help improving seal

1. I was unable to get a good seal. I practiced a bit with the sample (non-drybag) bags, it took me some time to get a good seal even with those. I found making sure the bag was taut before starting the seal really improved the seal/

RRP here – what setting did you use? a number 4 works for me…

But the drybag material is quite different, and I dont have so many that I can afford to waste them with practice attempts. So I used one small one for practice and it worked OK.

But when I went to seal the meat, which was in a much bigger bag, I had to do the corners first and I ran into problems. It was hard for me to get the corners flat enough to seal well. And then when I got both sealed well, the hole in the center was uneven… there was more drybag material on one side than on the other. (If I pulled the bottom half of the bag taut, the top half was not taut). I tried an additional seal but it still didnt help.

When the two edges don’t meet at the center like that just take a pair of scissors and cut it even.

In the end I gave up the first bag and put the meat into a second bag. That bag also seemed to not have a great seal (even after I made another seal), but at that point I was playing with this too much and decided to use what I had rather than wasting another bag and maybe getting the meat contaminated.

In case the seal is not good and air gets into the bag, how will I know whether it is a failure? Simply if the bag does not bond to the meat well enough? Or is it possible that the bag bonds well but the mean could still spoil due to a bad seal?

Depending on how soon the seal gives up you may see air pockets form, but every day as the bag bonds to the meat the less likelihood. As for spoilage – there is always a chance, but not too likely.

2. During the process of vacuuming, the vacuum seems to suck a huge amount of blood out of the bag, resulting in a pool of blood under the simbo. (there was a lot of blood on the mean to begin with, but I understood that was good). The problem seemed to be that getting the air out meant pushing air bubbles through the “veins” in the bag towards the snorkel, and we got a lot of blood together with the air. How bad is this? Does it mean I was too aggressive about getting the air out?

That meat was WAY too wet – you needed to drain it.

One more question: in the process we got the other drybags in the sampler kit a bit wet (with water and not blood). I saw that where they got wet the material started to contract. Are those bags ruined now? Can they still be used?

not ruined, but I would wash the areas that got wet and then thoroughly dry the bags and let them air out. One last thing in closing – you may have had trouble with your first experience, but every time it gets better!

Thanks for your advice,
Ron