Alright, just wanted to spin this off into a new thread. I took some pictures of some Weber fire starting cubes, sealed in various multiples and types of bags.

The first picture is the stuff I sealed in a 4 oz retort pouch. To the right is a bunch of four cubes sealed into a 5.5" x 7" mylar bag. The mylar is 5 mils, and it has a ziplock seal to reclose the pouch after you tear off the heat sealed part. While this won't re-vacuum it will at last keep stuff dry and out of the elements.






The next pic shows a pouch I'm pretty excited about! It's a 5 mil mylar with the same type of ziplock closure but it's 3.5" x 4". It neatly holds one full Weber cube plus some shavings if so desired. And I found I could pinch the ziplock closed just in the center to keep the mouth flat for sealing. Check them out:





This pic isn't well lit, I'm afraid, but hopefully you can see the packages. The one on the left is a Weber cube and the one in the right is 10 or so Tinder-Quiks. The ziplock is really handy for that- I can seal the TQs to insure they're bone dry and still seal the remainders securely.





Lastly I took another poorly lit shot of a few of them. I tried to frame my RAT-7 to show the scale.





5 mil mylar should hold up pretty well, but I obviously haven't tested them yet. The correct sealing parameters is a trial-and-error thing. I also don't know how temperature will affect the Webers.

At this point I'm interested in a few volunteers to test some. From my perspective I'd like to send a few out to different geographical regions. Anyone live in the desert? I'd like to see how a few months of vehicle storage affects them. I'm willing to send a few samples out to a handful of ETS'ers for testing. I do have a couple folks lined up but a few more wouldn't hurt.

This will be a total freebie, on me. Interested members can message me or post here.

Phaedrus, I hang out in coastal southern California, a fairly humid environment. I would be happy to oblige and test them in my circumstances. I will also be in the Black Hills of South Dakota this July, so I can try flying with them.

I grew up in the shadow of the Black Hills and greatly miss them. With luck I'll be back there again this summer for a vacation. PM with your info and I'll get some stuff out to you.

I emailed the seller of those smaller black mylar and he says he can sell them in many colors. I'm thinking Red (or Orange) for fire, but I can get many colors for other stuff. Meds, ORS, nav, etc. Obviously the packs need labels but grouping by color might be useful.

This is just the beginning of my research but already there are some excellent options available.

Hmm. Looks pretty nice. The vacuum being key. As I understand it, the Weber cubes degrade fairly quickly if exposed to air. Apparently the volatiles evaporate off.

Like hikermor, I'm also in So. Calif, but I'm inland a bit, and it gets plenty hot (although not Phoenix/Las Vegas hot) where I live. I also hike at altitudes up to 11,500' -- or at least that's the most I have planned so far this year. I might go higher.

HJ

Shoot me your info if you want in, Hikin Jim. I wonder if elevation will affect stuff that's sealed?