Today we want to share a step-by-step, how to on making Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets.
How do you preserve your harvest? We all work so hard to get that garden to grow and produce veg. Or that herb garden to have happy medical plants. It is a shame to go through growing tending harvesting and preserving to loose it all to moisture and mold.
You know those little packs you find in the box with your new shoes. Or medicine bottles These little packs are known by many names Desiccant packs, Silicon gel, Food preservation packets, Drying packs, Dehydration gel packs. And others we are sure.
No matter what you call them their function is the same. The silicon gel beads absorb moisture from whatever they are sealed in. This helps keep shoes, purses, hats, books, food, and pretty much anything you do not want spoiled by moisture dry and fresh.
Preserving dried goods, you want to add a desiccant pack to the container to help keep moisture out and keep things good longer.
These little packets are good for dried good suck as beans corn oats other grains. But when or if you harvest and store herbs and spices you will also want one of these handy little packs to keep your herbs and spices dry and fresh. Who wants to use an old damp clumpy herb or spice out of a sticky jar?
These can even be used if you are storing leather and other clothes. Putting a set of leather shoe laces into a glass for save keeping? Add a silicon gel packet to stop moisture from molding your leather.
Just think. The zombie apocalypse has occurred. You and yours are safe and have prepped for this. You have a palette of popcorn in storage so you can eat fresh popped popcorn. But when you open your container you find mold growing on your popcorn. A little silicon gel packet could have prevented this terrible scenario.
In our research, we found several places where you can buy desiccant packs fairly reasonably. But we also checked to see what it would cost us to get the parts and make our own. As you know from other talks, we are all about being more self-sufficient and DIY.
Yes, you can buy them in many different sizes and bulk. Overall these packs are not all that expensive. But why use that money when you can make them for pennies each? So we set out to make our own Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets.
To make our Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets we used:
A Wrap Material
Silicon Gel Beads
A Hot Glue Gun and silicon sticks
First, we want to give you some options on the materials you can use and ways a Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packet can be made. It is always best to know the details before you jump in.
A. Materials
1. Silicon Gel Beads
The most important thing to get right is the Silicon Gel Beads. Be sure when you buy them the package says pure or %100 Silicon Gel. You do not want to add any “iffy stuff” to your preserved items.
You can go with one of the big companies and buy silicon gel beads in bulk or you can use cat litter. Yes, cat litter, as long as it is %100,pure silicon gel. We found an Eco-friendly cat litter company that makes a litter that is pure silicon gel beads. This is what we used but there are several cat litter companies that make similar silicon litter.
2. Wrap Material
For the Wrap Material, you can use anything that is porous enough to allow the silicon beads to absorb moisture though it but with small enough weave to keep the beads in. You do not want silicon beads in your dried goods.
a. planting bags
We use planting bags. These are small Eco-friendly bags that are made to plant seeds in. The seed goes into the bag with dirt and grows like any other planting. But when it comes to transplanting, instead of moving the plant from its dirt to another dirt, you just plant the bag. This planting bag helps reduce the shock of transplanting on the baby plants.
These planting bags worked well for us as wrap material for our Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets. Instead of dirt and seeds we filled the bag with the silicon gel beads.
b. Muslin is a fine woven cloth that is commonly used to strain milk or oils.
c. Coffee filters are very easy to come by and fairly cheap. You can get the eco-friendly ones that are unbleached and some even made of bamboo these days. But any old coffee filter will do.
d. Cotton squares will also work, Any old t-shirt, or cotton shirt can be up-cycled into a wrap.
B. Ways to Secure the Gel Packs
1. Hot Glue
To secure our homemade desiccant packs we use hot glue. The glue sticks are silicon themselves. The hot glue gun heats the silicon stick to melting. When the heat is removed the silicon quickly cools and turns solid again. Usually the silicon bonds with whatever it was stuck between permanently and is made into the now hardened silicon.
2. Staples
The silicon packets can be stapled. As staples are so small, the amount of metal may not matter but you do not always know what the staples are made of depending on where they came from. You can use pure metal staples or eco-friendly versions if you have them but those can be expensive.
3. Tape
It may be possible to use tape or regular glue to secure the wrap material but as with the staples, there can be not-so-good-things in them. You do not want to add chemical, or dangerous materials to your desiccant packs.
C. Assembly of the Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets
Now that you have all the three things you will need to make Homemade Silicon Desiccant Packets, it is time for the making part.
This is simple, even if you may need five hands to do it.
1. Decide what size silicon pack you want to make or the size you will need if you have a specific project in mind.
2. Cut the bag to the size you need. Leave a bit more at the top to fold over.
If you are using coffee filters or other flat material you will need to cut the wrap material to the size you want your finished silicon pack to be. Give yourself a bit more material to fold with.
3. Fill the bag with silicon gel beads, again leave a bit at the top to fold over.
For the planting bags we used, we put about six teaspoons of silicon beads into each bag. This left us enough room at the top for the folding and hot glue.
With flat materials, lay the warp out flat. Put a bit of silicon in the center of the cut wrap.
4. Fold the top of the bag over to close the bag. We like to fold it at least twice to be sure we gill get a good seal.
This did take a few folds and hot glues but we were happy with the results.
First, we folded the two top corners as if we were wrapping a present with paper. A spot of hot glue here and there held it in place.
Next, we folded the pointy tip over, similar to an envelope.
Then we folded the top down again to be sure it was sealed all the way across. A line of hot glue under the last fold made sure the folds held together.
Note: a set of wooden toothpicks is a great help in not burning your fingers when holding down the folds that have hot glue on them.
With the flat material, you will need to fold all four sided. Fold the cut wrap like an envelope or whatever shape you want to come out with. Just be sure all four sides will be secure when you are done. You do not want the silicon beads to fall out of the packet.
5. With the hot glue gun, secure the top of the packet. Be careful not to burn yourself with the hot glue gun or on the melted glue. This is when the five hands come in.
Again, with the flat material it will take a couple of more steps than with the bag but it is not difficult.
It can be a bit tricky to keep the four sides folded, keep the silicon beads in the packet, squeeze the hot glue gun, and apply the hot glue to the right places.
D. The Folding
As we used the planting bags the wrapping paper/envelope style worked well. We then ran a line of hot glue under the top edge to be sure we had a good seal.
After several experiments with different ways to fold and hot glue, we decided the planting bags were just easier, the folding seems more secure, and the hot glue is always very hot so we are sticking to the planting bags.
If you are using a different kind of wrap material you will have to experiment with folding technics to find the way that works best for you.
There are several different shapes we have seen but the square seems to be the usual one. Cut a square, fold like an envelop, and secure. This is what most commercial silicon packs look like.
The two-sided one was interesting. Cut the wrap in a circle, fold in half, fold the two pointed ends over a bit and secure the one side. It comes out looking like a taco, sort of.
After some experimenting with coffee filters, we decided it did not work for us. So we went with the planting bags.
Whatever shape you choose, be sure to get all the sides secure with the glue. Again, you will have to decide which material and which folding technique works best for you.
And there you have Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets.
Now we can sit at home and make our own DIY silicon gel desiccant packets any time we need them. No worry about running out and having to order more and wait for them to arrive. If you are very organized, you may keep track of these kinds of things and order ahead, and that is great for you. But we normally decide we need to do something and then go looking to see if we have the parts on hand. In this case, we will have the parts on hand to preserve our harvest because we can make silicon desiccant packets in just a few minutes.
Our Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets may not be as perfect or pretty as the commercially made ones but they are cheap, easy to make, and functional.
Store your Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets in a sealed container to keep them out of the open air. These packs pull moisture from the air or out of containers so do not leave them laying around. They need to be kept in an air-tight container to keep them good. As we have mentioned before, we love coffee and Black Riffle Coffee Company is one of our favorites. Again as you know, we try to recycle everything so we keep our coffee tins and reuse them, we here we have our Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets in a Black Riffle Coffee tin.
It is important to note, that you should keep silicon gel beads and packets away from pets and kids. You will have noticed the commercial packs say, Do Not Eat. Silicon itself is an inert element but it is not safe to ingest it.
And yes we know, you are thinking to yourself, keep it away from pets? But they use it as cat litter. We do see the irony there. Maybe they do not expect the cat to eat the litter.
Anyway back to the point before we get too far off, that is how we make our Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets. As you can see, it is a very simple process that requires three things.
Next time you are getting ready to preserve your harvest or store dried goods, or just want to keep your personal items safe in storage, thing of making your own desiccant packets. Now that you know how to make your own, try it out for yourself.
There are, we are sure, other kinds of desiccant packets. For sure there are other ways to make them and other materials that can be used. But this is the way we found to be easiest and best for us.
You can even find places where people advise you to use the hand warmers to do this same thing. The problem with that is hand warmers are made with iron oxide and you do not really want that in your preserved food.
It may seem a small thing but as with most things that you can make for yourself and not have to buy, it is one tiny step to becoming more self-sufficient. Anything, no matter how small, that you can do for yourself is one more thing that you do not have to rely on others for.
We hope you have enjoyed this talk on making your own Homemade DIY Silicon Desiccant Packets. Try it out and good luck with your preserving your harvest.
If you are interested in other talks about being more self-sufficient please check out these below.
How to Start a More Self-Sufficient Lifestyle
How to Replace a Broken Tool Handle
7 Simple Steps to Blanching Veg for Freezing
Thank you for visiting and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.
