Vacuum sealer failure

I recently purchased a sealer for preserving leaf hops. All went well and the the crop went to the freezer. Two weeks later, one-third of the packages have lost their seal. Has anyone had experience with this? Are the oils from the hops causing the seal to eventually break?

What type of bags did you use?

I used up the ones that came with the unit as well as Food Saver heat and seal bags

Is your sealer a Food Saver? According to Food Saver, the heat and seal bags are made of the same material as the regular bags, so that shouldn't be a problem. I've never had a problem with storing hops in them, so that shouldn't be the problem. As long as you don't have any fold lines where the seal area is I don't know why your bags failed. May want to post a picture of some of the failed bags. From The Food Saver web site.

Our FoodSaver® Bags and Rolls are designed for FoodSaver® units only. The sealing bar on your unit may either be too hot, which will melt the bags, or too cool, which will result in a bag that is not sealed properly.

Sometimes they just don't seal right. You can just use up those that leak first or cut and reseal. I've found bags that apparently had slow leaks and those hops were still fine up to a year later. Reseal if you're concerned.

B-Hoppy said:

Sometimes they just don't seal right. You can just use up those that leak first or cut and reseal. I've found bags that apparently had slow leaks and those hops were still fine up to a year later. Reseal if you're concerned.

Click to expand...

Also make sure you have plenty of space to seal, as many are im sure i was stingy on my bag length...one bag in particular actually had a few hop leaves stuck in the seal...over a few days it let the vacuum out....had to put it into a larger bag.

I let all of mine sit on a table for a couple of hours, and 5 or 6 lost pressure and re-inflated. It was simple enough at that point to cut them open and reseal them, waiting again to make sure the seal was good. You might try a version of that method next time.

I don't have a food saver brand, but one thing I do when I seal my hops is make a seal, then pull the bag back maybe a quarter of an inch and make a second seal right next to it in parallel. I have never had one lose vacuum in 4+ years.

weirdboy said:

I don't have a food saver brand, but one thing I do when I seal my hops is make a seal, then pull the bag back maybe a quarter of an inch and make a second seal right next to it in parallel. I have never had one lose vacuum in 4+ years.

Click to expand...

I got to start doing this....good idea. I've also discovered the the temperature you store the bags pre-use is also important. I use to leave my Food Saver unit and the bags in my garage. I noticed bags were not sealing and assumed it was the unit. Purchased some new bags as an experiment and the thing works fine again. I'm assuming that keeping the bags in the garage, (where temperatures get really high in the summer), must have partially activated the sealing part of the bags or something. Since I've moved the operation in doors...no issues.

weirdboy said:

I don't have a food saver brand, but one thing I do when I seal my hops is make a seal, then pull the bag back maybe a quarter of an inch and make a second seal right next to it in parallel. I have never had one lose vacuum in 4+ years.

Click to expand...

I don't use mine for hops, but this is what I do with anything of value that I know might be in the freezer for a long time. When I first started doing this, I was actually doing three seals, but I have not had a failure with double-sealing. Just remember to double seal both ends of the bag. Also, the sealing element really likes you if you don't overheat it, so give it some time with the lid open between bags. My friend damaged his expensive Cabela's vacsealer by doing to many seals in quick succession.

Be sure that the area to be sealed stays clean. When you put things in the bag make sure no dust or oils are in that area. I have had no problems with pellet hops. Also the bag needs to be totally flat. No folds or creases.

If you need to put the hops in Saran Wrap then put them in the Foodsaver bags.

kh54s10 said:

Be sure that the area to be sealed stays clean. When you put things in the bag make sure no dust or oils are in that area. I have had no problems with pellet hops. Also the bag needs to be totally flat. No folds or creases.

If you need to put the hops in Saran Wrap then put them in the Foodsaver bags.

Click to expand...

+1

I put my hops in the old-school zip-lock-less sandwich bags first to make sure the area around the seal was clean from any debris. Then I pushed the sandwich bag well below the seal and pumped the air out. As a back up I sometimes put them in old pasta sauce/mason jars.