Was not familiar with the Weber fire starters, but just ordered some from amazon. I have a Boy Scout Wilderness survival Merit Badge campout coming up and I will try them out next to some wet fire. If the weather is not too bad I will video tape it. I was just excited about your new toy and interested in the packaging of some survival stuff. Since the Wet fire tend to expire it seemed like a good candidate. I am serious about begging for one for Christmas. I can see so many uses.

i had no idea they even such a thing for home use..if you really thought about it i'll bet you could get a basic BOB out of that.
sleeping bag??

This is awesome, and I hope you'll continue to let us know how it goes.

With regard to retort pouch cooking, sous vide, or cooking in general, we haven't drifted too far off-topic here but you're certainly welcome to post recipes and wax rhapsodic about that in Around The Campfire. I for one would enjoy hearing more about those things from you.

Ah, the VaCmaster! I thought the letter C had an extra stroke at the bottom, and I started wondering...

I've wanted to do sous vide for a long time, but I'm too afraid of poisoning myself.

Fantastic! Now thats the way to pack your gear. Could you list your source for equipment? Sealer, bags, etc? Always nice to have a wish list.

I bought mine here but there are lots of other sources. Next time I buy bags I'll probably order from The Web Restaurant Store as they have a great selection of 4 mil and even 5 mil thick bags. Thicker would be better for sealing firestarting stuff, I think.

Of course, a lot of stuff can be sealed with a $45 Rival vacuum sealer. My brother has one and it works well. It's tricky to seal very wet items and it won't seal a retort pouch but it's fine for general use. I've sealed a ton of bandages, bundles of fatwood, etc with a similar unit.

But it is really cool to finally have this bad boy!

The fly in the ointment is that whatever you're sealing has to fit in the chamber. Mine is about 5.5" x 12" x 15". You probably couldn't compress most bags enough to get into the VP215. Chamber vacs start getting really expensive as they get larger, and for good reason. Think how strong the chamber has to be to not be crushed by the weight of the atmosphere when drawing 29.3" of vacuum. Not to mention how much work it is to pull many cubic feet of air out of the larger ones.

A small summer bag might just fit, if you really cinched it down. That would be fun to try. And now that you've given me the idea I wonder how small I could compress one of those fleece bags?

BTW, Happy Birthday CANOEDOGS!

A little late for this order, but if you like them and have an ACE Hardware in your area they carry them. They're around $5 for a 24 pack. They come sealed in a plastic "ice cube tray" type thing with foil over the top. The packaging is probably sufficient for sitting on a shelf but taking a tab out threatens to unseal its neighbor. No big deal I guess if you're using them to light your Weber but not good as a survival tinder.

For storage of the bulk packs I've been vac sealing each tray. I then pack them into pouches of 1, 2 or 3 cubes for carry. Typically with my old sealer I used 2 or even 3 bags to ensure redundancy. With heavier bags I probably won't have to do that anymore.

I've started a lot of fire with those Weber cubes! I like them a lot.

A really good top end bag by Western Mountaineering and other specialty builders would probably fit....

I'm game for anything you folks would like to try.