It makes a lot of sense economically to make soup in fairly large quantities. This is because the time and effort involved in purchasing the ingredients, preparing them and cleaning up afterwards is not greatly affected by the amount made. It is also cheaper to buy the ingredients in larger quantities than in smaller ones. This is especially true when you have a glut of produce at a particular time of the year. For example, most people who have an allotment or vegetable garden have far more fresh produce than they can eat in August and September.
The absence of air and the consequent lack of oxidation mean that soups will keep their flavour better than if they were stored in the fridge without being vacuum packed. They can then be reheated by being placed in a pan of hot water. Unlike reheating the soup in a pan, no water is lost in evaporation and the soup will retain its consistency. If you are working in a commercial kitchen then you can reheat several different soups in the same pan of hot water which saves space on the range as well as the need to wash multiple pans.
Having made the soup, you should let it cool down before putting it in vacuum bags. We have found that using the long thin bags designed for vacuum packing fish gives the best results. These can be stood on end in a high sided plastic box to keep them upright.
You should turn down the top 5cms of the bags to prevent the top of the bag from coming into contact with the food which can prevent a good heat seal from being made. If you are bagging a lot of food then it is worth obtaining some lengths of plastic tubing about six inches long and between 4 and 6 inches in diameter. The end of the plastic tubing can be placed in the vacuum pouch to hold it open and it can be used as a sort of funnel. This makes filling the bags single-handed much easier and ensures that you don’t get any food on the top part of the vacuum pouch.
Once you have filled the vacuum bags to within 6 inches of the top you should freeze the soup before vacuum packing it. This is to prevent any liquid from being drawn into the machine.
You can also raise the vacuum packing machine a few inches up off the work surface so that the vacuum pouches can be kept more upright. This, plus the chilling, should prevent any liquid from being drawn into the vacuum packing machine during the packing process. You should also remember that you do not need a very powerful vacuum inside the bag. The main reason for removing the air is to prevent the bag from bursting when the contents are reheated. If you have a variable pressure machine then you could pack at a lower pressure (for example 0.1 Bar) or if you have a manual machine you could press the sealing switch as soon as it looks as though most of the air has been drawn out of the vacuum pouch.
When you come to reheat the soup, place the vacuum pouch in a large pan of very hot but not boiling water. Do not puncture the vacuum pouch, if you have removed the air then it will not burst when reheated. You will need to make sure that the contents are thoroughly reheated before serving.
Remember that vacuum packing is not a substitute for proper temperature control. All food products should be stored in the fridge or freezer even if they have been vacuum packed. The vacuum packing process will prevent loss of flavour and will improve the appearance of products which have been frozen but you should not try to store vacuum packed soup for any longer than non-vacuum packed soup.
See our range of top quality German made Vacuum Packing Machines
Return to Lava Vacuum Packing Machine Home Page
