I put up 80 lbs rice and 40 oats and 40 beans and the Oxygen absorbers and mylar bags worked great but then I put 50 lbs of hard white berries same way down to the t and it barely shrunk down same bags and Oxygen absorbers what could I have done wrong or does it take longer for them to work.the oats,rice and beans took around 20/30 minutes I guess to shrink down
These things can vary. Did you squeeze out the same amount of air, was the bag more or less full, was there a small air leak when you heated the bag shut? I never bother to check until the next day. Then decide if I need to do something to fix it. It has helped me to seal most of the bag then to use the small narrow end of a vacuum cleaner and suck out all the air I can before I totally seal the end. Good luck.
Thank you will check after work
My mylar bags are due to arrive tomorrow, they come with OAs, will fill the bags, adding bay leaves, then sucking out as much air as possible with the vacuum hose, sealing the bags first almost all the way, leaving a hole smaller than a drinking straw then using a brake bleeder pump, getting as much out as I can before sealing the hole. OK, in THEORY..... will see how it goes.
We are sealing up 100 pounds of red wheat and 50 of whole oat groats into 5 gal. Mylar bags, into 5 gal buckets.
We previously bagged 100 pounds of white hard and soft wheat by filling gallon ziplock bags, laying them flat inside buckets as we didn't have mylar bags yet. I'm hoping that, if, by chance, there is a weevil or other bug in one, or two, they won't infest the entire bucket. Just a 1st timer trying to 'do the things' to the best of our ability.
I did some bags and found that if too much air is left inside, the OA may not be able to react them out. So, try to squeeze as much air out as possible.
I also notice that larger legumes will have more air space between grains, so those bags will naturally have more air inside. From that experience, I tried to shake, vibrate, etc to try to better settle everything inside, then squeeze as much out before sealing with the iron.
Or, if you bought extra OA packs, then double up on the OA. I know they are not cheap.
"Hard White Berries"? Were they dry? I was going to say what JChangOC said. Load it, seal it, watch it. Not working, repack. I have had to repack some. Inevitable. For items with larger spacing in between, I doubled the 2,000 O2 packs. I just like to see the bag shrink at least a little. But remember what I didn't know when I started vacuum (literally) sealing... all of the air does not have to be removed for the O2 absorber to remove the 'O2'.