

Also you do not screw the rings on tight right? I mean the lids of the jar’s have to be free enough to lift for air to escape the jars.

Aaron
Aaron
12 years ago

One question here.. I tried to contact the company on this but have not received an answer so I thought you may know. Can you order this with an unmodified lid? I have been looking at getting a pressure caner and this with the extra lid would solve both canning issues. On a side note with some small changes to the vacuum lid it looks like it would work nicely for distilling fuel, just add condenser.

Brian
Brian
12 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

It would be simpler to just buy a pressure canner and rig up the vacuum side yourself with their pump. In a lot of pressure canners you have a hole in the lid where the pressure gauge goes. Remove the gauge and with a few parts from Lowes and a pressure gauge off Amazon you’d have your vacuum canner. Oh, the vacuum line could connect to the preexisting nipple that the rocker goes on.

…Okay, mine also has a little pop-up lock. Maybe if you could fit a rubber O-ring under the top of that the vacuum would seal that as well.

I wish they had an option to buy the pump and fittings only. Then I wouldn’t have to go shopping for them.

Erin
Erin
12 years ago

I have seen a glass jar with a “poppy” lid on it being used in a food saver canister vac to accomplish the same thing, obviously not as Long term though. Perhaps if you had the chance, you could try using an old pickle jar or something you may have leftover and let us know if you think it’s ok to do. Being able to reuse things always makes it more appealing. Thanks for your video and bringing this product to our attention.

metaforge
12 years ago
Reply to  Erin

FWIW – I can say we have had tremendous success with the Tattler reusable lids. We bought ours from The Berkey Guy, but you can get them anywhere (though he had the best price at the time and of course is a sponsor of our community). That was with the traditional water bath and/or pressure canning method though. I have no experience with this dry vac system and no idea if Tattlers will work with it.

Brian
Brian
12 years ago

If you really want to speed up production, get an old air compressor tank and run it inline between your pump and your canner. Run a valve between the tank and the canner.
Now you use your vacuum pump to vacuum out all the air in the tank and lines. When you seal up your canner and want to seal you simply open your valve between the tank and the canner and woosh. Instavacuum.
If you could come up with a way to mount a gauge/switch so anytime the vacuum in the tank drops below 29 the pump kicks in and turns off again above 29.
If you think about it, if the pump were dealing with vacuum while you were loading and unloading the canner it would only take a few seconds to apply vacuum then release and start unloading again.
As I said, this only would be helpful in a high capacity situation, but it would speed things up and also allow you to put the tank and pump outside so it wasn’t so loud in the house.

jeff
jeff
12 years ago

How likely would bending the lids be a cause of failure; like what you experienced in the video? Are the lids robust enough to resist bending?

homefarm
homefarm
11 years ago

We live in Canada and were able to order the Vacucanner. It works great! In addition to dry staples, I might try dry canning some hard candy and other treats.

Greg
Greg
11 years ago

Could the used coffee bags with the vent hole be re-used to store dry goods using this? I imagine you wouldn’t want to use stuff that could be crushed like dehydrated veggies but for brown rice, beans, and the like, I imagine it could work.

OhioPrepper
11 years ago

Jack,
Just getting caught up on some of the videos (and podcasts) and I wanted to mention that you shouldn’t necessarily throw away that jar. I’ve seen lots of jars over the years with slightly uneven rims that work fine when you pressure can with them, because the rubber gasket portion becomes more malleable with heat and form fits to the jar. This might not be the case when using only a vacuum. I’ve used the Foodsaver for years, but mostly on packaging and not jars, and this looks like an interesting gadget to look into. Thanks for the video.

Brian
Brian
11 years ago
Reply to  OhioPrepper

You may be right, but I’d say the potential cost incurred by a questionable jar it would just be better to toss and replace any that weren’t perfect. I’d rather buy another jar than have even a 1% greater risk of a jar unsealing.
It would be worth the cost just to not have to keep your pressure canner and vacuum canner jars separate.