Dehydrating food for PCT – ziplock bags vs vacuum sealing

[Jen]

Hey folks :) I’m prepping for a 2017 PCT thruhike. I’m an Aussie and dehydrate my own food (am vegetarian so run out of options quickly otherwise). However as I’m flying over to the States for PCT, I don’t want to prep food here in Aus, as I’m worried quarantine could take it off me at the border (I’ve read the regulations on it and it sounds a bit hit and miss).

Instead, I’ve got five days in an airbnb in the Sierras in which to dehydrate as much food as I can. I’m hoping to just prep for sections where the local shops are meant to be harder to resupply from (Washingon in particular).

I’ll be bringing over my 9 tray dehydrator with me so am good on that front. My question really concerns how to keep the meals until Washington – the meals will be made about five months before I eat them. I usually store and cook my food in ziplock sandwichs bags (I’ve made a bag cosy) but I’ve only kept stuff in them for max six weeks before.

I was going to get a vacuum sealer but have read a few other threads on here with folks recommending against them. Has anyone else stored single serves of meals (curry, risotto, eggs etc) for several months in ziplocks, and if was it okay? I’ve heard of using a straw to get more air out – is there another technique to also improve the seal on them? Ie using an iron? My resupply boxes will be sent from KS if that makes a difference.

If anyone’s got any other tips on PCT food resupplying, I’m all ears.

Thanks :)

[Nick Smolinske]

I recommend vacuum sealing – just make sure that sharp ingredients don’t poke holes in the bags. You can double-bag in a ziplock first (leave a corner open), maybe add some paper towels as well.

I would also recommend just purchasing ingredients online and then creating your own meals, rather than the 5 day dehydrating session. You could have a variety of ingredients shipped to that airbnb and then spend your days putting meals together.

Here are some ideas for where to get ingredients:

Spicesinc.com is good for onions, garlic, and some veggies. Karen’s Naturals is good for a few more (like some freeze-dried veggies). Mother Earth products on amazon is good for all other dried veggies. thrivelife.com is good for freeze dried meats.

That’s my basic go-to list for purchasing ingredients but I’m sure there are more options out there.

[Matthew / BPL]

^that seems like a great idea.

Two other sources of ingredients are Honeyville Farms and Packit Gourmet. I’ve used veggies and beans from both and been very pleased with their products.

[JCH]

+1 on vacuum sealing and look out for pointy ingredients :)  Although, you’ll know you have a problem within a hour or so of sealing something. For those problematic pointy ingredients I’ve been meaning to try lining the bag with something like parchment or baking paper.  I wouldn’t want anything too absorbent in the bag for any length of time.

As for sources of ingredients, I’ll throw out My Spice Sage.  I like their cheddar cheese powder better than any other I have found…more cheese flavor and (seemingly) less salt.  They also have great sour cream powder and butter powder.  And then they have “crazy” things like apple cider vinegar powder and bee pollen powder!  I’ve purchased several times and been quite happy.

Another source I have had good luck with is The Ready Store. Great selection of freeze dried veggies (and meats) albeit generally only available in fairly large quantities (#10 cans).  I was VERY surprised and pleased with the Saratoga Farms shredded cheddar cheese…good taste and surprisingly low sodium (unlike most powdered cheese)

 

[rick .]

Here’s how I worked the resupply:

For california, I pre-boxed, sent by mom along the way.  I pre-made vacuum sealed dinners.  I never had trouble, some of these dinners were made in March and eaten in May.
in Ashland I shipped ahead Oregon’s food
in Cascade Locks I shipped ahead Washington’s food

Ashland is a full-service town, with a hippie-dippy grocery, outdoor store, pharmacy, etc.  Cascade Locks is less, just a regular grocery store and a few other things.  You can send yourself your special stuff to those two towns, then add from the grocery other stuff to send ahead.

I will warn you, I had a 12-dinner rotation of really good dinners, and I was sick of them before Oregon, and switched to store-bought dinner options, Knoor sides, potatoes, ramen.

Backpacker’s Pantry sells several kits of many different veggies, which was good for starting my dinners with variety.  I mixed in couscous, pasta, potato flakes and seasoned.  You could buy them along the way, ship to Ashland, and have fresh veggies to bag up and send ahead.

I don’t know about women (our bodies handle this differently) but I continued to lose weight (190>145) until I doubled my protein powder intake from 1 to 2 scoops per day.  Consider a breakfast or dinner shake: Protein powder, carnation instant breakfast (sugar and vitamins), Nido powdered whole milk (fat and calories), instant coffee.  I even like granola or oatmeal with this slurry!

[Greg Mihalik]

I’m a fan of ziplocks.

They will pack tighter into whatever space is available far better than weirdly shaped slabs.

The vac bags I have seen are thicker than ziplocks, and result in a larger volume of trash. I can get all trash from 6 days into a “sandwich” size ziplock.

A ziplock “storage bag” will last longer than “sandwich bag”.  But on a 5 to 6 day resupply schedule single use food bags don’t need to be very robust.

However, if robust (continuous side-welded seams) and “pretty darn near odor-proof” bags are needed, “zip” and “heat-seal” versions  can be found at http://www.discountmylarbags.com/specialty-mylar-bags/

YMMV, HYOH, N/A, etc

Have fun out there.

[Nick Smolinske]

I think the best way to use the vacuum bags in this case is not to bring them on the hike. You can package multiple meals into ziplocks and seal them into the same vacuum pack. That way they will keep for several months, but you also aren’t using to many of them. And you don’t have to carry them on the hike, you can toss them in the trash at your resupply point.

I definitely wouldn’t use only ziplocks for storage for more than a few weeks. More than a month is getting too long, IMO. In my experience they will lose a lot of quality.

[Jen]

Hi guys, thanks so much for the feedback. I hadn’t even considered assembling meals from pre-dried ingredients. That definitely sounds like a great option. And I really appreciate the tips re where to buy from. I’m going to order myself a Foodsaver online :)

[JCH]

I like Nick’s idea of vacuum sealing a weeks worth of meals packed into ziplocks into a single vacuum bag. Ingenious.

[Diane Pinkers]

Fair warning on the vacuum packed bags: when trying to cram as much food as you can into a bear canister, you will get more in if the food is in ziploc bags.  I tried the vacuum pack routine once in the bear canister, and promptly took everything out, ripped open the bags and re-packed in ziploc bags.  Vacuum pack turns into hard rectangular slabs, which will create lots of empty volume in the round canister.  Softer, more conformable packing allowed me to get an additional day’s worth of food for me and my boyfriend into the canister.

The vacuum pack of the ziploc bags sounds like a winner for long-term food prep.  I’m not sure it makes a difference, if you are assembling from already freeze-dried ingredients.  Love Pack-It Gourmet’s selection. I do like Outdoor Herbivore’s instant quinoa and Cocoa Nutty Chomps, but they may not be efficient at sending en-route.

[Diane Pinkers]

PS–if you haven’t looked at Aria Zoner’s videos on wholefoodhiker.com, may want to consider it. He hikes vegan, not vegetarian, but I love his quinoa soup recipe at dinner.  His shakes and other stuff are a little more trouble than I care to take, but for protein for a vegetable based diet it might be worth it for someone else.   His emphasis on real food is better than the ramen/pop tart approach for sure.

[Terry Sparks]

For thru hiking the PCT, I used ziplock bags for uncooked meals such as breakfast, no cook deserts, protein powder, extra Nido etc. which had dry ingredients only and put one full wrap of scotch tape around the bag to keep it from opening up and, for identifying the meal with a lable stuck underneath the tape. For  meals that were cooked and dehydrated, I used the vacuum sealer for a longer and safer self life. I supplied all my own food by cooking, dehydrating and boxing it up before starting the hike, which meant that it was going to sit in a box, in my garage for up to four months. I never had a problem with food spoilege, including the dehydrated pork, chicken, turkey and beef. Before the PCT hike, I tried  idea of putting multiple meals in individual ziplocks,  then sealing them all in one vacuum bag, which didn’t work for me. What I found was that at least one, usually more of the  ziplock bags would fail if I didn’t get enough air out of the bag before squeezing it down while going through the vacuuming process, so I just abandoned that idea.  What I found with getting the vacuum sealed meals in the bear canister worked much better if I used a bag slightly bigger than needed and then, punctured a small hole in it at my resupply point, then break up the “brick” it became to be.  For dehydrating the meats, I put them through the gender, cooked, drained the fats, grind again, rinse off remaining fat in colander with hot water, then dehydrate.  This worked quite well as the meats were ground to be small enough for easy rehydration on the trail, without turning it into powder, while also getting the fats out of it, which kept it from becoming rancid while it sat in my garage during the summer months.

[David Thomas]

“I’ll be bringing over my 9 tray dehydrator with me”

This jumped out at me.  While your cell-phone and camera chargers are almost certainly 110-240VAC / 50-60Hz switching power supplies*, things that make heat (toaster, space heaters, hot plates, dehydrators) are typically for a fixed voltage.  Look carefully at the voltage/amps label on your dehydrator to see if it works on 120 Volts AC and 60 Hertz.  If you’re not sure, a 5-tray dehydrator is only US$30-40 at Walmart and you could just leave/donate it when you’re done.

*so if you can physically connect your chargers to the mains in the USA, they’ll work, but you’ll need to bring adaptors to do that.  I bring one adaptor overseas and a domestic (USA for me, AU for you) extension cord with multiple outlets for use in airports, hotels, etc.  Then I only need one adaptor.  But for hiking, where you want things to simple and light, you may want to just get US versions of your chargers.  They can be really cheap off of eBay (double-check the shipping time if out of China/Hong Kong).

[David Thomas]

I too, recommend buying dehydrated ingredients and mixing up your own meals in zip-lock bags.  I get Harmony House brand, and some others, off of Amazon.  Red beans, black beans, carrots, minced onions, peas, green beans, etc,   Then I put in a variety of dried sauce/spice mix to give some flavor and variety.  An ounce of coconut-milk powder and a pinch of yellow red or green curry powder is my favorite.

Instant Rice (“Uncle Ben’s” in the USA) and instant mashed potatoes are available at all grocery stores and are a cheap and light way to provide a base of calories to which you can add dried veggies, cheese powder, butter, bacon bits, etc for flavor, protein and nutrients.

Spend a few of your pre-trip days tested different combos.  For instance, beans and rice go well together, are traditional foods throughout much of the world, and between them provide all the essential amino acids.  But while the dehydrated beans reconstitute faster than dried beans (soak for hours, simmer for another hour), they do take 30-40 minutes of soaking prior to heating to serve (or just eat cold); instant rice reconstitutes much faster.  Point being: you need to pack them in separate zip-lock bags because you can’t start to soak them at the same time.

Dehydrated powdered tomato can serve as a base for a pasta sauce (and maybe other sauces) without the water weight of packaged marinara or even the more concentrated can/tube of tomato paste.

[David Thomas]

Sounds like you could use an “off-trail angel” to be a recipient of Amazon packages of dried foods.  Wouldn’t you rather step on the plane in AU having heard weeks before that some BPLer in CA had all those amazon boxes (maybe opened and consolidated because, Man! Amazon ships in some big boxes!) waiting for you in their garage?

If you post your itinerary (arrive LAX, drive through Fresno or arrive SFO and drive south) you might get a volunteer to be the USA shipping address for those mail-order foods.  I’ve staged stuff for BPLers hiking in Alaska and/or loaned them stuff like bear spray and pre-bought fuel that they couldn’t fly with.

[David Thomas]

Definitely TMI, but I did this in reverse for a NZ backpacking trip, shipping in advance to locals (because of border controls on foods) and ate this sort of meal every day because we had a few vegetarians (plus a lacto-ova and a lacto-ova-icthy along) and it was easier to just cook vegetarian stuff.

The TMI bit: with that much fiber and no meat in my diet, I needed a lot less toilet paper.  I was pooping like a rabbit, not a fox.

[David Thomas]

Oh, and if you’re ordering Amazon stuff anyway, get a $5 digital scale for weighing ingredients / portions.  That’s especially helpful if you’ve test-cooked test-eaten a few meals and dial in how much you want in each meal.  At least check the calories per gram/ounce per ingredient and get enough calories for your body size and km/day in each day’s meal plan.

[Diane Pinkers]

David, at least you were pooping like a rabbit,  and not like a cow. ;-)

[Haiku]

Yeah, so I basically did pretty much exactly this for my AT thru last year.  Was out of the country until right before.

I *meant* to vacuum seal and even found a free one through free cycle, but it was just too much to manage.  I dehydrated meats even and everything was fine 5 months later in just normal ziplocks.  I don’t know that you SHOULD, but it was totally fine.

It took me about 5 whole days to dehydrate (120 dinners + some miscellaneous fruits and things). There was a lot of downtime in between of course…I had a few more days than you so I used the downtime to visit friends, day hikes, etc. but you could squeeze the subsequent 3.5 days of packaging stuff I did after in there (I made my own trail mix, portioned out things like bulk veggie chips, DIY drink mixes etc as well as distributing things like bars, jerky etc into boxes and going over the maildrop plan with my mom).

I did have an address in the US (thanks mom) that I could ship Amazon stuff to as well as things from sponsors.  I highly recommend this if possible, it’s just easier not to worry if things will get there in time.  If you will ship then definitely get prime for peace of mind.  The other thing I would mention is if you are doing it from SoCal area it’s quite likely you can find a cheap or free dehydrator to buy/borrow.  There are tons of yuppie hippie types who are into health foods but never end up using theirs.  I put out a request on facebook amongst LA friends, I had 3 dehydrators offered up in 20 minutes.  Used two tho one didn’t work that well.

I am super glad I did this, I never ever got tired of anything I was eating other than 1 or 2 of the trail mixes (I made 6 types) and still miss my meals (my current job provides food so I don’t have a ton of control over what’s available, can’t cook here).  I really felt great on my hike and I think it’s because of the good quality (organic, grass-fed, pastured, paleo etc) stuff I was eating, at least on trail.  However I am working a crazy job right now before my PCT thru this year with the same 10ish days from arriving in the US to hiking, so I don’t know if I will do it again.  Hey!  If you are starting around when I am maybe I’d even go in on that airbnb with you, and can hook you up with free dehydrators.

But the main reason I hesitate this year is also because I decided I want to see if I can go stoveless, at least to start.  Why not find something even more complicated to arrange?  Haha. I had dietary issues too and planning can sure be hard, but it’s doable!

[Yoyo]

Quick question for you guys: What method does Mountain House and other big companies use to preserve their food?  I have some of the laying around my house, and they don’t appear to be vacuum sealed.  Are they just heat sealing and using O2 absorbers?  If this is the case, why don’t more people at home use a heat sealer instead of a vacuum sealer?  Heat sealers are cheaper, allows one to open and close packaging relatively easily (just seal it back up once you open), and allows one to use lighter weight packaging.  I own a heat sealer, and am thinking of doing this for my CT thru hike.  I also think this is the method that PackitGourmet uses if I’m not mistaken.

[JCH]

Vacuum sealing is a way of removing as much oxygen as possible from the package, thus reducing oxidation of the contents.  Factory packaged products like MH (and snack chips, jerky, etc) flush the bags with nitrogen prior to sealing in order to drive the oxygen out.

[Valerie E]

I have been “assembling” my own backpacking dinners from pre-made/ordered ingredients for the last few years.  I wouldn’t go back to “off the shelf” or even home dehydrated now (because I’m spoiled by the variety and yumminess).  I use Amazon, Packit Gourmet, Minimus.biz, Honeyville, Barry Farms, and other sources to get my ingredients.  It’s really nice to end a tough day on the trail with something you really enjoy eating!

I use vacuum-sealed bags (carefully cut down to fit the meal more tightly), and I add an oxygen absorber.  I really like the method, and I’ve eaten things 3-4 months later, even though some were stored at high temperatures.

I’ve never had a problem getting my vacuum-sealed food into my bear canister — I’ve gotten 9 days/8 nights into a custom 12″ Bearikade.  Yes, I packed it neatly and carefully, but it all fit.

I agree with David that it would be optimal to have a California-based person accepting packages for you in advance (I would do it, but I’m not in CA).  I know that I appreciated David’s help last summer in Alaska (thank you, again, David!!!).

P.S.  Thanks, JCH for the interesting factoid about the nitrogen.  Who knew?

[Yoyo]

I don’t have a vacuum sealer.  Could I get away with just buying O2 absorbers and adding them to sandwhich bags?  Would this work?  The problem with vacuum sealing is that one doesn’t have a useable bag for FBC cooking…Someone correct me if I’m wrong on this.  In my own case, the max time that the food would be sitting around would be around 6 weeks or so.  I have dehydrated ground beef, dehydrated spaghetti sauce, DIY Ramen meals, etc.

Thoughts?  I leave in less than 2 weeks for my trip!

[JCH]

You might be able to get away with a oxygen absorber, but the problem is that sandwich bags don’t seal very well allowing air both in and out…blow up a gallon ziplock and try using it for a pillow :)  I would personally not want to eat meat that had been in a ziplock at room temperature (or worse) for 6 weeks. OTOH, vacuum sealed (also add the absorber for belt and suspenders approach) should be perfectly fine.

These are the zipper vacuum bags I’ve been using for FBC…work great.  You can get a perfectly acceptable sealer for less than $35.  BPLers have posted that you can often find them in second hand or thrift stores for pennies on the dollar.

[Yoyo]

@JCH

Thanks for your response.  I just got an email from PackitGourmet.  It appears they use an oxygen absorber and heat seal their bags rather than vacuum sealing.  Their products are advertised as having a shelf life of 1 year.  I do concur with your thoughts on the sandwhich bags.  They are pretty thin.  However, I think I’m going to place the sandwhich bag in a larger, sturdier quart size bag and then seal that.  This is pretty much what Packit does; however, they use a slightly thicker boil-in-bag.  I do use their boil-in-bags for some meals but mostly quart bags from the grocery store for FBC style cooking in my pot.

Further thoughts?  The food will be at relatively high elevations (9000′ and above) in Colorado, so in a relatively arid environment, and mostly stored indoors with the exception of my last food drop which is at Molas Lake Campground.  In that case, it’s a bit more uncertain, although it will be pretty high in elevation (over 10000′).

[Author]

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