Got A New Food Sealer - Initial Thoughts And Impressions

[Draznnl]

You may die penniless because of us John, but you’ll leave a fully equipped kitchen behind.

Congrats on the new sealer purchase. I hope it sucks for you for a long time.

[barelfly]

Hey, thanks for the tips on the dry and moist settings…..I guess I should go read the instructions on my vac seal now that you gave these tips. Who knows what else i might learn

enjoy the vac seal. It truly is a great item to have in the kitchen.

And for the soups and such that you might seal up and freeze, I’ve learned that if you hang the bag over the edge and support it, it helps keep the liquid from moving towards the unit as it’s removing the air, thus leaving you with a clean seal. It took a bit to get the chile and soups sealed right, but letting gravity do it’s thing has helped quite a bit for me.

have fun PJ!

[Panhead John]

Thanks.

[MBMorgan]

Unless you have a chamber vac sealer, soups and other liquids are a real problem. To vac seal such things, I pour them into a smallish thin plastic container with a lid (like Ziplock) and put them into the freezer until completely solid. When it’s time to vac seal, a little warm water over the base of the container will release the frozen "brick" of liquid so that it can be quickly bagged and vac sealed without having to worry about filling your sealer with liquid gunk. Eventually, when it’s time to use the frozen "brick", you can usually just thaw or reheat it right in the sealed bag.

[Panhead John]

I agree about the liquids. I never have or never would try to seal soups or chili, etc. in bags. I always use plastic containers with a lid. But at this point I leave them in that container. Honestly, I don’t see the point of removing them after frozen and putting them in a bag. It’s a waste of time and a bag to me, it’s already frozen in an airtight container. You can thaw or reheat it in that container also. You’re weird.

[MBMorgan]

Panhead John - "You’re weird." No argument there ... but weird without ice crystals, freezer burnt soups or stocks, and with less freezer space lost to partially filled containers.

I forgot to mention that, for multiple bags of liquid, I often forego the use of plastic containers by just putting the liquid to be frozen in the bags, standing them upright in a bowl or whatever so they don't spill, and then setting in the freezer before sealing the next day. Sometimes I clamp them; sometimes not.

[Panhead John]

I don’t put any partially filled containers in the freezer. I’ll fill them to about 1/2” from the top and put the lid on. As the food expands from freezing, it fills the container with no or very little air gap. I’m right, you’re wrong. 😂

[DaveD]

Also really digging my Meat Your Maker model, which has pretty much the exact feature set as the one PJ described, except it doesn't come with the outboard hose for working with other containers (although it does have a port for same). Fifty bucks cheaper too It's very liberating, now I can go forward making large cuts of meat, whereas before I was always hanging back for concern of having more leftovers than we could properly handle. No longer!

[IowaGirl]

I seal a lot of liquidy things with my household vac sealer -- chili, other soups, broth, etc. -- but I don't ever pre-freeze. I just let the normal atmospheric pressure do my "vac sealing" for me. Here's how --

I carefully lay the filled bag flat on the counter with the unsealed opening draping up and over the heat sealer area as I would normally do. The point here is to ensure the bag opening is above the liquid and also to get the bag opening in the correct position to be sealed later.

Lay the lid of the sealer down over the unsealed opening, but don't latch the lid in place. The point of this is to use the weight of the lid to hold the open end in place, yet allow air to escape. This step can be omitted if your vac sealer doesn't allow you to do this -- that's the way I started out when learning this method -- but the unlatched lid is a handy "third hand" that makes the process easier and more reliable.

Gently work air bubbles out of the bag with your fingers so the air travels to and escapes from the bag opening. There's no need to actually use the vac option -- you will be able to manually remove nearly all of the air out of the bag. Watch the top of the bag where it disappears under the (unlatched) lid and you'll see a film of liquid wetting the bag. The goal is to keep this film of liquid from rising into the area where the heat seal will be for a secure seal. On the other hand, the closer the liquid film comes to the heat seal area, the less air will be in the bag.

Once you're satisfied, latch the lid, but do NOT start the vacuum operation. Just use the manual sealing option (no vacuum) to seal the bag. Inspect the heat seal. If there is liquid in the heat-seal area, manually seal the bag again using the "moist" seal setting if your vac sealer has that option. Lay the bags flat in the freezer to freeze.

When first using this method, the sealed bag might contain a few air bubbles, but as a person gains experience, it's possible to seal liquids with little or no air in the bag.

[WayneT]

"I read a lot of the Amazon reviews on it, and after weeding out the idiots..."

You ignored my review at your peril!

[Panhead John]

😂👍

[Alan Brice]

I have the original foodSaver n buy rolls of bags in bulk. I start with a dbl seal appx 1/8 inch apart. Then finish w/ dbl seal. Never had an issue. Lost all the provided containers long ago.

[Dan Deter]

I double seal the bottom but not the top....it just takes too long for the sealer bar to cool off enough to not trip the safeties and slow me down even more. I'd like to double seal the top, but...

[Panhead John]

Hey Dan, my old Food Saver did require some cool down time also, know what you mean. Some of the reviewers on this model stated they went a long time without needing a cool down period. I believe they said it never needed a cool down period at all. That was one of the selling points for me.

[Dan Deter]

Panhead John I'll keep that in mind if the Food Saver ever fails.

[jfmorris]

I've been lucky so far with the Foodsaver brand model I bought at Sam's Club 4-5 years ago. I've gone through a lot of the 11" rolls of bags, and recently started getting those pleated rolls from Amazon that will expand for bigger stuff. Those won't fit inside the machine, but that's not a big deal. I'm knocking on wood now that my Foodsavr will keep on going for years to come.

[MBMorgan]

From what I've read, some of the older models had a better chance of a long life than many of the newer ones. True or not, I've been using my Foodsaver for 6-7 years and (knock on wood) it's still going strong.

[RichieB]

Looks good, congrats. I didn't read the instructions with mine and still haven't. So I must be a man's man. 😏 or just stupid and stubborn.

[Old Glory]

Good luck with it.

Never felt the need for one of these. We just use freezer bags. Pre-wrap steaks in cling wrap then put into freezer bag squish out air and freeze.

[Alan Brice]

Cannot believe I have ever got along w/o one.

[RlsRls]

Hmmmm, I have a sealer (maybe 5 years now) but never realized steaks and chicken breasts , pork chops etc.. were suppose to be sealed with the moist setting! I have noticed juices being pulled from the meats but the machine seems to stop and seal before juices enter the channel as far as I can tell! Now, if I have time, I put a" hard chill" in the freezer on my proteins before I seal them and that seems to eliminate the squeeze juice problem. As for thawing , I remove food from the bags BEFORE thawing and this also eliminates the squeezed juice issue.
I've learned the hard way that the quality of the bag is probably more important than the machine!

[Panhead John]

Good points! After reading the owners manual I’m guessing pretty much all meat would need to be on the moist setting. The dry setting would be for maybe fresh vegetables or fruits? Not sure. But it makes sense they call it Moist, and not wet.

[Dan Deter]

Interesting, I've never used moist for the chicken breasts. Maybe I should try that and extend the life of my sealer.

[fzxdoc]

You were lucky that none of the liquid from your steaks actually got into the vacuum sealer. I killed two vac sealers that way, but not with steaks. More liquid was involved. The second vac sealer (Beer and brats for sous vide. Duh.) did seem to dry out and work for another month or so, but then died.

If you're careful with liquids, you should get a lot of years of service from your sealer, assuming it's a good build. Here's hoping!

Kathryn

[Panhead John]

Thanks Kathryn, yeah, I checked the vacuum area and no liquid got in. And the bags actually sealed just fine, even with the little bit of liquid that got past the seal. I’ve learned a few things since "actually reading the owners manual" 🙄

HERE’S WHAT THE OWNER’S MANUAL SAYS CONCERNING DRY/MOIST SETTING:

DRY: For most dry objects and food types in order to obtain the highest vacuum pressure.

MOIST: For wet foods with little moisture like fresh vegetables, chicken, steak etc. For liquid foods, get it frozen first before putting into the bag.

NOTE: The default setting is DRY, with the strongest suction power. Use VACUUM ONLY more to do finer suction control.

Me here…….So…..apparently the MOIST setting has a little less suction power than DRY. I did not know this! I’m assuming this is to help with any moisture/liquid getting past the seal. They also recommend freezing some meats first, before putting into the bag, which will help with moisture control. A few of you in this post recommended that also. They [owners manual] even said you can place a paper towel between the unfrozen meat and bag opening if you like. This prevents any moisture/liquid from getting into the seal chamber.

NOTE TO SELF: Next time read the manual first dumbass.

[Panhead John]

I actually saw a YouTube video yesterday where someone used a paper towel. It works!

[N227GB]

The paper towel is a great idea!

[RichieB]

I guess I need to find the manual.

[RlsRls]

Yeah, I'm going to use the piece of paper towel method as well! I like the maximum amount of "suck" when I'm sealing expensive cuts of proteins!!

[Panhead John]

+1 Just roll it up into a loose tube shape and place above the meat.

[randy56]

Great review , topic and discussion. However I may mention, hang out here much longer you will die penniless.