In this article we explain in sufficient detail we trust why someone should use a vacuum packer.
Firstly, we’d better define what vacuum sealing or vacuum packaging is! It is all too easy especially with terms which are pretty nearly everyday terms, to assume that everyone knows what one is talking about. So to ensure we’re all on the same page: in vacuum packing, clear plastic film is first heated then cooled around food or another item, excluding some or in instances nearly all, the air as it cools.
Retailing - The Needs of this Sector Alone Answering the Question: Why Use A Vacuum Packer?
So we’ve answered the question: ‘what is it?’ Now, what’s it good for? One meets vacuum sealing extensively, but not exclusively in food retailing: at the greengrocers or the fruit and vegetable section of the supermarket. Items so packed are less liable to bruising.
Shelf life is prolonged in other ways too. As with bacon where the exclusion of atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen maintains freshness. Similarly in the case of cheese where air getting at the product would dry it out faster and make it mouldy. Vacuum packaging is reckoned generally to prolong shelf-life by 3 to 5 times.
Hotel and Catering - Where Each And Everyday Practically They Ask And Answer The Question: Why Use A Vacuum Packer?
Vacuum packing is met with extensively in the hotel and catering industry also, where the food is prepared and given a clear-film over-wrap until time for its consumption. For these purposes a vacuum packing machine may be used. In the home, where the food keeps longer with make-shift ‘vacuum packing’ than with just refrigeration, we meet with a similar procedure. But it’s not just a matter of air-exclusion, there’s also an improvement in hygiene at the same time.
Climate change
Importantly, all the above actions reduce food waste. The millions and millions of tons of food dumped every year, on rotting, release large quantities of methane and carbon dioxide. This contributes to global warming, so the humble vacuum packing machine plays it’s role in reducing this modern day phenomenon – with it’s consequences for climate change.
Thus the answer to why vacuum pack? might seem to be: to make food last longer. Well the vacuum pack bags you can buy alongside your groceries do generally get used for that but there are medical and other purposes too for this procedure. A vital technology today, gone into in more depth by following the links via the 4 references below:
1. Why get to know the vacuum packer?
2. Your vacuum packer bag in a little more detail
3. The vacuum packer as used just for food
4.The commercial vacuum packer anyone?
The above stated reasons are we trust worthwhile and valid but just another couple considerations may relevantly be of interest. An increasing number of people get involved in vacuum packing via the hobby route.
They may have bagged some succulent game: quail, grouse or whatever. In these days of greater eco awareness, organic produce is at a premium. Wild produces even more so. People know it’s not only good for them being free of antibiotics and other perceived ‘nasties’. And, they contend that such provisions are more tasty too.
One traditional way of preserving has been by freezing. But for delicately tasting food it can be a pity to consume it all in one go for the reason that one is forced to. For if it’s kept longer, whatever way it’s kept, it might not taste quite as nice. In freezing the taste can degrade a little. With vacuum packing, the essential subtleties of flavour are preserved. One can delight one’s friends family and in select instances one’s connoisseur customers for much longer than would otherwise be possible.
But not only is the taste preserved, but importantly the texture of the food and also it’s appearance. So far as one can describe it in ordinary words, with freezing it can be as though the food in some way would lend itself more easily to being shredded! than when it was ‘new’. After vacuum packing, it comes out of the special plastic packaging or canister, with all the succulence and other fine qualities pretty much as it went in. Yum!
An important additional consideration: especially if we’re talking exotic food like game, there’s style of cooking known as ‘sous vide.’ ‘That means, ‘under vacuum.’
Ordinarily food is cooked at high temperatures such as the temperature of boiling water obviously: 100 degrees Centigrade. But more of the essential juices and nice flavours are preserved if it is cooked at lower temperatures. Such as at 60 degrees centigrade which is 140 degrees Fahrenheit. How is this possible? This can be neatly affected if the food, vacuum packed, is cooked while actually vacuum packed. The very top restaurants use the method, and food so prepared may not necessarily be served up while you wait as it can take up to 3 days until it’s properly ready to eat. For sure we are not here talking fast food; truly we can see this would be more for the gourmet!
So that’s quite some info though we say so ourselves, on why use a vacuum packer!
Vacuum Packer Secrets Revealed
To some folks, a well appointed kitchen – complete with vacuum packer – is the central feature of any decent, we could almost say any happy, home.
It used to be the addition of a refrigerator, coffee machine, microwave and the other regular items were sufficient but as we say, the new must have feature is a vacuum packer - alternatively known as a vacuum sealer or vacuum packager.
In this article we’ll check over some main points of these.
Vacuum Packer: Main Points
We’ll look at the material of these macines’ manufacture, what specific type of vacuum packer they are and also the strength of the actual vacuum in the machine.
So firstly what they’re made from. Vacuum sealers are made of different materials or different combinations of materials it must be said. The cheapest machines, are made mostly of plastic. These mostly serve to get one acquainted with the fact that vacuum sealing is possible. They give one an inkling of the fact that one’s leftovers can be make to last just a little bit longer or even a whole lot longer than would otherwise be the case. In other words compared with if the food was just left lying around in the fridge as per normal.
But some vacuum sealers are made of stainless steel. These tend to be professional machines; as found in businesses like delicatessens or food processing factories. They are likely to have plastic parts mostly as trim essentially. In a couple of words they’re robustly made.
Vacuum Packer: what type?
Having considered how they’re made lets look at the machine types
There are two broad types of vacuum sealer: external pouch vacuum sealer and vacuum chamber sealer.
The most popular vacuum sealers you’ll meet are external pouch machines. As the name suggests, the vacuum sealer bag or canister attaches to the end of the machine.They are more popular in that they are cheaper and lighter than vacuum chamber machines. The vacuum sealer that someone is likely to buy as an entry level machine is likely to be this kind. They are more often used domestically rather than industrially.
Vacuum chamber machines are heavier and more rugged. You find them in food processing factories and similar commercial premises. With these, the item to be wrapped needs to fit within the confines of the machine. So if these items are big, then the machine obviously will be big.
One may wonder why someone would get a bulkier machine rather than a light one. To put it simply, the economics of bag usage for instance varies depending on a range of factors and in some instances vacuum chamber machines work out more economically. But this is an entire study in itself.
The other aspect of vacuum sealers we’ve mentioned is the pressure of the vacuum. Cheap vacuum sealers tend to have a weak vacuum. In fact some of them provide a ‘vacuum’ little stronger than met with if one presses the air out by hand! One of the signs that one is dealing with something a cut above that, is that the strength of the vacuum provided, is quoted. Professional level vacuum sealers tend to have a pressure of around -1.0 bar.
So that’s a brief rundown there telling you of: the material of manufacture of the vacuum sealers you’re likely to meet, and it touches on the main types of vacuum sealers you’ll likely find.
In truth matters can become a little more complex if one looks at different types of external bag machine and refinements of them; but broadly what is given here is valid.
We also looked at the strength of the vacuum you may come across in the better type of vacuum packer.