Oxygen Absorbers

Oxygen Absorbers
Life Support for Jars, Bags, Bins, and Buckets

It's important to use oxygen absorbers when vacuum-sealing your fruit and vegetables, after dehydrating and conditioning.

This very page you're reading now is probably ONE of the most IMPORTANT pages on Easy Food Dehydrating.

Why? Well, if you're interested in storing food for Long Term, make sure to add oxygen absorbers inside your dehydrated vacuum-sealer bags PRIOR to sealing them with your FoodSaver machine or (whichever brand of vacuum-sealer you purchased).

Remember: tuck a 100cc oxygen absorber inside the vacuum bag just before you vacuum seal it, or drop an oxygen absorber in the mason jar just before screwing on its lid.

If you're using a small (half-pint) jar, use a 50cc oxygen absorber.

Various Sized Oxygen Absorbers
for the Right Application

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These little oxygen absorbers are readily available in different sizes, such as 50cc, 100cc, 300cc, and 2000cc. The reason for different sizes depends upon what size container your dehydrated foods are placed in.

If you're using a small (half-pint) jar, use a 50cc oxygen absorber.

For a quart-sized jar or vacuum bag, use a 100cc oxy-pack (shown here and at the bottom of this page).

For a 10" x 14" Mylar bag, use a 300cc oxy-pack (very top photo).

For storage bins or buckets, use 2000cc oxy-pack (not shown).

Read more about different oxygen absorber sizes here.

5 Bags Each With 20 Oxygen Absorbers

If the pill is good, I'll open the new 100-pack bag, and take out 5 quart-size vacuum-sealer bags. Place 20 oxy-packs from the 100-pack bag into each of the quart-size vacuum-sealer bags and immediately vacuum seal them.

So I now have five quart-size bags with 20 oxy-packs in each of them. The pink pill from the original bag can go into one of the five bags—no need to throw it away, we can use it up!

The reason for splitting them up is we don’t want to open and seal the original big bag over-and-over to take out one or two oxy-packs. Doing that would soon ruin all the other oxy-packs (by air infiltration) before we even used them!

Cut Just Below the Old Seal

When I'm ready to use an oxygen pack, I simply cut along the bottom of the seal at the top of the bag, as shown here, by the white dashed line.  Cut as straight as you can and as close to the old seal as you can – then I remove as many packets as I need and put them in the dehydrated food bags that are waiting to be vacuum sealed.

Coming up are notes about resealing bags. Keep scrollin' ...

Reseal Opened Oxygen Absorber Bags
Immediately After Use

Re-vacuum and seal the oxy-pack bag (see photo above) after taking out what you need.

I can re-seal one of the oxy-pack bags about four times... and if I've any remaining packets and the bag gets 'too short' to reseal, I'll put those remaining packets into a new bag and vacuum seal it!

How Do You Know When Foods
Are Dehydrated Enough?

Linda recently wrote in to our Facebook page with this question:

"Hi, I am dehydrating items for a backpacking trip. I have some rice with Alfredo sauce going and was wondering how do you know when things are dehydrated enough? I don't want to make anyone sick with my food."

Hey Linda! First off, are you dehydrating the items separately, or as one whole? I hear you regarding not wanting to get sick! If you're dehydrating "as a whole", you'll need to keep your eye on the sauce's "dryness," then you should be good to go. Why?

Well, as you can imagine, rice doesn't have/hold much water compared to a 'sauce.' When it comes time to vacuum-seal your rice and Alfredo sauce mix, make sure you add in an oxygen absorber so it can do its job.

Also, it's always a little 'touch and go' when drying two vastly different foods at the same time. If you're only going on a short trip, this method should work out fine for you.