Using a vacuum seal clothing bag. A couple notes:
Starting the edges of the silicon ziploc before placing in the plastic bag helps ensure it doesn’t become misaligned during the process.
I place the bag near the valve then use a loose weave cloth under the valve to prevent the plastic from interfering. This allows me to get out as much air as possible.
It can be necessary to hold the silicon ziploc seal open slightly during the initial vac, otherwise it can be the first thing to be squeezed closed by the plastic bag, sealing in air.
Feeling around the item with your hand to try and remove any final air pockets can also help.
Don’t forget to seal the silicon ziploc before opening the plastic bag! Overall I’m pretty pleased with the results.
by TwoPercentTokes
17 Comments
Chamber vacuum sealer?
Clever
Fair play to you. My life is far too short for this.
The real question is, why isn’t someone manufacturing large silicon bags with a vacuum seal valve?
It will work for a while but it doubt it stays for longer than a couple of days since silicone is not a barrier for oxygen. Great trick though
What concerns over using plastic?
Isn’t silicone a plastic?
Everyone out there is using BPA free bags?
This was a good response to microplastics in a thread 2 weeks ago by someone working with plastics: https://www.reddit.com/r/sousvide/s/f4gdGPE1vI
TLDR; Proper sous vide bags are safe
Maybe use a short dowel rod or marble in the end of the bag that you can squeeze out when it’s time to seal? Might be less tedious than trying to keep it open through the vacuum bag.
I’m confused, how big is it?
If this is a consumption issue and not a general waste issue (you’re concerned about ingesting microplastics from standard bags vs. wasting so many single use standard bags) you’re barking up the wrong tree. Temperature rated food grade vacuum bags are 100% safe under the rated working temperatures. If you’re worried about the impact of single use plastic bags for sous vide, then silicone (or any reusable temp/food safe) bags are probably a great solution.
It’s very clever, almost like an engineers response to a simple problem but man if plastic is really that bad, it’s already too late for us. Then it’s only a matter of time after everyone switches to silicone that we figure out that’s bad too.
This is genius, thank you for figuring this out!
Funny, when I posted a virtually identical video the opther day it was voted down five times:
https://www.reddit.com/r/sousvide/comments/1kqd2q1/comment/mt62gs8/
Am I not the only one who just sticks a straw in the little gap at the end of a seal and sucks out the last bit of air? Works if there is no other option
I’ve been using silicon reusables for ever and just use water immersion. Works just fine but this is quite clever for sure.