New subscriber here, congrats on reaching 17K!! We just started our channel about our homestead here in the north of Sweden, so have a long way to go to get that far!! We really want to start getting in the canning, so thanks for sharing your mistakes and successes!
Welcome aboard! I just hit 18,000 yesterday. It always amazes me how quickly my channel’s grown. Sweden!!! How cool. Yep, many content creators lead their subscribers to feel that homesteading is both easy and cheap. Ha! I try to always be honest with the work involved. And yep, I’ve made my share of mistakes. Thanks for watching!
I currently only vacuum seal items that I plan to eat soon but need to extend the shelf life by a few weeks. But I will eventually add more types of long-term storage items once I get more large mason jars.
I have a foodsaver I use for sealing bags but for sealing food in jars, I use a small rechargeable handheld foodsaver and the jar sealer. So easy to use and only about $25.
My rechargeable handheld Foodsaver bit the dust last year. But I just bought another one from Ollies last week. It was $19.99. I love having several options.
Congrats on 17k. Just today, I dug out of storage my food saver which I've never used. I had moved it to a different storage box (for some unknown reason, lol). I'll look this week if the port is there for vacuum sealing into jars 🙂
Hello. I feel compelled to tell you, in West Virginia you are in the "strong shaking" zone of the New Madrid fault line. This is an enormous earthquake risk. If and when that earquake happens, every one of your beautiful jars will be shattered on the ground and all your food mixed with shards of glass. Have your husband build a little edge to hold your jars on the shelves and secure your shelves to the walls. Id hate to see all that hard work go to waste just when I'm you need it most!
@@blackbdr123 We bought a 1970’s fixer upper. First we had to secure heat, water, and the rotten upstairs floor. We will eventually replace those shelves with cabinets. It just takes time. Thanks for looking out for us.
You could run some bungee cords across them and hooked into cup hooks at each side in the meantime. Better yet, upcycle two parallel lines of old electric cords or cables and secure them through small eye hooks. 😉
Another amazing video! With the holidays coming up, do you think you’ll make a video on your most used/ must have products? I’m New to living a more homestead-like lifestyle and would love to see something about your go to products!
Great idea! You mentioned the holidays. Are you referring to the foods I preserve to use for holidays or are you talking about stocking up on baking ingredients when they’re on sale near the holidays? Welcome to our channel and thank you so much for your comment!
Oh! I think you’re talking about which items I use to preserve food! Absolutely. From vacuum sealers to dehydrators to grain mills. I’ll definitely come up with my top ten items.
If i may... Get cheapo muffin liners to put on top of items in the jar you intend to vacuum seal: like flour, noodles, rice, etc. The powders they have on them will clog the Sealer & reduce the longevity of the Sealer.👍😁
It depends how dry you make them. I dry fresh blueberries until they’re crispy. Then it’s safe. You don’t want any moisture in your food to vacuum seal them. Thanks for watching!
Liked 👍🏻and subscribed. I wasn’t aware that craisons and raisins shouldn’t be dry vacuumed. FYI I once purchased at Costco a couple bags of beef jerky and had one upstairs to snack on but put the other in the extra pantry in the basement (cool and dry area) and weirdly enough that grew white fuzz on the meat before the Best By Date! Of course threw it away…should have returned it. Thank you for sharing. ❤
I'm sharing this on a lot of pages; just FYI. I know everybody that is an expert gets up in your face these days about take the rings off your jars. That's fine. This isn't about canning. This is a whole 'nother thing about vacuum sealed jars. I put the rings on tight and leave them on. Here is my one reason. Have you ever popped the seal on a vacuum sealed jar of something powdery like flower or dry powdered herbs and you get this little puff of dust? Therein lies the problem. Several years ago we had a bad storm. There was a tornado. It did not hit my house, but it was scary close. I was going from window to door like I always do trying to see something; I know you're not supposed to do that, but I do. As I got close to my pantry, I kept hearing ping after ping and realized my jars were unsealing! I knew the air pressure in my house was changing rapidly from the tornado. After everything was over, I checked my jars. I have a couple hundred assorted jars. All of my heat canned jars were fine. All of my vacuum sealed jars on the shelves were fine. But I had about 15 jars of assorted sizes sitting on a cool concrete floor; every single one of those had lost their seal. If they had not had a ring tightly fastened on them, that little poof thing that I mentioned would have happened. The middles might have even popped completely off, leaving my food exposed to the air. You take the lids off the rings off your traditional canned jars or not, that's your choice, but my recommendation for vacuum sealed goods is always put the ring on tight and leave it on.
Scary time for you! Thank you for sharing. I have seen other “channels” where they did not put the ring on the jars that were vacuum sealed and wondered about that. It’s not like I don’t have extra rings so will definitely use them though I thankfully don’t live where there are tornados. ❤
Quite frankly, there's also an advantage to knowing where the doggone things are at when you need them!! My wife isn't nearly as enthusiastic about my adventures in vacuum sealing as I am. She gets tired of looking at something, it gon disappear.
Okay consider this: You can get from Walmart or Amazon - *Avery Removable Color-Coding Labels, Removable Adhesive, Assorted Colors, 3/4" Diameter, 1,008 Labels (Avery 5472). I also bought a set of white dots, same size.* Each color represents a 6-month period. Set up a chart so you can easily see. I used white for 2025 Jan~June, yellow 2025 July~Dec, green 2026 Jan~June, blue 2026 July~Dec, then 2027 red Jan~June, and back around to white again for second half of '27. Put a single color dot on each jar (and cans) in your pantry so you can see at a glance what time frame they "expire." It's an added barrier against letting something get missed. Print out the chart and keep it visible in your food storage area.
I'm late to the food storage party, but recently dipped my toe in the vacuum sealing experiment. I bought moisture absorbers (food grade silica pebbles) and O2 absorbers, but didn't use them in the last flurry of sealing because people were suggesting they weren't necessary when vacuum sealing. I figured I was fine without them. Last week though, I opened a sealed jar that had Nestle $100,000 bars in it, and there was some black mold on the lid's seal. That's a few hundred thousand dollars worth of candy! (for all of you on the west coast, that was a joke...) This discourages me. I always wash AND boil my lids for at least 5 minutes (even the new ones from China). The candy was still okay, as it had only been sealed for a month, but now I'm deliberating opening all 200 jars to check them, add moisture absorbers and reseal them.
The only thing I can figure out is that your lid had moisture on it. I’ve never once had mold with vacuum sealing. I also don’t boil my lids for vacuum sealing. It’s not even necessary for canning anymore. I wash everything the day before and completely air dry. I don’t use oxygen absorbers or moisture removers. If you remove all moisture, you’ll turn it all into a hard brick. Think lollipop hard. You’d never be able to. Tie intense chocolate bars. Vacuum sealing is all about removing air, not moisture. You shouldn’t vacuum seal high moisture items like brown sugar or raisins, only shelf stable foods. Thanks for watching.
Sometimes I do. If it’s over a decade that I intend to store something, I use them. Unfortunately removing oxygen doesn’t stop nuts or coffee from becoming rancid.
1) Foods high in oil or moisture 2) Not rotating your stock 3) Not removing the air from prepackaged food items 4) Vacuum sealing foods that you’re never going to eat
Congrats on 17k subs!! This video is invaluable especially for us newbies trying to start off efficiently. Like all of your videos this one is exceptional. Thank you!!
Why are you saving or even buying prepackaged food items? They are made with low quality ingredients. Even properly vacuumed sealed, I don’t believe they would be palatable several years old.
Because I help all sorts of subscribers. I try to eat only organic food. Most people don’t. It’s simply too expensive. But I can help others learn how to preserve the foods they can afford, even if it’s prepackaged.
@ All I can say is to try it. I’ve had success freezing almonds but not vacuum sealing them. They were absolutely rancid and I store mine in ideal temps and lighting. Those nuts were Best By 2022. So I purchased and sealed them in 2021. The only way you can be 100% certain is to try it yourself. My goal is to never mislead my subscribers.
New subscriber here, congrats on reaching 17K!! We just started our channel about our homestead here in the north of Sweden, so have a long way to go to get that far!! We really want to start getting in the canning, so thanks for sharing your mistakes and successes!
Welcome aboard! I just hit 18,000 yesterday. It always amazes me how quickly my channel’s grown.
Sweden!!! How cool. Yep, many content creators lead their subscribers to feel that homesteading is both easy and cheap. Ha! I try to always be honest with the work involved. And yep, I’ve made my share of mistakes.
Thanks for watching!
I am so glad I found you. I shall every thing I can in my jars. I love it!
I currently only vacuum seal items that I plan to eat soon but need to extend the shelf life by a few weeks.
But I will eventually add more types of long-term storage items once I get more large mason jars.
I have a foodsaver I use for sealing bags but for sealing food in jars, I use a small rechargeable handheld foodsaver and the jar sealer. So easy to use and only about $25.
My rechargeable handheld Foodsaver bit the dust last year. But I just bought another one from Ollies last week. It was $19.99. I love having several options.
This is great Wisdom!
Congrats on 17k. Just today, I dug out of storage my food saver which I've never used. I had moved it to a different storage box (for some unknown reason, lol). I'll look this week if the port is there for vacuum sealing into jars 🙂
I have my fingers crossed! I always thought vacuum sealing would be hard to learn. But instead it’s super easy. Thanks for watching!
Hello. I feel compelled to tell you, in West Virginia you are in the "strong shaking" zone of the New Madrid fault line. This is an enormous earthquake risk. If and when that earquake happens, every one of your beautiful jars will be shattered on the ground and all your food mixed with shards of glass. Have your husband build a little edge to hold your jars on the shelves and secure your shelves to the walls. Id hate to see all that hard work go to waste just when I'm you need it most!
@@blackbdr123 We bought a 1970’s fixer upper. First we had to secure heat, water, and the rotten upstairs floor. We will eventually replace those shelves with cabinets. It just takes time. Thanks for looking out for us.
You could run some bungee cords across them and hooked into cup hooks at each side in the meantime. Better yet, upcycle two parallel lines of old electric cords or cables and secure them through small eye hooks. 😉
Another amazing video!
With the holidays coming up, do you think you’ll make a video on your most used/ must have products?
I’m New to living a more homestead-like lifestyle and would love to see something about your go to products!
Great idea! You mentioned the holidays. Are you referring to the foods I preserve to use for holidays or are you talking about stocking up on baking ingredients when they’re on sale near the holidays?
Welcome to our channel and thank you so much for your comment!
Oh! I think you’re talking about which items I use to preserve food! Absolutely. From vacuum sealers to dehydrators to grain mills. I’ll definitely come up with my top ten items.
If i may... Get cheapo muffin liners to put on top of items in the jar you intend to vacuum seal: like flour, noodles, rice, etc. The powders they have on them will clog the Sealer & reduce the longevity of the Sealer.👍😁
Great idea! Thanks for sharing.
It can also get caked on the lid's seal and refuse to seal.
How about buying raisins or dried cranberries , dehydrating, then vacuum seal ?
It depends how dry you make them. I dry fresh blueberries until they’re crispy. Then it’s safe. You don’t want any moisture in your food to vacuum seal them. Thanks for watching!
Oh, the mistakes I have made! Thanks, Deb.
Meee tooo. And it’s funny but I struggled with admitting the things that I did wrong.
Liked 👍🏻and subscribed. I wasn’t aware that craisons and raisins shouldn’t be dry vacuumed. FYI I once purchased at Costco a couple bags of beef jerky and had one upstairs to snack on but put the other in the extra pantry in the basement (cool and dry area) and weirdly enough that grew white fuzz on the meat before the Best By Date! Of course threw it away…should have returned it. Thank you for sharing. ❤
@@SpeakTruthBeKind Thanks for sharing. And welcome to our channel!
Great tips!
Thank you! And thanks for watching.
I’m new. Thank you 😊
I'm sharing this on a lot of pages; just FYI.
I know everybody that is an expert gets up in your face these days about take the rings off your jars. That's fine. This isn't about canning. This is a whole 'nother thing about vacuum sealed jars. I put the rings on tight and leave them on.
Here is my one reason. Have you ever popped the seal on a vacuum sealed jar of something powdery like flower or dry powdered herbs and you get this little puff of dust? Therein lies the problem.
Several years ago we had a bad storm. There was a tornado. It did not hit my house, but it was scary close. I was going from window to door like I always do trying to see something; I know you're not supposed to do that, but I do. As I got close to my pantry, I kept hearing ping after ping and realized my jars were unsealing!
I knew the air pressure in my house was changing rapidly from the tornado. After everything was over, I checked my jars. I have a couple hundred assorted jars. All of my heat canned jars were fine. All of my vacuum sealed jars on the shelves were fine. But I had about 15 jars of assorted sizes sitting on a cool concrete floor; every single one of those had lost their seal. If they had not had a ring tightly fastened on them, that little poof thing that I mentioned would have happened. The middles might have even popped completely off, leaving my food exposed to the air.
You take the lids off the rings off your traditional canned jars or not, that's your choice, but my recommendation for vacuum sealed goods is always put the ring on tight and leave it on.
Well said! And thank you so much for your support! I couldn’t do this without supporters like you sharing my videos. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!
Scary time for you! Thank you for sharing. I have seen other “channels” where they did not put the ring on the jars that were vacuum sealed and wondered about that. It’s not like I don’t have extra rings so will definitely use them though I thankfully don’t live where there are tornados. ❤
Quite frankly, there's also an advantage to knowing where the doggone things are at when you need them!!
My wife isn't nearly as enthusiastic about my adventures in vacuum sealing as I am. She gets tired of looking at something, it gon disappear.
Love all your videos. When I washed my lids they are sucked up to the top. Is that okay.
@@wannellalawson4001 I’m not sure what you mean.
Okay consider this:
You can get from Walmart or Amazon -
*Avery Removable Color-Coding Labels, Removable Adhesive, Assorted Colors, 3/4" Diameter, 1,008 Labels (Avery 5472). I also bought a set of white dots, same size.*
Each color represents a 6-month period. Set up a chart so you can easily see.
I used white for 2025 Jan~June, yellow 2025 July~Dec, green 2026 Jan~June, blue 2026 July~Dec, then 2027 red Jan~June, and back around to white again for second half of '27.
Put a single color dot on each jar (and cans) in your pantry so you can see at a glance what time frame they "expire." It's an added barrier against letting something get missed.
Print out the chart and keep it visible in your food storage area.
Wow! That is a brilliant idea!
How long will vacuum sealed flour last?
I'm late to the food storage party, but recently dipped my toe in the vacuum sealing experiment.
I bought moisture absorbers (food grade silica pebbles) and O2 absorbers, but didn't use them in the last flurry of sealing because people were suggesting they weren't necessary when vacuum sealing.
I figured I was fine without them.
Last week though, I opened a sealed jar that had Nestle $100,000 bars in it, and there was some black mold on the lid's seal. That's a few hundred thousand dollars worth of candy!
(for all of you on the west coast, that was a joke...)
This discourages me. I always wash AND boil my lids for at least 5 minutes (even the new ones from China). The candy was still okay, as it had only been sealed for a month, but now I'm deliberating opening all 200 jars to check them, add moisture absorbers and reseal them.
The only thing I can figure out is that your lid had moisture on it. I’ve never once had mold with vacuum sealing. I also don’t boil my lids for vacuum sealing. It’s not even necessary for canning anymore. I wash everything the day before and completely air dry. I don’t use oxygen absorbers or moisture removers. If you remove all moisture, you’ll turn it all into a hard brick. Think lollipop hard. You’d never be able to. Tie intense chocolate bars. Vacuum sealing is all about removing air, not moisture. You shouldn’t vacuum seal high moisture items like brown sugar or raisins, only shelf stable foods. Thanks for watching.
@@JustDoSomethingHomestead Thanks for your feedback!!
👍😊
Top🎉❤
What about using oxygen absorbers, or moisture absorbers?
Sometimes I do. If it’s over a decade that I intend to store something, I use them. Unfortunately removing oxygen doesn’t stop nuts or coffee from becoming rancid.
1) Foods high in oil or moisture
2) Not rotating your stock
3) Not removing the air from prepackaged food items
4) Vacuum sealing foods that you’re never going to eat
Yep, these are my top mistakes. Are there any you’d add? Thanks for watching.
Congrats on 17k subs!! This video is invaluable especially for us newbies trying to start off efficiently. Like all of your videos this one is exceptional. Thank you!!
Why are you saving or even buying prepackaged food items? They are made with low quality ingredients. Even properly vacuumed sealed, I don’t believe they would be palatable several years old.
Because I help all sorts of subscribers. I try to eat only organic food. Most people don’t. It’s simply too expensive. But I can help others learn how to preserve the foods they can afford, even if it’s prepackaged.
When I vacuum seal prepackaged items, I cut a little nick in Each wrapper first.
Yep! I learned that several years ago. I wish I had known that sooner.
Thanks for watching!
So much differing info! Heidi from Rain Country seals her nuts for years and says they are fine. Maybe it is the combination with the chocolate.
@ All I can say is to try it. I’ve had success freezing almonds but not vacuum sealing them. They were absolutely rancid and I store mine in ideal temps and lighting. Those nuts were Best By 2022. So I purchased and sealed them in 2021. The only way you can be 100% certain is to try it yourself. My goal is to never mislead my subscribers.