I was wondering, has anyone with a seal-a-meal tried to make small packets of liquid ingredients with it? Sort of like individual soy sauce, mustard, ketchup, etc. packets, but home-made. I don't have such a meal-saver device, but was curious if it would work. Might be useful if you can't find what you want pre-packaged.

What can't you find pre-packaged?

Try minimus.biz


--B.G.--

gluten-free soy sauce in small packets was the primary notion. Don't wanna have to take bottles unless I have to. Small packets of sesame oil, worcestershire sauce (although I can find that powdered), that sort of thing. It was primarily a wondering, rather than a sincere, "Can I?".

Make little bags and don't seal one side. Freeze them, then seal the other side.

Well, silly me! Minimus.biz has a gluten free section, with gluten free soy sauce. That's a start, anyway.

Hello! We're glad to serve the UL backpacking community and always adding new packet items, so if you don't see a food or condiment that you're looking for, let us know and we'll look into getting it. As far as gluten-free products go, with regard to our Gluten-free aisle (http://www.minimus.biz/Gluten-Free.aspx), only food products that have been labeled by the manufacturer as being Gluten Free are featured there. Though other products may also qualify as Gluten-free, if they are not marked by the manufacturer as such, our policy is not not include them there.

To determine which of our (and other companies') products may be free of wheat, barley, rye and oats (WBRO), and for more specific information about such products, contact the Celiac Sprue Association at (toll free) 877-CSA-4-CSA (877-272-4272), e-mail to celiacs@csaceliacs.org or write to CSA /USA, Inc.; PO Box 31700; Omaha, NE 68131-0700. CSA's website provides information on Celiac Disease and Dermatitis Herpetiformis and can be accessed at www.csaceliacs.org. Hope this helps!

I've done this, and found it works well. I've done honey, olive oil, various hot sauces, all with good success. I also use it with biodegradeable camp soap and essentially make a "grid sheet" of little one-use soap packets. When I need some soap, I puncture one and squeeze it out. Enough for 3-4 days is just a few grams. Also used it for sunscreen repackaging. With a little practice to avoid getting liquid into the machine, it works very well. I have a generic seal-a-meal from Target.

Like the sunscreen idea! Any tricks to getting it done? Last I saw one of these machines, the "bag" was essentially a long open-ended tube, that could be heat-sealed at whatever point.

Correct - you can seal them in any which direction. For sunscreen, I would take a 6 or 12 inch wide bag, and seal strips parallel to the two sides of the bag from bottom to top. Space them about every inch or so such that the bag is evenly divided. Squirt your sunscreen into these "tubes" using whatever means are easiest. A beverage straw fits perfectly into the opening of REI SPF 50 sunscreen - very east to squirt it into the tubes.

Once you have the desired quantity, seal off all the tubes above the contents using a horizontal line parallel to the bottom seal. If you're sealing something very runny then I find it's best to put the sealer near the edge of a counter so you can tilt the bag down as you seal it, otherwise it might leak into your sealer if you're simply laying it on the counter/table as you seal. Trim the excess, and you have a compact and light supply of sunscreen.

If you want to do individual packets rather than a "strip", you would divide each vertical compartment with two sealing lines closely spaced (1-2mm) then cut vertically along this void.
Give it a try, there's lots of neat variations I've found.