What's the trick to wrapping tightly in plastic wrap?
In grocery stores, they seem to have some trick for wrapping produce and other items tightly in what appears to be standard household plastic wrap. At home, I always struggle to get a nice airtight seal, typically with cheeses. I can usually get the "main" four surfaces nice and tight, but I can't figure out how to get the remaining two sides of the block very well sealed.
Is there some magic wrapping technique, say for a block of cheese, that will ensure a nice airtight seal against each side of the block?
Best Answer
The wrap used in most grocery stores isn't the same as your household wrap.
Most of the consumer brands of plastic "cling" wrap are now formulated from low-density polyethylene. It's rolled very thin to give you the best price per unit of length, and has reasonable stickyness.
Most stores use a product called "meat film" which is most commonly made from PVC. It's a little thicker, more wrinkle-resistant to give the product contained inside a better appearance, and it's stickier.
The other thing that grocery stores do to make the seal better is they use a heat sealer on the plastic. These are heated pads where they'll place a wrapped piece of plastic for a few seconds. It's not enough heat to melt the plastic, so in most cases you can still pull it apart, but it is just enough to shrink the joint together, and pull it taut across the front of the packaging.
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How do you wrap plastic wrap tightly?
If the wrap is too short, keep pulling out more plastic until it completely covers the top of the dish, with a few inches of overhang. To secure the wrapping, rip the wrap with the teeth of the storage box, and pull the ripped end tautly around the edge of the dish, making sure to layer plastic on top of plastic.Is there a trick to Saran wrap?
Apply heat from the hairdryer evenly around the wrap until it shrinks. If you apply it unevenly, the wrap will not shrink proportionately. A hairdryer will require more time than a heat gun to shrink the film properly. Heat as evenly as possible.what. (Bo Burnham FULL SHOW HD)
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Answer 2
Adding to cpilko's good answer, when storing cheese I generally use plastic bags because they are thicker. In fact, for some of the more stinky types (or delicate ones as it's as much about the cheese absorbing flavors as emitting them) I'll double bag or put the bag into a plastic container.
Even doing that isn't perfect. A few years ago I flew a whole bunch of cheese I bought in Le Touquet, France back to SE England in a Cessna 172. I only cruised at 3000 ft which isn't very high and isn't that much of a pressure drop. I had double bagged the cheeses in ziplock freezer bags, the heavy duty ones, and pushed as much air out as I could, yet the pressure change still pulled out any remaining air from the bags and stank the airplane up something terrible. I week later and I could swear I still smelled cheese.
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