The cost for a machine that vacuum-packs food has dropped to a level where you have to wonder: What if I had one in the house? Vacuum-packaging systems keep food fresh by extracting the air around an ...

If you've ever opened a vacuum-sealed package of raw meat and noticed that funny smell escaping (almost sour and unappealing, maybe a touch like a rotten egg), there's no need to panic just yet.

Figure 1. Vacuum chamber (left) and hot bond controller (right) along with a vacuum source for the inner bag and chamber are all connected and ready to run a double vacuum debulk (DVD) process. Inset ...