Paul Monfils wrote:
>I personally use an outstanding method which easily cleans the interior of
>narrow shells, right down to the apex. Unfortunately, it requires some
>special equipment that most folks don't have around the house; but I'll
>describe it anyway. I use a vacuum oven, which is essentially a chamber
>designed to withstand the force of a full vacuum, and a powerful vacuum pump
>to provide the vacuum. The vacuum oven can also provide heat (hence the
>name "oven"), but I don't use heat in cleaning shells - just vacuum. I
>place shells like Terebra (augers), etc. in a glass or plastic beaker, the
>bottom of which is filled with glass beads (clean sand would also work) to a
>depth of about 2 inches. I push the apex end of the shells straight down
>into the beads, which holds them in an aperture-up position during cleaning.
>Then fill the container with bleach solution, and place in the vacuum oven.
>Turn on the pump, and evacuate the oven (remove all air). This causes any
>air inside the shells to expand greatly, and be forced out through the
>aperture. Then the bleach can flow in. Bubbles of gas are also formed by
>the action of the bleach on the organic matter inside the shell. You have
>probably noticed this while cleaning shells in bleach. However, under
>vacuum, these bubbles come out of the shell at a greatly accelerated rate,
>bringing with them many bits of partially dissolved organic matter. You can
>see this because the vacuum over has a glass viewing port in the door. When
>the bubbles stop, the shell is completely cleaned. Then you just release
>the vacuum, remove the beaker, and rinse out the shells with water as usual.
>An average size auger will usually be clean in about 20 minutes, unless the
>whole animal was dried inside the shell, in which case it might take an
>hour.
>This method also works great with microshells, which it is almost impossible
>to clean internally any other way. You don't necessarily need a vacuum
>oven. A simple vacuum jar will do, and is much less expensive. However, a
>good vacuum pump is still fairly expensive. WARNING!!! UNDER NO
>CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU ATTACH A VACUUM PUMP TO ANY CONTAINER WHICH IS NOT
>SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR THAT PURPOSE! The container may implode, causing
>serious injury to anyone nearby!
You can buy machines for vacuum sealing foods. They're as cheap as
$120. See http://www.tilia.com/shopping/index.htm and click on
"foodsaver systems". I would think one of those might work pretty
well...and you can even use it with food :-)
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Ed Foster
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