Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation "Canning" in Retort Bags

Getting ready to start in on Riley's Caribou this morning. Has anyone used the bags yet?

Aluminized plastic or plasticized aluminum or something like that. Seal in a vacuum chamber and pressure cook and no glass jars to break, store, or deal with. Product takes up less room to store, also.

Thinking a bag dropped in a pot of boiling water over a fire might not be the worst experience, either.

Ran 50 bags through with moose and caribou, also 4 bags with Moose Swiss Steak as a test... No failures and everything went perfectly.

The bags are big for the small amount of product they hold as they apparently swell out of sight in the canner. The 16 ounce bags are obviously designed for salmon fillets... or pieces thereof.

Still love the storage options and believe venison MREs are pretty easy to do...

The Vacuum sealer is critical and several sites said the one I used was not up to the task. They were clearly wrong. The only seals I repeated were the early ones designed to figure out what setting was best. And again, none failed.

So you found a source of the bags.

I'm going to put the vacuum chamber sealer on the must have list for next year.

It is a very cool thing. AK Butchers Supply has the bags, but I need to find a cheaper source.

I like it. Any reason they would not work in a water bath as well? For certain vegetables and acidic items where non pressure required canning is called for. Should work.

What's brand sealer did you use?

Thanks for posting.

I do not see why it wouldn't work in a water bath... it might even be overkill?

Vacmaster VP-210. There were several internet sites that said the sealer was not up to it... The local Butcher Supply place said to set it at 3.5-4 seconds on the sealer and I had no issues of any kind.

Art,

Thanks for initiating the thread.....timely and interesting.

How much water and how are you placing bags in water/canner etc....?

Is there a good source of info?.....I too dislike all this jar storage thing.

Vern

Instructions all said the bags are laid on their sides and were very nonspecific about amount of water. They also said bags should be tightly packed, but they do not pack particularly tightly... I found space was far more efficiently used if I stood them on end. I had no issues.

ALaska Butcher Supply in Mt View (Anchorage) has a little write-up that has some detail, but they were quick to add they have very limited experience.

I was using a huge canner and I believe it had steadier temp and pressure than smaller cookers which led to no sudden pressure drops which might have stressed the bags.

Starting with everything cold is also a good idea, I believe.

Oh, there are lots of videos on YouTube... but the primary video producer is trying to sell their vacuum packer and suggests theirs is the only adequate bag sealer... Do not believe them!

Just finished another batch and have now run well over 100 bags without a single failure.

This last batch included 4 oz, 8 oz, and 16 oz bags and were processed for 90 minutes to satisfy the biggest bags. It seems too easy...