So i met with a guy this week to sell him some mylar bags, we were talking about methods to seal them up and remove the oxygen, he told me of a method his grandmother used to use back in the day, now keep in mind she did it with jars, mason jars i believe and dry goods. He said she used to use alcohol, it can be in any sort of container (bottle cap) in her case she used to use a half a walnut shell with a teaspoon or less of alcohol, she would ignite it and put the lid on the jar, the alcohol would eat up the oxygen and create a vacuum sealing the jar and popping the lid.
He said he is going to try and use this method with mylar bags and dry goods. I asked him to let me know how it goes.
I thought is was a neat idea and cant wait to hear how it goes.
Thought id share.
It would work fine if it's distilled pure alcohol. Otherwise you'll just have moisture left in the jar - worse than oxygen I think. Oxy absorbers are cheap. Hand warmers are exactly the same chemical process. You could find them on sale in the spring.
I've never used a hand warmer, dunno if you could re package them smaller or not.
For canning I'm sure it works fine (no need to remove the moisture) but I don't think it'd work well with anything dry. Anything at the store will be at-least 10% water, lab grade alcohol would probably work, but it's expensive. You also need to be aware that ethanol (the alcohol you can drink) is hygroscopic, so leaving the lid off will bring it to 97% (3% water) in short order.
I think the iron hand warmers are the best bet, if you're quick you can split the powder up into many smaller pouches to use in the bags.