This doesn't apply to me yet, but soon. It is for all of us with a food sealer. My apologies if this has been posted; it's so blindingly obvious that it probably has been.

Convert 32 ounces of potable, boiled water to ice cubes. Add some bleach to it if you really want.

While the water is freezing, create a pouch suitable for 50 or so ounces of water from your heaviest sealing film. If possible with your sealer, double seal all your edges.

Put the ice cubes into the pouch and vacuum seal it. Double seal the open end if possible with your sealer.

Label properly. That includes marking the 32oz mark when the water thaws with bag held upright so it can be reused as a water container in an emergency, with a marked capacity for purification purposes.

If double sealing the edges is not possible, possibly double bag? Or possibly store several in a second outer bag, mylar or opaque if possible.

Store these in an opaque, sturdy container, along with a small package of binder clips (so that you can roll and crimp the opening if you don't need the whole thing or are reusing it) and possible a safety envelope cutter.

They should be good for at least a year, and lot cheaper than the aquapouches. No light, no air, a lot of germs are out of luck and if you use freshly boiled water everything should be dead. (If you wanted to be really sure, we could test the reliability after boiling of the material by boiling the pouches for say 10 minutes in a pressure cooker THEN storing them.) And we wouldn't have to worry about them rupturing when freezing because it was a comfortably oversized pouch to begin with, unlike supermarket bottled water.

I know that double bagging would be a lot of packaging, but it could be used for cooking later, and it is better to open your water container and find water in pouches rather than pouches in a puddle. Or just a puddle. That, and it makes distributing it if needed easier- one package equals a gallon (one day's conservative ration), with four bags (a quart is pretty easy to manage) if you have to break it up further for cooking or packing. I see this as something where you could probably pack 72 hours of water and food (conservative levels) in a 5-gallon pail along with some odds and ends (matches, batteries, meds, socks, maybe ethanol stove fuel, et al) so you can distribute it easily for a multi-car bug out.

Or did I just reinvent the wheel?

I don't know if this is a new idea or not but its new to me. I think its a great idea.
Have you tried filling a bag with a measured amount of water then freezing it prior to sealing? This would eliminate the air pockets between ice cubes. Just a thought.

Great idea!
Any suggestions for a good vacuum sealer to get in US?

If you noted the first line, this doesn't apply to me yet. *scowls* I was going to go with a Tilla, but after Doug's problems with them I have concerns about parts availability.

Yep: minipack-torre (not a typo - no caps) imported by minipack-america. Italian made commercial grade sealers, their smallest models are suitable for home use. Superbly made, and their dealers carry all parts - from the piston vacuum pumps to the sealing elements. All parts are designed to be able to be replaced should they fail.

We've had ours for a couple of years now, and the sealers you can buy from your local retail stores aren't in the same league. The minipack will give you better seals, and you can adjust the sealing element so that it will provide an optimum seal regardless of the bag thickness. The seal is also twice as wide as the typical "home" units, which means the seals are stronger and less susceptible to damage or failure. (You don't need to double seal with a minipack!)

-=[ Grant ]=-

I congratulate you for thinking "outside the box" (or bottle), but IMO, I'm not sure if there is much of an advantage to doing this as opposed to buying bottled water. For one, those vacuum sealer bags aren't that cheap, and they're not easily reusable or reclosable. Plus they don't stand up on their own, so once you open it you'll have to hold it upright. Second, I don't think those bags would be nearly as durable as a plastic bottle. Even double bagging it, it just feels like it would a sharp corner would puncture or wear through too easily. Third, I would question the cleanliness of the water, even after boiling, purifying and sealing. I just wouldn't trust it as much as factory bottled water.. I'm sure the water companies have spent a lot of time developing a safe, durable, and cheap way of storing water, so in this case I think they have probably come up with the best solution so far. Just my opinion.

I think the vacuum sealing idea would work on other items, things that need to be waterproofed, but not accessed on a regular basis. I have always wanted to vacuum pack the items in my first aid kit (like band-aids, medications, gauze, etc), or other emergency items like batteries and matches. Cut a small notch in one side, and it would be easy to tear it open when you need it.

"I would question the cleanliness of the water, even after boiling, purifying and sealing. I just wouldn't trust it as much as factory bottled water."

You would like to think, but...

Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?
( http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/nbw.asp )

"While bottled water marketing conveys images of purity, inadequate regulations offer no assurance."

"Sales of bottled water in this country have exploded in recent years, largely as a result of a public perception of purity driven by advertisements and packaging labels featuring pristine glaciers and crystal-clear mountain springs. But bottled water sold in the United States is not necessarily cleaner or safer than most tap water, according to a four-year scientific study recently made public by NRDC."

(more at the site shown above)

Advertising is just advertising. Truth often doesn't have anything to do with it. If Madison Ave. told me the sun came up this morning, I would step outside and check.

Sue

In terms of bouncability, I agree with your concerns about durability. That's why I said maybe double bag it and certainly store it in a rigid container. But every winter I always miss a water bottle when I'm prepping my car for the cold. ANd every spring I have a wet spot someplace that needs to be taken care off before it turns into a moldy spot, and a bottle that burst from the freezing. You'll note that I proposed freezing ice, with room to spare, so that wouldn't happen.

As for reusing, I wasn't thinking so much about resealing it although I don't see why you couldn't. I was thinking it can be used to cook in, ala freezer bag, or for general storage.

As for the purity... I worked in a bottling plant for a while just after high school. I saw some scary stuff. If I was to boil water, laddle it, still boiling, into a mold which then goes immediately into the deep freeze, it will be AT LEAST as clean as what you buy on the shelf.

Great idea! My experience:
1) I haven't (yet..Doug) had problems with my FoodSaver, so I'll keep using it for a while.
2) I fill a foodsaver bag, freeze it, make a single seal, and have used it both for water storage/transport and as a cheap refillable ice pack for years. The bags have held up under moderate abuse (in a cooler with various adult beverages) and have not leaked.
3) The bags can be dropped into boiling water (dirty water) and brought up to a good boil. To do this you must allow air space in the bag, so I don't even really draw a vacuum. I just seal them. Alternatively you need to pierce the vacuum before boiling. When I do this, I use a clamp to hold the pierced top of the bag above the "dirty" water level in the pot. I will say that I've never lab-tested the purity of the output. But I've never gotten sick.
4) I stock a pretty good supply of these in an "earthquake" locker I have outside my home... in the elements. No leaks after 2 years in the elements, but we don't get many bad freeze-thaw cycles here.

Piercing the bag before boiling it is part of why I wanted about 50%+ more space than was really needed compared to the frozen volume of the water. Water vapor has a lower density than the solid, but I was thinking if you had that much space to "inflate" with the steam, it should be good enough to bring the water up to about 200, which will kill most things short of hard cysts like crypto and anthrax. As a result, I don't think you'd need to have to worry about pressure equalization.

I only took two years of chem in college. Blast, this sounds like it is up your alley.
given:
-water (bag and heating volume) have an initial volume of ~10C
-amount of water to be heated is 1000g, give or take.
-max volume of the containment vessel is 1500 to 1600ml
-minimum air is contained in the containment vessel

query:
-Will the combine volume of liquid and gaseous water at 100C displace more than 1500g of liquid water at 10C?


I had planned on using ice (probably one to three blocks rather than cubes, say molded in a tupperware container, to keep the amount of air down) because of concerns about the vaccum pump sucking out more than air. You've never had a problem with the pump doing this, or do you always leave air in? I wanted to remove as much air as possible, which is another reason why I wanted to boil the water- it forces out the dissolved air. I"d rather not have the extra bulk.

It does sound like I reinvented the wheel, but I'm glad to see it works. Sounds like you've stored for two years- still potable? Ands are you using clear or silvered bags?