But i run a small farm-to-table pop-up on Saturdays and our 10L chamber vac sees 60–80 seals a week, but I’m trying to ditch single-use bags without compromising food safety or texture. Has anyone found truly compostable chamber pouches that survive 24–48 hour cures and sous vide at 62°C, or a reusable setup (mason-jar lids, silicone) that works with a chamber sealer in a CSA-paced kitchen? I’d rather rework a recipe than feed another roll of plastic into the bin.
But i stopped bagging long cures and do them in wide‑mouth mason jars in the 10L chamber: set Ball two‑piece lids finger‑tight, pull full vac, and the lid snaps sealed on release — those jars handle “62°C for 24–48 hours” without weeping or texture loss (https://www.freshpreserving.com). Caveat: you won’t get the same compression on herbs/proteins, so for odd shapes I reuse 3‑mil PA/PE pouches 2–3 times for cooked‑only runs and mark/retire them — still not compostable, but it cut our 60–80 new bags a week by half.
@OP I’ve been running long cures and 62°C cooks in wide‑mouth Mason jars using reusable Tattler lids with silicone bands — set them just shy of finger‑tight in the chamber, pull full vac, and they lock on release. They’ve held vacuum for 48 hours fine; only caveat is don’t overfill past the shoulder or you’ll get a bit of weeping in the bath. For delicate herb aromatics I still bag because jars don’t compress as much, but for brines and confit the jars are little submarines.
@gmartin47 same here on Sirane mono‑PE; bumping my seal bar to 2.5 s plus a 1 s cool stopped seam creep at 62°C, and I press the seam under a cold sheet pan for 10 seconds. I trim and reseal each bag once for cures as a compromise, but never after raw proteins — have you tried that?