Moisture Absorbers vs Oxygen Absorbers for Dehydrated Foods | Desiccant Pack vs O2 Absorber

hi everybody it's darcy from the purplesville pantry welcome back to my channel today we're going to be talking about the difference between a moisture absorber a desk impact or an oxygen absorber and how they're used with dehydrated foods so stay tuned what we have here is a moisture absorber or also a desk compact or a silica gel pack you'll have quite a few different kind of names for this it is a pack full of little celica beads that are either clear sometimes or they're they look like little like terra cotta balls or sand balls which is basically what silica come from what silica comes from this absorbs moisture this is an o2 absorber it absorbs the oxygen in a container does not absorb any kind of moisture whatsoever it is full of an iron oxide that absorbs the oxygen in the air around it and it is meant to take care of one of the other bad parts of storage for food is oxygen you have moisture heat oxygen well heat slash light so these take care of two of them but they don't work interchangeably and they work for two different reasons so you need to know the reason why you're using it and use it correctly so let's get started with a moisture absorber what this is for is controlling the moisture in the container that you have it can be used to help control um humidity in a jar if you're in and out of the jar often like um let's take onion powder it's notorious for clumping the clumping comes not only from sugar in in the onions that is high and it can compress and compact because of that but also from moisture in the air especially if you are in and out of that jar a lot um or if you have a little bit of onion powder in a large jar and that it will it will immediately start absorbing whatever moisture is in there you can use an oxygen absorber to keep inside to help control the moisture so that your things don't climb what it does not do it does not vacuum seal it does not control any of the oxygen you don't use this for long-term storage if that's your total goal that's not what this is for however the really good thing about this is that it's rechargeable and while i don't have a re i'm out of my rechargeable ones right now i've only got this the plain ones um you can actually put these on a cookie sheet at 250 for about two or three hours your oven will dry them and you can reuse them which is great about these things um but for the most part unless it's a fruit that is that i'm trying to make sure that we're okay with in and out of the jar i don't use these for anything else because i don't need to partly because i rotate through all my food fast enough that i don't have to worry about the long-term effects and partly because i know i'm drying properly however this can be a real security thing for you that if you're not sure use them it's okay it's actually encouraged by the national center for food home for home food preservation to use in foods i encourage you to use it if it helps you and if it helps you have security that you're actually storing your food correctly but it's okay if you don't it's not mandatory one last thing about silica packets you may find these in your vitamins you may find these in your shoe boxes you may find these in your wallets when you buy a wallet or a purse you'll find these in the bottom i want to encourage you to not reuse the ones that you do not know are food safe or that you do not know where they came from uh you do not know if you can actually refresh these because you don't know the environment they've been in do not ever use those you do not know if those are food safe they will not always be marked on the on the actual packet they would be marked on the on the package they came in you don't know if they're food safe you don't know where they've been stored or what they've been in and you don't want to put that inside of your food so let's talk about an oxygen absorber what it does is it removes oxygen out of the container it doesn't remove anything else just oxygen but we often use it interchangeably with the term vacuum sealing they aren't the same thing but the concept is a little alike with a vacuum sealer it removes all of the excess air out of your jar as close as you can get to with a manual with a mechanical device in the home this only removes oxygen and while when using this with a mylar bag you might see the effect of removing the oxygen from the bag where you'll get uh where it seems to shrink up but it does not always happen so don't take that as being the indicator of whether this is working or not now often it might mean that your oxygen absorber has already been used charged and that might make a difference but you'll know that before you put it in and to know the difference between an oxygen absorber that is used and one that's not when you squeeze on the pouch if you feel a crumble and you can hear that you can hear a lot of uh there's a lot of movement in here if you feel that it's powdery and it's movable then it's still good if it's a hard packed pillow of it doesn't move it doesn't do anything that means it has absorbed all the oxygen it's going to and it's time to throw it away so another tip about oxygen absorbers when you're working with them work quickly you get a pack i suggest you actually spend a little extra to buy smaller packs so that you don't have one giant bag that you're trying to deal with unless you're really good at this already but in the beginning buy some smaller packs so work quickly when you if you hav if you can have uh o2 absorbers in an airtight container open it use your jars have them already lined up put a pack in each but make sure you do that container that your o2 absorbers are closed as quickly as you can close your jars up let them sit and it'll do its thing there's nothing you have to do to it so can you diy any of these and in fact you can moisture absorbers can be made with kitty litter now i'm going to link to a video down below from a channel called prep studders who's done a how-to on how to use these and how to make these yourself um i do not bother to make my own because these are cheap i can buy a large bag and i can use it forever because i don't use them often so uh if you're really into the diy i'll link that down below however with more with oxygen absorbers you cannot there is not a diy version of this you must buy them and so is there an alternative to an oxygen absorber there is it's called vacuum sealing and it's the it's the process that i use to store these jars uh when i am not using them um it's the process that i use to do my long-term storage in my pantry or the things that i don't use often or that i restock from and then i can just vacuum seal it up again and the great thing about vacuum sealing it's not a one one time and done you can re you can reseal every jar you ever have so i use um you can see it right here i just keep this little prop in front that's my vacuum sealer it's my large food saver vacuum sealer um but more more than that i actually use a small handheld it's the fs1110 vacuum sealer from foodsaver it's about 25 i like it because it's small it's compact i can do quite a few jars at one time but it's also compact that i can just do one jar at one time i don't have to pull out the big machine i use it to most often and to use it with a jar you do need the foodsaver vacuum seal attachments which i know right now are very hard to find for everybody they will come back in stock you can actually get them on amazon really often by pre-ordering and it comes in about every two weeks it looks like that's about their time frame when they get another shipment um right now usually you can find the wide mouth one pretty easily the regular mouth one is the one that's hard to find because that's what most people use but you can also find a pack that has them both so the basics of it instead of you putting up an oxygen absorber in a container putting the seal on and letting it absorb the oxygen creating that kind of vacuum seal that it does not true vacuum still but that's that's the idea you basically just put this lid on top of a jar you use the food saver to go in here and you turn it on now because it's not charged because i just used it all up but this is what it does and so what it's doing is it's taking out the air out of the jar when it's done and you remove your lid you remove the jar attachment the lid stays on and like i said before i will actually link you to the video on how to use these that it's right above um that way you understand how it works so that's a way to be able um sorry the jar attachment lids are about ten dollars a piece and you can i think you can get this set for around 25 don't spend more i know that the the need right now is great that everybody's really wanting them because they think they need to use them you don't need to use them they're helpful yes but don't feel like if you don't have it right now that you can't dehydrate because you can um but the the don't spend more than about 25 on the set because that's just it's too much that's about how much they cost and especially if you get them on amazon on foodsaver.com there are some other places online that you can look um check your local hardware stores check your local uh light feed stores that might have cutting equipment they might actually have these too so if you have questions please ask them below if i didn't answer them again this was a short brief i hope it was short a short brief use on how to use these with the dehydrator food it doesn't cover the whole the entire gamut of how to use o2 absorbers and all the science behind it but that works specifically for dehydrating i also will link to the post that i wrote so that you can have it and there's there's actually a chart that you can download on the sizes you need for each o2 or desiccant pack so that you know what to buy of course i've linked to a few that i recommend but you don't have to use those links you can find them however you'd like to find them but at least you can get the chart as part of the purposeful pantry library which you just join the email list or you can at least see the uh the breakdown there in the post so i hope this was helpful ask your questions in the comments below read the comments before you ask a question because that way you'll find you'll probably have an answer already there for you and happy dehydrating

Channel: The Purposeful Pantry

Views: 11,793

Rating: 4.952239 out of 5

Keywords: the purposeful pantry, oxygen absorbers, food storage, long term food storage, food preservation, desiccant packs, moisture absorbers for food storage, how to store dehydrated foods, moisture absorber vs oxygen absorber, what is a o2 absorber, oxygen absorbers vs mason jar vacuum, how to use a moisture absorber, how to use an oxygen absorber, oxygen absorbers in mason jars, dehydrated food storage, prepper pantry, prepper food storage, silica gel packs vs oxygen absorbers

Id: 3OBU1udS2Wo

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 01 2020