How to Seal a Mylar Bag in a 5-gallon bucket
November 1, 2010, Submitted by: Ken Tweet
Fill and seal a Mylar bag to use inside of a cheap five gallon bucket for long term food storage.
Unless you are finding food grade five gallon buckets for free from your neighborhood bakeries, etc.., instead of spending the money on food grade buckets, spend the money on cheap five gallon buckets at your home improvement center and use the extra cash you save on that purchase to buy yourself some Mylar bags, Oxygen absorbers, 
The Mylar bags will completely seal the food. The seal, along with an oxygen absorber will eliminate any buggies that may already be in the food, and keep the food fresh in the absence of oxygen.
The Gamma lids lids will make your life much easier when it comes time to break in to your five gallon buckets for usage. They also seal air tight with a rubber O-ring gasket on the ring and the screw top lid.
How to seal a Mylar bag for long term food storage
If using a Gamma Screw Top Lid, snap on the gamma ring to the top of the bucket.
Insert a Mylar bag designed to fit a five gallon bucket.
Dump the food stuff into the Mylar bag to keep for long term storage (e.g. long grain white rice). Be sure to leave about an inch space from the top of the bucket to ensure that the lid will screw on, and the excess Mylar bag material will stuff inside.
Add a 2,000 cc oxygen absorber to the filled bag. Oxygen absorbers come new in a sealed bag. When the bag is opened, the oxygen absorbers should be used immediately and any extras should immediately be stored in a glass mason jar.
Use a flat board or any flat smooth object to lie underneath and across the open end of the Mylar bag. This will assist making the seal.
Use a hot Iron to press and seal across the open seam of the Mylar, while stopping just short of the end, leaving an opening to burp out the excess air.
An Iron heat seating from three-quarters to full heat will work OK. The Iron will not melt the Mylar to goo, so don’t worry. My Iron has remained clean throughout. Run the Iron across the seam a few times while pressing mildly.
Burp out the remaining air that is inside the Mylar bag through the small open end that has not yet been sealed. The oxygen absorber will pull out the rest of the air afterward, so don’t worry about squeezing all the air out.
Position the open Mylar corner at an angle compared to the original ironed seam, place the flat board underneath and Iron across a few times to make the final seal.
Fold the excess of the Mylar bag into the five gallon bucket and wait 12 hours before checking back to be sure the oxygen absorber pulled the remaining air out of the bag. This will let you know that the Ironed seal is good to go. The bag should have a vacuum crumpled look.
I like to leave a nutrition note inside the bucket. Definitely be sure to label the outside of the five gallon bucket with the ingredient as well as the year and month. I like to use white artist’s tape
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Test: Do You Need Food Storage?
Just take this a simple test and you will know if you need food Storage. Listed below are a few things that can and have happened here and around the world. Please read each item carefully. Then I will ask you one question. Your answer to this question will determine if you need Food Storage.
1: Floods: Mass destruction in the path of the flood. Washes roads and bridges away.
2: Earthquakes: You can fill this one in on your own. Think about Japan.
3: Tornado: Power grid destroyed. Months to recovery.
4: Hurricanes: Just think of Katrina.
5: Extreme Heat: Power grid overloaded and fails. Power generating plants have not been upgraded for over 35 years. Power grip also not ungraded.
6: Extreme Cool: See 5 and add gas grid fails and trucks cannot run.
7: Money devalued: Prices skyrocket instantly, on all products and services. Read something about Germany’s inflation after WW1. A bag full of Mark’s today, a wheelbarrow full needed tomorrow
8: Financial Meltdown: Currency worthless, only barter. Food is the best currency to have to barter.
9: Banks Closed: No cash and no credit. Everything closes.
10: State and Federal Governments go Bankrupt: Millions added to unemployment roll, no money to pay. More likely to because of our debt, no one will lend us money and we will have to print more dollar further weakening our already weak dollar.
11: Unemployment at 50%: No work, no money and no hope. Looting on grand scale. Gangs of Hunger people roaming the streets of every city, town and village in search of something to eat.
12: Terrorist Attack: Nuclear or Conventional, recovery months or years, if at all.
13: Collapse of Federal Government: Dictatorship installed to save country, everything is rationed. Many will say that this cannot happen in the US, but it is happening in Greece, Turkey and all the Muslin countries.
14: Electro-Magnetic Pulse: Commonly called a sun spot. Destroys Electric Grid and all satellites, without exception.
Every thing electronic will be effect in some way from complete destruction to needs major repairs.
15: Any combination or all of the above.
Now the question:
“Where will you get your food if 2 or more of these things happen at the same time”?
It is your decision, but all of these things have happen, somewhere in the world, at some time in the past and they will happen again, this time when we are Financially, Politically and Emotionally valuable
Don Ruane
I love storing foods in mylar bags. You can find all sizes on-line. Just a helpful tip though, make sure the steam setting is OFF . You need to use DRY IRON ONLY. (guess how I know?) I eventually got it all cleaned off though……..:)
Say you seal up rice this way, what can we reasonably suspect its shelf life to be?
I would suspect it would shelve for a very long time if sealed and stored properly. Say, 10 – 20 years for white rice. Storage temperature is very important. The cooler the better.
I think you want to be above freezing. Not sure.
Be well.
Thanks! I never exactly knew how much oxygen absorbers to use. I do now. Thanks!
Thanks everyone for this info and the great site,i read everyday!!I am new to this any info is great!!Thanks
I’ve been storing food in mylar with 02 absorbers for a while now, but one thing I recently came across was the threat of botulism – a deadly bacteria that thrives in oxagyn free environments (such as our bags) with some moisture. Now I’m not totally sure (nor can I find) what % of moisture the bacteria could thrive on in the low/no 02 environment, but I know that too much of it can really ruin your day, and should you be in a situation where you need to use this food, it’s possible that medical care might not be readily available.
Just wondering what your thoughts were on this.
any thoughts on vacume sealing in a quart mason jar with a food saver attachment? Rice , beans flour etc? shelf life ?
I have a food saver. Only use the plastic. Seems safer than trying to evacuate air from a jar. You might want to try to on a small scale.
Be well.
WAY LONG TERM STORAGE OLIVE OIL
OZONATED OLIVE OIL AT ROOM TEMPERATURE 20 DEGREES CELSIUS, HOW MANY YEARS CAN BE STORED IN ORDER CAN BE EATEN?
OF COURSE, BEFORE EAT MUST BE HEATING!
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE
ANASTASIOS
Depending on what type of olive oil, the shelf life will range from 6 months to as much as 3 years.
VIRGIN OLIVE OIL!
AND SOMETHING OTHER USEFUL,
SALTED COD CAN BE STORED IN MYLAR BAGS?
Are hand warmer packets good oxygen absorbents
I like to use gallon size bags. I then put several in a 5 gallon bucket. If I ned to get into the product I don’t have to ruin the seal on the entire batch.
Also, use a hair flat iron to seal your bags. Easier than a clothes iron!
@All; I have posted this info before, but I’ll repeat it. You can find used 5 gallon buckets at bakeries (frosting), fast food places (pickles) and other commodities. Don’t be cheap on the lids, buy new ones. When you have cleaned your buckets out (another post all its own) you can store almost anything in them. If you store dry foods in them, you can store pasta, rice, beans, wheat (and other grains), NFD Milk, etc. If you do, use 5 gallon + Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers (I don’t know if hand warmers are the same). I use an iron (I don’t trust hair flat irons) and a board across the top of the bucket. Just fill the bag with the product, throw in 2 absorbers and seal. The advantage of the iron is that you can seal a very wide swath across the top and guarantee an airtight seal and it’s fairly easy, no big deal. I also put diatomaceous earth in all the dry goods as a natural bug killer (it kills by mechanical action…it is not a chemical)for long term preservation. Grains and rice should last 20 years or more and beans will last 10 years but you will need a pressure cooker. As for oil I have an ongoing experiment with some things in storage that have been in storage since 1998. Crisco is one of those things. I opened one about 18 mos ago that was 12 years old and it was perfect…..cool, dry, dark place and you’re good. i can say with certainty that canned goods last for years, even 10+ years. Survive well. Enjoy.
I like to use Gamma Seal Lids on many of my 5-gallon food storage buckets, for ease of use once it’s opened. Plus, they ‘seal’ air-tight while also allowing easy ability to ‘spin’ the cover on or off.
I use Gammas as well. Need to keep mice out. Killed about 30 this winter. Mice I mean.
I get my 5 gallon buckets at Lowes. $2.54 each. Probably not food safe. The lids they sell are crap.
Be well.
@Ken and Mortimer; Yeah, I like the gamma lids too and the fact that they are in different colors for coding supplies. The Lowe’s buckets are HDPE2 which is supposedly safe but the aren’t designated as food safe buckets. If they are not white, I would be concerned about food contamination. I know I said you could get them used at places but I found that the easiest for me is to buy them from U-Line, in quantity. Beats running all over town to scrounge them, but that can be a money saver that way. I will say that if you have any dry food goods to always use a Mylar bag. Also you can use the buckets to build “kits” of whatever and have them all together in a bucket to grab and go. Survive well. Enjoy.
Also, be aware that just because it says “HDPE 2″, DOES NOT mean it is food safe. However, all ‘food safe’ buckets are of HDPE 2. Apparently the distinction is in the injection molding resin that is used for food safe buckets. I have purchased most of my food-safe buckets from Emergency Essentials.