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Old 10-13-2006, 06:14 PM   #1
scooter
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: SF Bay Area, California
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Review: Canning tobacco with a Deni JarVac. Demo video inclu

http://www.deni.com/images/jarvac/1200.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/scssimpson/DeniJarVac1.jpg
A review of the Deni JarVac 1200 system

I like to can tobacco. Actually, I love to can tobacco now. Some of the jars I put up I'll age for several years or more so I need a slight vacuum on the jars so I'll know I have an airtight seal for long aging. I use 1/2 pint and full pint wide mouth mason jars mostly. Kerr is my brand because that's what my local supermarket carries. Before I bought the JarVac I used to put the baccy in a mason jar (sometimes I washed em, sometimes not), partially dip the jar with the baccy inside in a hot water bath for about 30 seconds to warm the inside of the jar, pull it out, put the lid on it and wait for the jar to cool off which creates a soft vacuum enough to pull the dimple down on the lid which tells me I have a positive airtight seal on the jar. I've tried just putting the baccy in a room temp jar and waiting for it to self seal. Mostly it works, but sometimes not. I've also tried putting the jars in my dishwasher, wash them and when the drying cycle is done, and the glass is good and hot, pulled them out, put the baccy in and sealed them. That usually works as well but if you're canning a lot of jars in one session, the last jars you use are not very hot anymore. Well, I heard from someone on another forum that they used a Deni JarVac for canning so I looked into it. It's a neat little system. It retails for anywhere between $40 to $90. I purchased mine on ebay brand new for $46 shipped. It's pretty compact. The image shows that the Deni has a platform with a clear plastic dome. You put the canning jar on the platform, place the dome over the jar and press the switch down until your desired vacuum pressure and release it (You can vary the amount of vacuum you produce for a variety of applications). It then uses the vacuum you just built up to remove the air from under the plastic dome and your canning jar. It takes about 1 second to remove just enough air from a mason jar to pull the dimple down. Very, very slick. Just like that, one second later and your mason jar has a gentle vacuum in it and it's sealed for long aging. What it also will do is put a slight vacuum seal on an opened tin of baccy. Say you're aging some sealed tins of VA and you just want to check to see how your tins are aging. Pull a tin out of your cellar, break the vacuum and try a bowl. If you want to continue aging it, put the lid back on, place it in the Deni and 2 seconds later, your tin once again has a gentle vacuum in it like it did when it left the factory. Put the tin back in your cellar and continue aging it. Or say you have too many tins open to try that special blend you've been wanting to try so you're just going to finish up your open tins and then try that blend. Well, with the Deni, you can put the vacuum seal back in the open tins which clears your conscience to open up that other blend you've been wanting to try. It seals both round and rectangular tins. However, It doesn't work with the McClelland style tins where you have a soda can type pull off tin lid with a plastic replacement lid. I did have some success with the Rattray's 100G tins with the pull off top as the top is just small enough to fit a wide mouth mason lid on top and I got a good seal with it. The McClelland tin top diameter is just a tad too large for the wide mouth mason lid to seal over. Oh well. All in all, I love the Deni. It's a perfect canning tool for folks like me who don't like to mess with hot water to produce the vacuum seal or wait for a mason jar to seal itself. You don't really need a Deni if you're canning baccy that you don't plan to age for very long. Just put the lid on and tighten. Should be fine for short duration aging or just immediate consuming. Storage of the Deni is simple and quick. The clear plastic dome fits over the large vacuum unit on the left and the vacuum platform flips up making its footprint on your counter, or in your cabinet, pretty small. All that plus the fact that the Deni JarVac was actually designed to do much more like resealing your jarred sauces in their original jars and marinates meat faster. It comes with a hose that coils in the very top of the vacuum unit. The hose comes out and attaches to one of three bowl lids that come with the unit. Place some meat in a bowl, cover it with your favorite rub or marinade and place which ever of the three included bowl lids over the top of the bowl, push the vacuum switch which creates a vacuum in the bowl and your meat will marinade in a fraction of the time it usually takes. It also comes with a wine bottle topper thingy so you can put a vacuum seal on an opened wine bottle to retard oxidation. So that right there is your justification to the Mrs to get one of these babies!!!

scooter's Deni JarVac demo video for Broadband (512 Kbps) users

scooter's Deni JarVac demo video for Broadband (340 Kbps) users

scooter's Deni JarVac demo video for Broadband (150 Kbps) users

scooter's Deni JarVac demo video for dialup users
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Norman-"No, I consider it burning his crops - one at a time."
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