Dry-Packs 10 5 Gallon Mylar Bags with Oxygen Absorbers for Food Storage, 2000cc Oxygen Absorber, Long Term Food Storage Solution, Durable and Reliable Mylar Bags, 20"x30" Silver

I had great results with these Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers. I use the bags to store dry goods like pasta, beans, rice, wheat, and cornmeal for long term food storage. Together with 6" Portable Hand Held Heat Sealer (Model KF-150CST) For Mylar Bags For Long Term Food Storage it is a great system that saves me so much money over commercially produced products. With this system I am able to see, and know the quality of the product in the bag before sealing. I like the confidence in checking the seal, and knowing that everything was done correctly. Food storage can get expensive pretty quickly, so I look for the best, not the cheapest product to store things with. These bags are plenty large enough for both 5 and 6 gallon buckets that can be found at a local hardware store for a couple dollars. Easily enough extra space to reseal if you needed to. The oxygen absorbers worked well for me, and performed as they should. This proved to be a great package deal with quality products and I will definately order it again.

I am a relatively new prepper and decided to buy Mylar bags to store dried food items in addition to my collection of canned goods. After watching some YouTube videos and reading some articles regarding how Mylar bags work, this combo package of Mylar bags and accompanying oxygen absorbers seemed like a good deal. It seems I made the right choice.I bought 1 gallon sized bags in addition to the 5 gallon sized. I started by filling the 1 gallon bags with about 5lbs of long grain rice as a test. I decided that since I have a vacuum sealer that the best thing for me to do to conserve the oxygen absorbers was to transfer them into a new sealed pouch upon opening them rather than going the mason jar route which would mean they would lose a little extra absorbancy each time I opened it (more oxygen to filter). So after opening the o2 baggie and quickly placing two absorbers into my rice-filled mylar bag, I sealed the remaining o2 absorbers up in a vacuum sealed bag (they come with a visible color-changing oxygen gauge as well which is nice).Side note: For those who do not know, oxygen absorbers work by forcing oxidation, or the process of rusting which consumes oxygen. This works in the same way as those hand warmers you see everywhere in the winter (in places that get cold during the winter). Yes, the o2 absorber gets warm in the bag.Moving back to my experience... Once I sealed all the o2 absorbers up with my vacuum sealer, I then proceeded to close up the 1 gallon mylar bags of rice. I flattened out the top of the bag and pushed out as much air as I could by hand. I turned my iron up as high as it would go and began to iron the bag closed. I quickly realized that I was melting some spots on the bag and turned it down until I found a comfortable setting that would seal the bag without melting it (note, do not use steam!). The second bag sealed flawlessly with my new setting. I repeated this process with the bulk rice I purchased bagging up 25lbs of rice in a 5 gallon mylar bag. I put this bag into a 5 gallon bucket, placed a metal level across the top of the bucket to use as a makeshift ironing board, and ironed about 80% of the large bag shut. I turn added in a large o2 absorber, resealed the absorbers with the same process as the smaller ones and then repeated the process of removing as much air as possible and finishing up the seal on the 5 gallon bag. The larger bag in the bucket was much more challenging to seal and I couldn't get as much air out as I wanted before sealing it up, but it sealed nonetheless.Many people wonder about knowing if the o2 absorber is doing its job. The expectation is that as the o2 is absorbed, the bag will shrink-wrap to the contents. I have found this to be the case depending on how much air you remove before sealing the mylar. The smaller 1 gallon bags resulted in a vacuum-type seal after about a day of sitting because I was able to get most of the air out. I couldn't get the larger bags nearly empty of air by hand, so they haven't vacuum sealed. However one has to understand that the air on Earth is approximately 21% oxygen and the other 79% is primarily nitrogen, because of this, if you have quite a bit of air in the bag when you seal it, you will not notice much decrease in volume of the bag's air even if it removes all of the oxygen. At most, it can only be decreased by 21% so a vacuum seal is not necessarily an indicator of success or failure. You can ensure the bag is sealed by putting pressure on it when the seal cools down and ensuring that it does not "go down" by the air escaping somehow. If you know it is sealed properly but there is quite a bit of air in the bag, you have to put your trust in the oxygen absorbers to do their job without it showing. Unless it is defective, you should be fine. If it isn't, you have no real way of knowing other than feeling for warmth as it absorbs oxygen (I'm not sure if this would even be possible, but it cannot hurt to try).I have now sealed up many 5 gallon buckets of rice, beans, and pasta as I expand my long-term storage supplies, and I can attest to the quality of these bags as long as they are stored so that rodents cannot get to them. I believe my food will be safe in these bags for many years, and I plan on purchasing more when I use these up. These bags are an essential supply for all preppers!

Durability,Storage capacity,Zipper quality,Thickness,Produce freshness,Ordering some more in smaller sizes.

As an LDS member, we strive to ensure that we have some extra food put away for a time when maybe food, water and supplies are hard to get. Some of my friends seem to think that I fall into one of two categories: 1) I'm getting ready for the apocalypse or 2) Zombie Hoards!!Although some extra supplies during either of these highly improbable events would be great, that is NOT what I am doing. The catastrophic events that plague most of us at least once or twice in each of our lives is much more common, and less dramatic; power outage, ice storm, hurricane or other natural disaster. Other times, it's not a natural event, but just a series of man-made events that can cause some interruption in our normal day-to-day lives; car problems, high bills or unemployment. Any of these unfortunate events can cause a SERIOUS road bump in our already stressful lives, and having a little extra stored up from time to time, when times are good, is any excellent way to make the harder times of life a little easier.Ok ok, I'm off the soap box. So, on to the review. As I'm sure you know by now, I've decided that the best way for me to ensure a level of 'normalcy' for my family is to put up some long-term food storage. I bought these mylar bags with oxygen absorbers to put up some oats.My Pros-- The bags came sealed up in a plastic bag- great! The O2 absorbers were also sealed in a bag (and when I took them out of the bag they were all soft, which is how you test them by the way) - great! As some of the other reviewers has stated, their orders had bags with some holes where the creases were; mine had none - great!Once I packed my oats in the bags, which were also in 5 gallon buckets, I placed the O2 absorbers on top, sealed them up with an iron, and everything was fine. I had no problems at all, and the bags and O2 packets worked just fine!My only con... These bags were a little thin. Other youtube videos I've seen show some pretty thick bags, and I just 'thought' these would be thick. It's not really a con though, because everything worked out awesome, and I'll be ordering these bags again.Conclusion - The shipment was very fast, the bags and O2 absorbers were awesome, and I'd order them again. Please consider putting some food and other supplies away for the future. It will be nothing but handy. BanjoPants out...

Very useful and easy-to-use.