Aging tobacco in a vacuum?

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That's where the heavy duty foil Mylar bags come into play, they have great air/oxygen/moisture barrier properties and also don't leach plasticizer into the contents.  Important to note, the heavy duty bags won't seal properly with normal food saver type sealer, not enough heat to bond the material.  You can use an iron or an impulse-sealer.  You can get them with a ziplock seal, or without,  and there is enough space past the ziplock to still heat-seal the bag closed. I've actually thought about buying some 2x3inch bags so once I crack a tin I can split it up into a few different sample size bags.  That way I can smoke through a small pouch of a blend and the rest stays just as fresh as when I opened the tin, indefinitely.
 
Do the mylar bags with the zip lock thing work ok or is it a impulse sealer only type thing
 
I would still heat-seal the Mylar bags with the ziplock.  The ziplock represents a point of failure for sealing if you rely on that alone to keep air/moisture on either side of the bag.  That type of bag would just be for convenience once I open it.  I could reseal it while smoking through the contents without having to put it into a jar.  Any amount larger than 100 grams or so and I would probably just put it into a bag without the ziplock.

Edit: to be clear, I haven't done this with any of my cellar, and don't really know yet if I want to. I can't get past the feeling that I am only making a simple tobacco cellar much more complicated than it needs to be. For now it's still regular mason jars or factory sealed tins.
 
Interesting. I'm very much in the "keep it simple" camp.

Too, I would hesitate to risk my hard won, limited stash on untried processes.

Simple, predictable and dependable. That's for me.
 
I've been repurposing Kirchner (sp?) wheat germ jars for "putting pipe weed by." The seal is pretty good, although not as good as Mason jars.

One thing I've wondered about -- if it's better to NOT vacuum seal a jar and NOT to pack the stored tobak tight, then how do you 'splain the almost universal practice of aging in the tin?

For labels I use stick-on all-purpose address labels.

My local liquor stores give me sturdy cardboard boxes with dividers to store Kirchner jars. 

I've stored 965 and other Lat blends in vacuum sealed Mason jars for more than ten years and never had a bad result. I've also stored aro blends. I'd say aging neither helps nor hurts aros.

All FWIW. Whatever you like is fine by me.
 
FYI  --  Smoking Pipes e-mailed an item from their blog today pertaining to anaerobic vs. aerobic aging (vacuum vs non-vacuum). I think the subject of the blog entry was buying tins vs. bulk.  The advice on cellaring snuck in at the end. The intent to smoke the tobacco immediately or store it for future enjoyment was a deciding factor. My reading is the SP default position is this: Cellared bulk tobacco is best immediately transferred to a snugly packed glass jar and stored under vacuum conditions. So why not just buy and store tins, when available? Thrift, Horatio, thrift. Bulk buyers usually get more for their money.
 
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