How are Vacuum Sealers ?

14tokihorn

14tokihorn

1,000+ Posts
- Which one did you purchase?
- Local / Order purchase?
- Does it hold up well, or does it quickly become a pile of junk?

I used Reynolds Vac bags from the grocery last year - wouldn't you know, they discontinued 'em... or so Google says. So the garden is gonna bust out soon, and I want to vacuum seal > freeze the bounty.


Thanks
 
I use my foodsaver all the time. I also have a couple of marinating canisters that I use all the time.

My favorite use for it was to fill one up with a large chunk of ice, vac it, and seal it. After melting it, I can refreeze it and it fits perfectly in my ice chest, lasts longer than store bought ice and doesn't get food wet. If it gets munged up a bit, I just throw it in the dishwasher. I've had some of those still in good shape for close to 10 years.
 
Foodsaver owner here too. I use it weekly. It's worth every $.

Nick, your hint on the homemade ice deals is great! Ok if I steal it and pretend like I thought it up myself?
biggrin.gif
 
Foodsaver rec here too. Use it all the time.

I do the opposite of NickDanger. I'll freeze a bag of ice, let it melt, then boil it and throw it in an ice chest with a couple of towels and whatever I need to keep warm to make portable chafing dishes.
 
I've never used them to keep food warm, but I've used them for heat packs for injuries.

I'll file the chafing dish idea away for the future.

Another thing I routinely do is make a casserole and freeze it. Then I have a pyrex out of use for an indefinite period so I put the casserole in a warm bath just long enough to free it from the pyrex still frozen. Seal it and put it back in the freezer. When it comes time to heat up the casserole, it will go right back into the pyrex.

If you don't understand why I do this after it's frozen, it's because ANY liquids will get sucked into the Foodsaver and prevent it from giving a good seal. For Hatch chiles and the like, I roll up a paper towel of napkin so that it acts as a temporary dam to keep the liquids from getting sucked into the sealer part. Most of the units have an instant seal button and I hit that right before the liquids start to seep thru. This is also why you seal ice and not water. Plus, water would expand and probably burst the bag or at least the seal.
 
Nick where do you live? You are often talking about the chilis.

I have a hatch chili burger at a place in Houston near Tomball the other day---Santa Fe Flats-- all angus-- very good

The new mex salsa is great, chicken enchiladas with an egg -- thinking about it-- everything there is good to great
 
SA.

Just to toot my own horn, I came in second among 175 in the Central Market Hatch Chili Recipe Contest back during their festival. I like them.

Oh. I won a bag of chips.
 
Another vote for Foodsaver. They work well and seem to be reliable. The rolls of bags are available from Costco at a reasonable price.

Awesome for fish and other meats. I also use it to freeze my fresh home-roasted coffee so it doesn't go stale. If you don't home-roast you can still do the same thing with store-bought coffee beans. Go to Costco, buy a jumbo bag of their fresh-roasted coffee, divide it into portions of however much you use in a week, bag, and freeze. Every portion will retain that fresh-roasted flavor. BTW, coffee beans go stale in about 2 weeks. Ground coffee goes stale in hours. That's why it's good to know when your beans were roasted and why you should avoid ground coffee altogether.
 
If you are going to seal something that won't be completely used upon opening (coffee, weed, etc), leave a little room to spare so that you can seal it again. The bags are NOT free. They aren't horribly expensive either, but...
 
Yeah, I know, but lots of people do it. Especially for weekend trips. Seal a small bag and then put the bag in another bag with coffee and seal the second bag.

I wouldn't know since that isn't my cup of tea, but I know people who do that.
 
For the Food Saver users -

(can't find the info via web) Do the roll of bags come sealed on 3 sides, so all you do is activate the vac. feature - then seal?

I went with a economy brand/model.... the roll is simply folded over, on one side, so that means you peal out a length, seal once (to make the bag-width), then a second seal after vacuuming.
 
When you are measuring how much roll to cut, try not to get too cheap and cut the bag as small as absolutley possible. If you cut it too small, you won't have enough bag and then you will have wasted a bunch more than if you had added an extra inch.
 
How much is a roll of bags or bag material? No freezer burn for things like chicken breasts or tenders? I really appreciate this thread. I have been wondering about all of this but kept forgetting I was and never posted.
 
I bought 2 11"x9' rolls off Amazon for $16.

I've never had trouble with freezer burn, but don't fool yourself, stuff still will go bad sealed or not. However, I can at least double, if not triple the time, especially on steaks, roasts, bone-in poultry and homemade soups, stews or casseroles.

In a nut shell, they're worth every $$$ IMO.
 
Not to contribute anything worthwhile to this thread but I think the answer to the OPs question is:

They suck.
laugh.gif
 
These things are fantastic for extending the life of cheese. A lot of times we will buy different cheeses for making pizza - but only use a little of it. With a vacu-sealer I estimate you get 20x the life out of the cheese. I've never actually seen any go bad.
 
Double or triple the frozen storage time is conservative provided the vacuum is close to complete and is maintained continuously. Seriously, you can have meat frozen two years with no freezer burn.

The conditional above is a big one, however. Lots of my bags have ended up with small holes or tears. The material was recently redesigned, at least visually, but I'm sure it isn't foolproof yet. Especially problematic are bone-in meats, which of course are the best kind. Bone-in rib-eyes, lamb loin chops, even bone-in chicken breasts have caused holes or tears. I've tried various approaches to protecting the material from the bones, such as wrapping food in several layers of newspaper (bagged or plastic wrapped first), using the styrofoam meat trays top and bottom, even bubble wrap around the meat. We have a chest freezer so bags sometimes get a lot of handling and relocating, so even bags of boneless meats have developed holes or tears.

If you are used to buying large quantities of meat and freezing it, note that you'll have an unexpected extra step in the process. Due to the liquid issue mentioned above, you are supposed to freeze the meat before sealing it.

In addition to the cheese use already noted, we use ours for keeping avocado from turning black.

As far as reliability, the one issue I've had is that the auto-stop no longer works. I have to use the instant seal button for every seal.

Costco usually has a package that includes a sealer, some canisters, and several rolls of the bag material material. You can also buy refurb units direct from www.foodsaver.com.
 
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