Not a product name that necessarily inspires confidence, but I
impulse-bought this inexpensive device ($26 for the basic kit) a few
months ago, and I just wanted to share a hearty recommendation with
all of you.
I have a number of canning jars with metal lids, and this thing works
perfectly to vacuum-seal beans inside these containers.  Basically,
you take a push-pin and punch a hole in the metal lid, then put a tiny
"band-aid" kinda thing over it, which is actually a check valve.  Then
you place this handheld plunger kinda thing over the bandaid kinda
thing, pump out the air by hand (which take about 10-20 seconds for a
typical canning jar), and your jar is vacuum-sealed.  You do need the
lids with the spongy rubber coating on the underside since those are
the only type capable of holding a seal in the first place.
To open, you unstick one side of the check valve, hear the reassuring
rush of air into the jar, then unscrew.  The check valve resticks over
and over again very well.  I am still using the first check-valves I
put on the lids, and I have about a zillion more if they should ever
stop sticking.
See ...http://www.pump-n-seal.com/(blah blah blah, no affiliation, blah blah blah)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Lee
San Diego,
California
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actually I've found if you just put your mouth around the valve on the 
SM bags, you can draw the back into a brick. :-)
Ben
Lee XOC wrote:
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Ben,
I did that, too, but I found that those bags don't hold the seal for too 
long....I also use the Vacu-Vin pumper to suck the air out of the bags, but 
again, they still don't hold the seal...I don't think they were made for 
the purpose of holding that much of a vacuum....
Ciao,
Angelo
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Is it that they don't hold a seal, or is it the beans out gassing? I 
don't know.
Angelo wrote:
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This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
MessageI tried it several years ago.  Worked pretty good, made a good =
vacuum, I'd say as strong as a tillia.  It did break in about 6 months, =
but it was a cheap way to try vacuum sealing.
Scott