FoodSaver questions...

[lesa]

My brother really surprised me for my birthday and sent me a FoodSaver... It takes the air out of the bags and seals the plastic up... Do any of you have one of these? Tips, ideas? I am not really in harvest mode yet, but would love to hear your experiences.

 

[justpete]

They're great. I use mine all the time.

 

[simple life]

That is a great gift! I have been spending time pricing these and making comparisons.
There are a couple of threads on the meatbird section of BYC discussing these.
From what I have heard they are all pretty good some have a little more than others but they all do the job.
A couple of them having a marinating feature other than that its mostly size differences.
Happy Birthday!

 

[Ridgerunner]

We use ours a lot. Much better than the resealable bags.

Get a good book on freezing vegetables. What you are after mostly is the blanching time, but some things, like broccoli, need to soak in salt water to get the insects out first. Just follow the instructions up through and including blanching.

That vacuum sealer does not handle moisture well. I know it has a moist setting and that helps, but it just will not seal if the bag is wet in the sealing area. Drying everything off can help, but it will pull moisture from the food when it is pulling the vacuum. Experiment with it a bit and you will see what I mean. If the contents are too damp to be able to seal, I fill the bag and put it in the freezer open. After it freezes, I take one bag at a time from the freezer so it will not thaw (well, sometimes two bags at a time) wipe the ice and such around the sealing area inside and out and then seal them. I still use the moist setting as it will probably pull some moisture from the frozen bag. And watch that insert in the area where you put the open mouth of the bag. Sometimes moisture will build up in there and have to be emptied.

When you trying to seal the bag, make sure the open portion is well into the vacuum section. The bag can slip out a bit when you close the door. If all the opening is not in the vacuum section, it will not be able to pull a vacuum and can burn up the motor. If it is in right, it will pull a vacuum pretty fast so you will quickly realize it is not in there far enough. Just hit one of the control buttons. It will stop and you can start over.

Don't fill the bag too full. It takes more room from the vacuum section to the sealing area than you would think. Also when it pulls the vacuum, the bag sorta shrinks, getting pulled up toward the sealing unit. Just experiment with it a bit.

You can either get bags ready made or get a roll where you can cut the bags to the length you want them. Using the roll, I seal the bottom of the bag before I cut it to length. If you are like me, the first one you cut will be too short. There's just more room between the vacuum area and the sealing area than I think there should be.

I think you will enjoy using it. It does keep food a lot better than the ziploc type bags.

 

[journey11]

I have one, a few years old. I love it and use it all the time. Bags can be a little expensive and may fail if reused, but I think they are worth it, given how much better things keep. I think it is particularly valuable for preparing meats to freeze.

Good tips there from Ridgerunner. It will suck out juice as well as air. Anything you can allow to dry in the collander a bit first, it will help you get a good seal. Things like pork chops, I pat the air bubbles out of the bag as it vacuums, then just as soon as I start to see the juices running up the little lines, I press Manual seal. (Wipe the mouth of the bag with a dry towel before you start sealing if you see juices covering it.) You will still get almost all of the air out. I hold my bags up to the light of the kitchen window and make sure I got a good seal.

Things like strawberries and peaches, I let them freeze a bit first, but not completely solid. You need the food to squish a bit to get the most air out and also hard and pointy things will rub against other things in the freezer and possibly puncture the bag.

You can also use it on other things too, like potato chip or cereal bags. It will seal those just as well. (Use manual seal if you need to, to keep from crushing your chips! )

Sweet brother to get you such a nice gift. I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

 

[Kim_NC]

Already lots of good advice here. I just wanted to say Congrats! You'll surely enjoy it as a great gift. We LOVE our foodsaver.

 

[oberhaslikid]

I have one and love it. Its an older model and I just used it this morning. I freeze my berries first before sealing them on cookie sheets to keep from crushing them when I seal them. I freeze breads or muffins first helps to keep from crushing when sealed.

 

[BetterHensandGardens]

We have one and love it, especially for summer berries. I just wrote a post on how we use it for them here: http://www.betterhensandgardens.com/2010/06/16/sealing-in-summer-flavor/
In the middle of winter, some almost fresh, home-grown berries just cam't be beat.

 

[Raiquee]

Hey guys,

Thought my first post would be a useful one! I also got a foodsaver, picked up off from someone who didn't use it ever. They gave me a huge paper brown bag of bags from a variety of companies. The foodsaver bags worked like a dream, then they bought this knock off brand...I can't recall the name...that worked like...well didn't work! I lost so many seals on my freezer meat, and the machine didn't pull the bag up as fast as it should over-working my motor.

I did a lot of searching and research, and found someone who was selling vac bags cheapily. Luckily they offered a sample bag, as I didn't want to buy a huge amount of useless bags. I tried their sample bags and I have to say, I'm impressed! They worked just like the food saver bags!

Here is their direct website: http://www.thesweetattack.com/page/page/2380629.htm

I originally found them on ebay, but on the packing slip they gave me that's the website I was given. I'm very happy with the bags, and will be placing an order for some more come August when I need some. Until then I have to use the crappy ones, cause I can't see myself throwing them away

They have both bags and rolls! HTH

 

[lesa]

I figured you guys would all be experts!! Thanks for the tips! Welcome Raiquee!! I will definitely look into those bags. What about using regular freezer bags?? I tried one and it seemed to work. They are pretty cheap??