Food Saver Vaccum Sealer - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Waggin Tails · RV-Dreams Family Member

Food Saver Vaccum Sealer

NorCal Dan · RV-Dreams Family Member

DW has one of these http://www.foodsaver.com/Product.aspx?id=c&cid=87&pid=8322 along with some canisters that you can suck the air out of. She uses it all the time so I guess that means it's a worthwhile appliance. The kitchen is NOT my area...

Bill Adams · RV-Dreams Family Member

I think you will find that most users use it everyday for anything they can think of. A few weeks later most users use the sealer when they buy a big batch of steaks. A few weeks after that they use them once or twice because it seems like the right thing to do. A few weeks later it would take an act of Congress to get the sealer out of its storage drawer. It really is a good device for what it does but you will likely find that it does not do all that the manufacturer claims that it will or that the effort involved is not quite what you had expected.
No disrespect to anyone who uses and loves their vac-u-jack, I am just relating personal experience.

Luvglass · RV-Dreams Family Member

We use ours regularly. It's invaluable for storing foods for long periods. If you don't over buy, then you might not use it as much. I think everyone is different

Paul Eskin · RV-Dreams Community Member

We use ours after every trip to the grocery. Have had it for over 6 years now and still think its one of my favorite toys.Keeps food fresh and easy to store. And what a great way to keep spare parts, batteries, etc in the MH !

Gypsy Turtle 2 · RV-Dreams Family Member

While I don't use mine every day, I wouldn't be without it. When you need it, you need it and it's one of the handiest gadgets ever. I am fortunate to have a separate freezer in our motor home, so when I have the opportunity to stock up, I buy large quantities and vacuum pack into smaller portions.

You can even use it for clothing and items you'd store in a dry pack if out on the water for the day. It's a mini space bag smile

I've vac'd documents for safe keeping too. I needed a way to 'shrink' those bulky wills we got from our attorney so they'd fit in our safe deposit box. Vacuum sealed them-they shrank like a blanket in a space bag biggrin

After the coffee maker, this is my #1 favorite kitchen gadget.

heyjohnm · RV-Dreams Family Member

You may want to also consider the ZipLoc vacuum seal freezer bag system. It uses a hand vacuum pump. Bags come in quart and gallon size and are useable/reusable with or without pumping the air out. May be just the ticke for RV use ...less weight, lower cost, and multi-use bags. YMMV

53 Merc · RV-Dreams Family Member

Lemme see now, where did I put that vac thingy? Oh yeah, there it is. Now where are the bags? Shucks, we're outta them. Now where is the plastic wrap. Ratz!!! Empty roll. Oh well, this baggie will work.

Like others, I can never find the vacuum sealer. We used it a lot the first two or three weeks, after that, not so much. Seems to be a lot of trouble for little gain.

Racerguy · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sold ours on Craigs list after NOT using it for 9 months just like many other things we started out with and did not use. smile

Pinon · RV-Dreams Family Member

They work great. Definitely keep food better preserved in the freezer than just ziploc bags. That said, I haven't used mine in a year

Ziplocs are good enough (IMO) as long as you aren't freezing for more than a couple months. I expect when we get our RV I'll be even less into food storage. It's just a personality thing, I think. When I come home from the store I want to relax - not repackage all my food. However, if I were really into cooking it might be different.
Heidi

Racerguy · RV-Dreams Family Member

I think these type of things depend a lot on what freezer space you have.When we had our stix and brix it paid off because we could buy meat in bulk and freeze it for months.Our fifth wheel only has an 10 cubic foot refrigerator which makes for a freezer that holds around 2 weeks supply of frozen food.No need to get elaborate with packaging.The room the unit takes up in storage space is not really gained in the freezer.JMO

janni · RV-Dreams Family Member

I always wanted one in our stix and brix and as we downsized into this lifestyle it was the LAST thing on my mind. Been on the road for 5 months now and both said the other day we need to get rid of some more "stuff" Think it is great for some. I would be the same as the above "where are those bags?" Buy what you need, keep a few zip locs on hand, and if I am ever found "shrinking" my closet by season..........my better half would probably put me away. Now this is JMO

DorisandDave · RV-Dreams Family Member

I used to have the electric bag sucker and got rid of it because I needed the counter space and I rarely hauled it out front and did the freezer saver thing. That was in the sticks and bricks.

I use the ZIPLOC Freezer seal one now in the 5er. It is so much more convienant and the bags so much easier to find at the grocery store when I am shopping for food.

I keep the sucker in the utensil drawer, grap it, suck the bag, throw it back in the drawer and throw the food in the freezer.
It does just as good a job as the old electric heated up edge I used to have, but not the hassle. And as stated, the bags are reusable.

Waggin Tails · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks for the comments. I've been using freezer zip lock bags for a while now and agree that they work pretty well. Perhaps the hand operated pump version would fit the bill since the hand pump would be easier to store than the larger electrical unit.

LeslieW · RV-Dreams Family Member

We are now on our third FoodSaver. We use it all the time. We have a separate 3.4 cu ft freezer and repackage meat that we buy in larger packages. We get better quality meat at lower prices. Before you buy the hand pump or lighter models you might want to look at the Cooks' Illustrated review. Cooks' Illustrated does reviews of kitchen appliances much like Consumer Reports (they accept no advertising). See www.cooksillustrated.com (I'm not affiliated, I just love their magazine.)

-- Edited by LeslieW on Saturday 19th of March 2011 11:11:46 PM

Waggin Tails · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks for the reference Leslie. I'll check it out.

Bill Adams · RV-Dreams Family Member

LeslieW wrote:

We are now on our third FoodSaver. We use it all the time. We have a separate 3.4 cu ft freezer and repackage meat that we buy in larger packages. We get better quality meat at lower prices. Before you buy the hand pump or lighter models you might want to look at the Cooks' Illustrated review. Cooks' Illustrated does reviews of kitchen appliances much like Consumer Reports (they accept no advertising). See www.cooksillustrated.com (I'm not affiliated, I just love their magazine.)

-- Edited by LeslieW on Saturday 19th of March 2011 11:11:46 PM

I was curious how you do this? Are you buying a 1/2 a cow at a time? If buying a large hunk, where do you buy and can you find this kind of option as you travel or is this a local butcher/source?

LeslieW · RV-Dreams Family Member

Bill, I had to laugh at your question. For 20+ years we did have a local farmer who sold us 1/2 steer butchered to our specific cutting order. We never bought grocery store meat. Our farmer retired and we went on the road. We were very disappointed at the quality of meat we could find. Now we ask locals if there is a "real" butcher around. Sometimes even on-the-road friends have the perfect reference. We were near Phoneix recently and LuvGlass sent us to a fantastic meat market. We added some great steaks to our freezer supply. We also buy certain meats at Costco (lamb chops, breast of chicken, ground beef) and repackage them.

A useful tip in repackaging ground beef is to place 1 lb in each Foodsaver bag. After the bag is sealed but before you place it in the freezer, roll it out as flat as you can. The flat packages fit more easily in the freezer and defrost quicker.

Leslie

Ckerr · RV-Dreams Family Member

We plan to add a FoodSaver to our kitchen arsenal in a couple of months. We're planning to get the higher end model that has settings for marinading.

As we've traveled we found the availability of great meat varies widely. For instance, we know we can get great steaks here in Austin for a reasonable price. We want to be able to buy 8 or 10 and be able to have them when we're on the road and a good steak is $10.99/lb vs the $5.99 we can get if for here.

I also don't want to go to the grocery store every day so it's great to buy 10 boneless skinless chicken breasts, package them for 2 with various marinades and stick them in the freezer. That way I can just pull a package out in the morning and throw it on the grill later without a lot of fuss.

We know we can do this with zip lock bags, but our experience is that we lose about 1/3 of what we freeze in ziplocks to freezer burn. Hopefully the vacumn sealer will help us avoid this waste.

We also understand that you can reseal the chip bag without crushing the chips. We currently throw out a lot of half bags of chips! We might just pay for it in one year with the savings from chips alone!

The Bear II · RV-Dreams Family Member

Besides the big Foodsaver we also have one of these handheld units- http://www.foodsaver.com/Category.aspx?id=c&cid=1152

I like it better than the big one.

We use them off and on and most of the time have great results. Once in a while something happens and the seal comes undone after a couple of months in the freezer. Maybe once out of 30 items we seal.

We also use it to seal other items... like all the extra cords you get but don't use on some electronic devices. We seal the instructions and extra parts/cords in a bag write on it what it's for and put it in our "Extra Electronics Stuff" bin.