Well i bought a chamber sealer because the bags are 1/3 the cost, they pull a better vac, seal better, oil bath pump and should last a lifetime.
The other reason was that i wanted to make my own mre's. To do that you have to use a retort pouch. These are what you see tuna fish being sold in now. There isn't alot of info on doing it and the first batch burst. Still used the chicken but it was a failure.
Tonight success!!! I pulled the vac longer, weighed out each pouch to be slightly under the rating of the pouch (8oz in this case) and let it totally cool before opening the canner.

I plan to open one a week to see if they are GTG.

here is the chamber sealer....85lbs of chinese suck lol


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All American Canner 925


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Cool.  I will probably try this some day.  Did you implement both solutions simultaneously?  How much did you put in the pouches the first attempt?  
Please update the thread as you test these preserved foods over the next week, months, or year.

What is up with the two separate seal bars?

Any problems with your machine yet?  ARY replaced my seal bar for free after I determined it was the culprit for intermittent seal issues.  Once I find some thin, conductive brass or like material I can repair the original and have a backup ready to go should the primary fail.

That's very cool.  How much was the machine?

$750 and i picked it up so no shipping.

Well I opened and used the first pouch.
It was mixed into a salad and was fully cooked and then some.
I really wish there was more info on their use but so far no luck and i'm on my own with them. I didn't let the family eat any just in case but i was 99.9%sure it was gtg. i'll wait 3 or 4 weeks to open the next one.


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tag.....

here is a link to spend your endless nights on. Lots of good info, the books are expensive....but worth every penny for commercial operations, I realize this might be a personal deal, but still tons of info on the subject.

Google FU ––Retort

wayyy to expensive for a home canner. simple time proven ways to use them will come in time i guess.

65 minutes. i was given 55 to as high as 90.  i will try 60 on the next batch.

Try until someone dies...

well i have to believe that when the food starts to spoil co2 given off will cause the pouch to expand. much like the lid on the canning jars. the pouches are under vacuum and i don't think it would take much to make it easy to spot.
I think i will vac pack a pouch of raw chicken and date it and see how quickly it becomes easy to spot.

i think the pouches are tougher than the seal on the lids. they are thick and multi layered with different materials. i think more and more food at the store will be done this way instead of cans. it will be cheaper to ship because of the weight savings.

tag for the sheer coolness of the toys within....

This is my understanding.  I wouldn't hesitate to eat the contents of one of those pouches a year from now, provided the vacuum is still intact.  2 or 3 years –– the taste & nutrition content may be off, but not because of spoilage.  Very interesting thread.

Professional Marketing Group (PMG), whose website is vacuumpacker.com, has some videos on YouTube describing retort canning.  They are found on FrontierMedia’s Channel.  I will have to see if the butcher supply business my father and I use for processing supplies carries retort pouches.  I think I am still partial to glass canning for most stuff, though.  I still have tons to learn about glass canning.

eta
What are your plans or hopes for retort canning?  Just messing around; looking to entirely replace glass canning; or just creating some application specific shelf stable items?

I did buy the retort pouches form them. their shipping fees suck and that is all that i buy from them. they really have no more helpful info other than what is on the youtube vids. He's the one person who said i should can them for 90min which right then and there told me he really had no clue.

BTW anyone needing ANY vac bags or ROLLS for the home type vac sealers should look at www.VACUUMSEALERSUNLIMITED.COM
type in shotshow for 10% all products. they don't have any retort pouches though....nobody but the guy talked about above does unless i want to buy a container full from korea.

I still use glass for most of my canning but i plan on using the pouches for maybe 25% when i get it all sorted out.
I am just doing it really to figure it out. I hate not knowing how to do something that I want to do.  I do like that i can carry 4 to 5 pouches for the weight of 1 glass jar. the same for storing them once they become perfected of coarse.

remember that heat penetrates the pouches much faster than glass so with that even if i keep the times the same as glass it will be SAFER than glass.
From what i can tell....from my first batch confirms this......that if something aint right in the canning process with pouches they will either blow up (seals let go) or at the least lose their vac which is just as easy to notice. I still ate the first batch, just did right away, same as with a bad seal on a glass jar.

I will update with the things I find interesting as i progress into other food types such as chili and stews with these pouches.

Neat.



Where did you buy your machine from?



 

a company that i found on ebay. i'll edit this later with the info or i'll pm ya. they are out right now but list them on ebay as soon as they get them in from china.
it was less than 1/2 the price of the next sim unit i found. they are in king of prussia.

Those are very good shipped prices for me, even before the 10% discount.  I spent hours scouring the net last year looking for the best supplier, and I ended up using a brick & mortar establishment about 75 minutes from me.  They ended up having the best OTD price for what I wanted; 4mil pouches.  For those who are not familiar with bulk purchases of these pouches, S&H can be painful due to the weight.  Two things I notice concerning the pouches at the listed website: they are listed as 3mil and boilable.  I opted for 4mil pouches from my local-ish store, but they are not boilable.  The only boilable pouches they have, IIRC, are 3mil also.  I am still not certain how valuable being boilable is.  Neither am I certain how important the extra mil is, but I opted for it anyway.  Almost all of our packaging is for raw meat.  Excluding retort packaging, are you actually packaging any foods that you boil in pouch at time of use?

well you are forgetting those of use who souv vide cook our meats. bags have to withstand 180' for hours and hours. those try cooking souv vide will never give it up, i know i won't.

I just asked CHEF about sous vide and he doesn't like it.  Any meats you recommend for trying it out?



As for retort pouches, I don't think we'll be seeing home canning recipes for those anytime soon.  It seems based on what I could find that companies develop their processes based on a specific food, container size, shape, and their equipment.  So no general guidelines come out of that.  Hopefully, some day enough people will do it that home canning in pouches will be normal.

I just pm'd ya the dealer info.

Nothing against Chef...but he is 100% wrong on the souv vide. it turns a $1.59 on sale london broil into a mouth watering steak. corned beef that can be cut with a plastic knife yet stays together, unlike when u use a pressure cooker. truley, everyone who has eaten over my house is in awe of the meats i cook with it. veggies...not so much. imagine never overcooking a steak again...ever! i did antelope for the wife the other night. tender and juicy!

Thank you.  



I'm very interested in some of the leaner meats for sous vide.. Not only beef but, bison, ostrich or other similar game.  What do you use for a water bath?

ost

Picked up my new vacuum sealer today.  Thanks to Finishman2000 for the source for these sealers.



$845 out the door.  Originally I was going to get the table top one.  But this one has a three inch longer chamber so the sealing strips are about 15".  The chamber inside is about 16" by 13.5" between the seal bars.  Height inside the bubble is about 5.5".  The price difference between this one and the table top version was $50.  I couldn't pass up the bigger chamber for 50 bucks. The free standing wheeled cabinet is great because I'm using it in my basement so I don't need a table.  I can't wait to start sealing some stuff.

Did you get the spare parts kit and the stainless steel riser with it? yours 220v as well? I mounted mine on 2 drawer wide filing cabinet, om wheels, and keep all the bags, parts and other canning stuff in the drawers.
great people to deal with aren't they!
hey...where's my bacon?

Yeah ,got the bag of spare stuff and the little stainless tray thing.  The worst part was peeling the protective plastic off the stainless.  I had to take apart the cabinet because the plastic went around corners and underneath all the seams.  And yes it is 220volt.  I had an opening in a sub panel.   So I just popped in a 20 amp dipole and hard wired it into a gang box mounted on a board below the panel.  The sealer sits about 2 feet below the panel so the wiring run was about 16 " .  And the guys at the shop were great.  We chatted about all kinds of stuff while I was there.

Very nice.  I have wondered if I will be satisfied with the smaller chamber and 10” seal bar in my unit.  Seems that is something you will not have to worry about.  I bet these 1 gallon, Mylar pouches fit your unit perfectly.

size of the chhamber can be secondary since you can use long bags (as long as you want) by placing them outside the chamber. just run it longer and it will pull and seal just fine. I did a rifle using the reg seal-a-meal bags and worked fine. you could buy rolls of material from u-line as well for non food itens as well.

Interesting comment on the exterior pouch placement: I will have to try that.  I already did some searching earlier today and found some 1-gal Mylar bags are a very good dimensional fit for my chamber.

i just opened another pouch. just as good as the first.
at this point i would say that the pouches are just as good as canning jars. the pouches cost more but the lesser weight and bulk have their place. i'll be doing some chili tomorrow and will try some pouches as well as the normal jars.

Thanks for the follow-up.  It'd be nice to hear from you every 4 - 6 months to see how the original batch is faring.  Hoping to get into this soon.

tag for interests.

well since got linked in another post i might as well update.

i have zero issues with any of the stored pouched. food has tasted the same throughout each test.
since this i have done meat chili. i pouched some, just vac and froze some and canned as well. the pouches taste the same as the canned and i feel confident that the pouches, when done correctly, are as good as the glass jars and offers the same shelf life.

Thanks for the update.  I was wondering how the testing went.  Of course, every time you post it's kind of an update that things haven't gone too wrong.



 

I see this is an old post. I am new to AR 15. I thought I would put my 2 cents in here.

I bought a Sammic 310S chamber sealer (made specifically for retort pouces) from PMG along with 1000 8oz and 1000 4oz retort pouches. I also have Nitrogen attached for gas flushing dry foods. My wife and I make our own meals (beef stew, chicken, pasta, tamales. beans, etc) and cold pack the pouches then vacuum seal them. We pressure cook in our All American 925 pressure cooker for same time as jars. The food is freakin awesome. You lose no flavor and all meats cook so tender. Retort pouches last as long as any jar canning does.

I use the 8oz for entrees and 4oz for side dishes. I also have clear poly bags for Nitrogen packing dry goods (crackers, cookies, peanuts, granola, cereal, etc). I just ordered 5mil clear bags to pack each complete meal in. I can grab a bag and have my own MRE with everything in it. These meals will be stored in 5 gallon buckets for easy stacking/storing.

I also use the 4oz retort to make emergency water pouches. After we pack the pressure cooker with the food retorts, we fill in any voids with water packs. They cook the same time as the food so they are sterilized water packs. I  am going to make flavored drinks the same way (tang, lemonade, etc.)

I bought a Dymo label printer that prints waterproof labels that I stick on every bag I vacuum seal. It has the contents and date packed.

This Sammic 310s and pressure cooker only took 3 months to pay for itself making MRE's for our family of 5 versus purchasing MRE's for the same number of meals. Best part is we know what is in our meals and they are our favorite recipes. They will last 5-10 years when kept in cool environment. All canning is done using regular Ball canning guidelines.

My wife is a major Couponer. We purchase 90%+ of our food  and hygiene items with coupons. Our complete MRE's with pouches cost 1/4 or less of MRE's at the store.

If you  buy all bags/pouches in bulk you will save $. An MRE completely assembled with all bags/pouches cost me less than $.50 each plus cost of food.

Check out vacuumpacker.com. Thom is very helpful if you have any questions. He also priced matched for me on the machine and bags.

FYI. If you add a cup of vinegar to the water in the pressure cooker, it will eliminate the spots on the retort pouches......

Very interested in this thread. Any new updates on the foods? Would anyone be willing to share some of their recipes with me? My wife and I are planning on buying our machine in the next week or two.