Dehydrated meals & bear canisters

[herdbull]

For extended 3-4 day trips into an area that requires canisters what do you guys do with your dehydrated meals, if you take them? Mtn house being the worst in that they take up so much room. 3 days equals at least 6 meals plus all the other food/snacks. Those 6 meals take up almost the entire canister.

Do you open them and let the air out and zip shut and put in the canister? Hang them in a stuff sack anyway not in a canister seeing as they are vacuumed sealed? Get another canister or bigger canister? Jeepers I'd need a porter to carry 2 of them or a bigger one. Or I guess I could starve

[pbakwin]

I make my own dehydrated meals with freeze dried ingredients that I purchase in bulk (#10 cans) thru many distributers. This is insanely cheaper than buying Mtn House and in fact much better - you get to control the ingredients. I simply put each meal in its own ziplock bag. For dinner boil water in a pot, dump the contents of the bag into the water, let sit until rehydrated. You can do the same with Mtn House - just repackage into ziplocks. Lighter and much less bulky. I know the Mtn House bags are designed so that you can rehydrate the meal in the bag. You could just bring 1 of the bags for this, clean and re-use. Or just bring a lightweight bowl or pot.

[MUni Rider]

Do you open them and let the air out and zip shut and put in the canister?

It's better to just make a pin hole, press out the air, and then seal pin hole with tape.

[Turtle Boy]

You can get a LOT of food into a Bear Canister. Even though the Bearikade is way too expensive this video gives an example as to how much can be loaded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c81vGxUwH48" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The weekender shown is 650cu/in. The Bearikade Scout, UDAP, and Bear Vault 450 are not that much smaller (about 500cu/in) and can certainly handle the trip you described without repackaging. Repackaging will gain you room for sure but only do it if you need to.

I just got back from the Bighorns. We used a 650cu/in Ursack. We packed in 5 days and 4 nights of food (un-repackaged Mountain House, Backpackers Pantry, Alpine Aire and Mary Jane's Farm) for two people. All the meals plus bars, snacks, tooth brushes and toothpaste and any other odor producers fit into the bag. With room to spare....

As pbakwin suggested we are planning to start to package our own dehydrated food. It's a pain but it helps the cost, you make up what you like and it packages smaller. Of course the cost is time and hassle when you'd rather be outdoors

The pin hole idea is a good one. I'll be trying that myself.

[GregMiller]

If I'm taking Mountain House or Backpacker's Pantry, and I'm hurting for space, I'll crack the seal, squeeze air out, and re-zip. I do like the pin-hole and tape idea, though! Usually only do this if I'll eat it in the next couple days, and if I'm in dryer climates (like CO, most of the time).
Have started making my own meals recently, and it's really not that hard, as said. Costco sells ramen noodles made out of brown rice and millet in a 12-pack, which has been nice for building various meals off of. Minute rice rehydrates in something more like 10 minutes, but still not bad. We've also gotten dehydrated veggies in bulk online. Bring various oils and spices and go crazy. Latest tasty realization - put peanut butter in a ramen noodle dish, adds good calories and it's really tasty.

[pbakwin]

3/4cp dry couscous
1/4cp raisins
3 tbs olive oil
1/2cp freeze dried chicken
1/4cp freeze dried carrots or broccoli
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp salt

Boil water in a pot. Add the food, stir. Remove from heat (alcohol has burned out). Cover and wrap with bandana or extra shirt for 5 min. 1100+ calories. A #10 can of chicken costs $47 at https://www.thereadystore.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and makes 27 servings of this recipe. A #10 can of Mtn House chicken teriyaki contains just 2200 calories, basically about 3 servings of a meal equivalent to this recipe (you add the olive oil), for $28. The whole Mtn House can contains 100g of protein, while the can of pure chx contains about 570g protein. So you can get a sense of the value of making your own. They don't put much chx in those meals!

[herdbull]

thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately I'm from WI and am now sitting in Leadville heading out tomorrow morning. Just double checked the BV450 and (6) dehydrated meals is all I can get in it and that pretty much leaves zero room for anything else. Not sure how you guys are getting more than that in these things. I may run to the store for some ziplocks. I like that idea.

For the 1 trip a year I do that may require a canister it's just easier to use prepackaged meals. If I was doing 20-30 nights a year I would probably make my own meals in the "off" season.

The other thing is the first days worth of meals don't have to go in a canister and you'll be eating them right away. So that's a plus. I guess when planning this trip at home I didn't forsee this being an issue. Guess I could starve too but I really don't need to lose any more weight on this trip

Looks like the first visit the Shopko Hometown for some zip locks.

[painless4u2]

I've used an Ursack for a few years (in California) and found it will hold 5-6 days of food, including freeze-dried single serves. Never used or needed them in Colorado, however.

[Trotter]

mountain house also makes a propack version of their meals. they are vacumn packed

[herdbull]

I've used an Ursack for a few years (in California) and found it will hold 5-6 days of food, including freeze-dried single serves. Never used or needed them in Colorado, however.

Canisters are required where I will be going.

[dpage]

Use Ziploc freezer bags if possible and not just the regular Ziploc bags as the plastic of the freezer bags is thicker and therefore not as likely to melt when you poor boiling water in them when rehydrating your food.

[herdbull]

Use Ziploc freezer bags if possible and not just the regular Ziploc bags as the plastic of the freezer bags is thicker and therefore not as likely to melt when you poor boiling water in them when rehydrating your food.

exactly what I found. amazing how much more space you can get by ditching the original packaging. Saved 1 original just in case I need to reuse.