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Do you have questions?. Many do, It is so important to us that you do this right. So here is a portion what your friends are asking. Q. What is a desiccant and why is it important? A.Their are many different types of desiccant. The most common are made of activated clay, silica gel, and molecular sieve. Most simply stated a "packaged desiccant" adsorbs water molecules by pulling the water into it's molecular structure and retaining it away from the atmosphere you are trying to protect. You see them in your pill bottles, fine electronics, and so on, ensuring that the product inside the package will be protected against moisture damage. In dry food packaging, desiccant is extremely important because it helps to maintain a very dry environment within a package, usually below 8-10% relative humidity. The dry environment reduces the risk of spoilage due to mold etc. Q.Why should I use an oxygen absorber in my long term food packaging system. A. The presence of oxygen in an atmosphere sustains life, life to microorganisms, insects and even their eggs. Remove the oxygen from an atmosphere and remove the potential for life. It really is that overly simplistic. (of course there is a nice long scientific explanation, but I have as much desire to type it as you have to read it). Q. Are desiccants and oxygen absorbers difficult to use? A. Not at all. Their is no equipment to buy or tanks to fill, simply remove the desiccant and oxygen absorber packs from their protective pouches and place them into the food container. Q. Why oxygen absorber packs instead of vacuum packing or nitrogen flushing? A. See our chart on the previous page with an explanation outlining the the benefits and results of each of the above methods. Oxygen absorbers are BY FAR the easiest, safest, and overall least expensive way to reduce the oxygen content of an atmosphere. Q. What type of containers should I use? A. NEW... first and foremost. So many of you are telling me that you got them from the bakery, or restaurant, or neighbor. This is your food... please get new containers. Besides the obvious reasons we don't use old pails to store our food, here are some not so obvious ones. Possible cross contamination of a number unfriendly food borne illnesses finding their way into your packaged food. Also, used containers rarely seal as well as they did the first time, and you want the best possible seal. As for the style, a HDPE 5-6 gallon pail with a gasketed good sealing lid is one of my favorites (and extremely durable). Another excellent choice would be a 1 gallon steel pails (new paint can type), there are very few materials that can control the flow of ambient atmosphere into a controlled atmosphere as well as steel can. Q. May I use Poly bags or zip lock bags to store my food? A. Poly bags or ziplock bags are fine when you a trying to keep the food segmented for portion control (within a barrier container). However they have very poor barrier qualities, and will not stop oxygen or moisture from freely entering your food. Q.I want to store moist items (bake goods, bread etc...) should I store differently? A. Yes, storing moist foods is a bit different than dry goods. First, you do not use a desiccant in conjunction with your long term shelf life preservation items. Second, you will need to use a different oxygen absorber than your normal D or ZPT series, you will need to use a B or FX series oxygen absorber. The main difference in the oxygen absorbers is the way thay are activated. B or FX series oxygen absorbers are activated by 70 or more relative humidity only, so they are usless in dry food storage yet just what you need for bake goods with H2O activity of .70 or above. (these are also a bit easier to use than standard oxygen absorbers because they will not begin to work out of the package until they are in contact with this higher humidity). Third, we recommend you package moist stored food in seperate barrier bags with thier own individual atmosphere control items (oxygen absorbers). Due to the nature of these moist foods and the way they are stored, the could adhere to one another making almost impossible to pull apart and thus wasting some of them. |
Courtesy of: Interteck
A.S. /Foodsave
P.O. Box 86 / East Amherst, NY 14051