sealing

[James bollier]

Well Well Well, I read all the complaints here about the difficulty getting the bags to seal. Being a veteran of the Seal-A-Meal Food Saver (15 Years) I thought you guys were being silly, after all how hard could it be? Good God!! Three bags later and tightly wrapping my meat with saran wrap until the bag sticks to the meat this product is a piece of Sh-t. If the boys there at Umai really wanted to make a product worth singing praises they would make the heaven sent bags with the last three inches of the same material Food Saver bags are made of. Think of it!! no more of the stupid (mouse) inserts to Fart with! We would all know what we were messing with and then I would recommend it to my friends!!! Now there is no chance I ever would consider telling my friends how to spend a fortune on Rib Eye and over priced bags. That would be as silly as this product!

[Jim]

Sorry Oldman you had trouble sealing the bags. UMAi Dry® has been in business for the past 9 years and we strive to make improvements to our unique technology. At this time texturizing the bags to make them similar to Foodsaver is impractical. Almost all of our customers report that they do not have an issue with using the VacMouse®, however if you wish we can replace the bags you lost because we are committed to your success.

Cheers
Jim
UMAi Dry®

[James bollier]

no need to replace them. The fact you responded so quickly tells me a lot. 1.You stand behind your product so it must be high quality, 2. It must have been my fault because I haven’t got the hang of it yet. I was just upset last night at the prospect of ruining $150 worth of ribeye. I checked on it this morning and the bag although not a complete vacuum seems to have enough in contact to work. I cant punish you for my ineptness. Thanks for hearing my gripe. If this works it will be well worth it

[Jim]

It sounds like in your case you don’t need to worry about spoiling the meat. Complete vacuum is not required for UMAi Dry®, in fact the only purpose for vacuum sealing is to bring the bag into contact with the meat so that the proteins on the surface of the meat can create a bond with the bag. If you have 75-80% of the surface in contact with the bag the meat should age properly.
The hard “bark” will form in about one week, so look for that to start happening.
We hope you will enjoy the results of your patience.

[James bollier]

thank, I feel better already. I will report back Feb. 18th

[Scott]

I struggle mightily with this as well – for every bag i get to work, i burn 2-4 bags trying to get the seal. I’ve bought 3 different types of vacuum sealers.

When it works, i love it, but it’s a frustrating road to get there. I’ve got two bresola’s in the works now, and i couldn’t get either one of them to seal. They sat in the bag (not well sealed) for a good week (i had to take a trip) before i came back at them, and i’ve re-seated them in a new bag, and put a conventional vacuum bag around that – with the hope of letting the overwrap bag stay on for 1-3 days (understanding that it will prevent any moisture loss), in the hopes that it forces umai bag adhesion to the meat, and then i can take the overwrap seal off. We’ll see…

[James bollier]

hey sabastian, listen to Jim, aint that big a deal. The bags keep burning through you can put a straw in and gather bag around and by mouth or you can rig a vacuum cleaner, suck all the air out then secure with a zip tie, voila! you’re there. learn from my mistake and don’t clean the meat but leave the slime on it. Already bagged and the air pockets bothering you? Take a hypodermic or turkey baster and punch the bag drawing the air out then seal with good tape. Feel better? Mine is looking GOOD. I check on it every day because it is in the fridge in the garage and opening the door allows the moisture to escape that has been drawn out through the bag.

[Scott]

we’ll see how it goes. i’m not concerned with spoilage (i’m an R&D director for a large food company, so i understand the issues well), i’m more concerned with the rate of moisture loss – the bag exists to slow that down, and if the bag isn’t well sealed/contacting the meat, moisture loss may be faster. we’ll see – this is the first time i’ve tried vacuum sealing a bag around the membrane to try to force adhesion – it may (or may not!) matter…

[Ron Pratt]

Seeing your familiarity with food products then I’m sure you have heard of butcher’s netting. That will assure a tight wrap removing the trapped air before sealing and shortly thereafter while bonding takes place. This is no joke – I even know people who have used a piece of women’s panty hose to do the same tight fitting against a UMAiDry on large sub-primals. Ron

[Scott]

That’s a good idea. I wonder if even a quick wrap of tape around it for a few days (until the bond is formed) might be something to consider. If i start taking my wife’s panty hose, that might raise a few questions…

[Thea]

Sebastian,
No tape! Netting, maybe.

You do not want to block the airflow to the entire surface of the meat. The bond will only form with good, healthy air flow allowing the meat proteins coating the meat to adhere to the UMAi Dry® membrane. If you block the air flow, the meat will immediately begin to spoil.

We once had a customer tell us they used an “old world method” of coating the beef in lard before dry aging. They coated it and put it into the UMAi Dry® bag. Of course, sadly, the meat spoiled.

You truly want just good, juicy, gooey protein drenched meat to slide into the UMAi Dry®, the material to get drawn down as best as possible, then just leave it.

It isn’t a vacuum bag, so don’t expect perfect contact. It isn’t necessary. Even a “floppy” bag will provide a perfect aging environment for dry aging within UMAi Dry®.

Okay?? No tape!

Maureen

[Author]

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