The Original Dry Bag Steak | Make Artisan Dry Age Steak at Home › Forums › Dry Aging Steak › Dry Aging Steak with UMAi Dry® › Blood Sucker
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Thea.
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July 4, 2011 at 3:33 am #1263
Jason
MemberAs I confessed in my “deep freeze” thread, I managed to let my brand new vacuum sealer suck in some “juice” during my very first bagging of a ribeye loin yesterday. 👿
It was totally my fault. I clearly had moved too much fluid from the cryovac to the drybag. There wasn’t anywhere else for it to go. Once it got its first “slurp”, I mentally chalked up the unit as either being ruined, or too gross to ever use again. I drained off as much as I could from the unsealed bag, and didn’t bother fighting to keep the rest of it out of the sealer. I just let it pass on through the vacuum sealer and would try to deal with it later that day.
I’m not posting this to encourage anyone to disassemble the unit. In fact, I would encourage you not to… It obviously will void any warranty that might be remaining on your vac, and there are electrical components inside that can be damaged or that can damage you. If you find yourself in a similar situation though and can’t stomach the thought of beef blood “aging” inside your vac sealer AND you’re ok with buying a whole new vacuum sealer if you break yours while trying to clean it….. I documented what I did to maybe help you decide if it is something you are comfortable doing. If you’ve ever peeked under the cover of an aquarium air pump, you will find this very similar.
Again, the smartest thing to do is to not get fluids in the vac. The next smartest thing to do is to not take it apart (though I’d also argue that it isn’t very smart to use an appliance around other food when the appliance has who knows what growing in it… that was ultimately the main catalyst in my decision). In my particular case, the fix went very well yesterday and I again have a nice clean, fully functioning vac sealer. Your mileage may vary. As I stated in the website below, I am absolutely positively not a professional “snorkel vacuum sealer repairman” by trade (or anything even remotely close to it). 🙂 In fact, yesterday was the first time I had ever even touched one. So take all of this with a grain of salt, and proceed at your own risk if you choose to do so.
Each image has a caption below it explaining what I did. To see the caption, click on the thumbnail and expand it to full-size.July 4, 2011 at 2:49 pm #4826Ron Pratt
Membersorry you had the problem, but knowing that a vacuum is made to suck air and liquids then excessive liquid should have been a tip off. You need the surface of the meat to be damp in order to start the bonding process, but not dripping, running moisture. As for contamination IMHO you were correct to clean it so it would function properly, but from a sanitary standpoint I don’t see it as a problem – after all it is sucking air in to the machine and not blowing air from it to contaminate the bag content.
Ron
July 4, 2011 at 3:10 pm #4827MemberYes, it certainly should have been a tip off… No claim on my part that it went down in the history book as one of my more brilliant moments. 🙂 Lesson learned though.
July 4, 2011 at 3:36 pm #4828MemberI didn’t mean to sound critical, Jason, I just saw your thread as a “teaching opportunity” to subsequent readers in the same fashion that you did and you so eloquently shared with us. I just added my 2 cents to it.
Good luck with your aging and be sure to tell us how the primal came out!
Ron
July 4, 2011 at 4:07 pm #4829MemberI didn’t take it that way at all… It really, truly should have been obvious what was going to happen!
I really appreciate all of the contributions that you and others here have provided on how/what to do. This is my contribution on what not to do. 🙂
July 4, 2011 at 4:56 pm #4833Scott Grall
MemberDont think your the only one Jason, I did the same thing. 🙂
July 9, 2011 at 8:44 pm #4849Anonymous
GuestSir.. you did a magnificent job of photo work and illustrations. Its by mistakes that we can make advances in our tech world.
“C~W”July 9, 2011 at 9:11 pm #4850MemberWhy thank you, CW… I appreciate it!
August 9, 2011 at 2:34 pm #4921Andy Starvaski
MemberI had a simillair experience this past weekend.
When trying to seal up a small rib roast, the vacuum from the snorkel was very weak. My wife noticed that there appeared to be something in the snorkel. Using a sewing needle, we discoverd small peices of dried meat in the snorkel. YUK.
I was able to clean out the snorkel using a flat headed dental tool and removed quite a bit of dried material. I then removed the plastic cap from the back of the sealer exposing the back end of the snorkel. i removed the plastic cap and cleaned out the inside of the snorkel and disenfiected the sorkel.
This returned the vacuuum to full suction. However with the vacuum running like a champ I noticed fluid comming from the drain holes underneath the Sinbo sealer. It had a rancid ordor. Not good.
I opened up the Sinbo unit and removed the diaphrams off the pumps. Sure enough there was a small amount of fluid trapped inside the pump. I cleaned the pumps out using cotten swabs dipped in IP alcohol and then a Listernine rinse ( I didn’t want the alchohol to dry out the rubber diaphrams).
I then ran the pumps for several minutes to draw any moisture out of the pumps and through the drain tubes. The unit is now clean and running well but what a pain. :angry:
Jason, my firewall wont allow me to your site to see exactly what you did to clean the blood from inside your Sinbo. Do you mind giveing me a brief description of what you did?
I love the Drybag system and have recomended it to many folks. However I really wish the Sinbo sealer unit was easier to use. Between wrestling with the snorkel from collasping the bag and now this fluid and material in the unit, ARRRGH.
August 9, 2011 at 2:52 pm #4922MemberAndy,
Thanks for the report – as for a “piece of meat” being in the snorkel my guess it was probably more like dried congealed blood instead of meat. As for all of the other cleaning etc you provided us with a handy “how to” reference” manual and I thank you!
I really think you need to drain the “juices” out of the cryovac environment better before attempting the seal in the Drybag. The meat should be moist, but not dripping or sopping wet. With as many others here besides myself using a Sinbo, the problem you reported is unusual so that’s why I am leaning toward your meat being too wet to began with.
Ron
August 9, 2011 at 3:19 pm #4923MemberI definitely need to pay more attention to draining the meat to prevent this from happening again. Last time though, I remember massaging the heck out of the meat to ensure maximum bag/meat conact I think I might have actually worked some small pieces of the roast free and up into the snorkel. Maybe I need to lighten up a bit on my aggressive massaging. :unsure:
August 9, 2011 at 3:35 pm #4924MemberHi Andy, I pretty much did the same as what you described, I think… Just threw in some pictures to show what the process looked like because I was bored that weekend!
I haven’t done a second aging yet (pulling the first one out this coming weekend!), but next time I’m definitely going to take more care in getting the juice seperated from the meat before bagging rather than during. 🙂
September 1, 2011 at 7:12 pm #4944MemberI am still having truoble with sucking blood through the Sinbo Since sealing the small roast 3 weeks ago, I have also bagged and sealed a 13# prime NY strip roast, and a 13# choice rib roast.
Both times I still was drawing significant amounts of liquid and blood through the Sinbo. Guess I have to dry them off even more. I will say I am getting an excellent bond between the bag and meat and this is from massaging the meat. The side effect being more liquid is pushed up to the snorkel area and drawn into the machine.
The past two times, to clean out the machine I put some clean water in a standard non UMAi bag and allowed the Sinbo to draw the clean water through the pumps and out the drain holes. I then ran the Sinbo without a bag to ensure all water had cleared through the system.
I doubt the manufactuer would recommend doing this, but when I had the unit apart, it was a pretty straight forward set up and I can’t see how a pumping water through the network of tubes and the pumps could do anymore harm.
September 1, 2011 at 9:14 pm #4945MemberThanks for posting your suggestion, Andy. I still wonder out loud though why this blood issue is common to you and not experienced or perhaps reported by me and other Sinbo users.
September 21, 2011 at 6:57 pm #4955Al
MemberJason, you did a superb job with the tutorial on how to repair the bag sealer. Both the instructions and the photography were stunning. Thanks for the effort you obviously put into this.
Al
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