Food Saver - model?

[carolg]

I saw a Food Saver on sale today. I can tell you I love my Excalibur 9 tray but clueless in the Food Saver area. Can you please share? I want one that serves raw purposes and jucing could be a part of it too. I don't want to compromise on what I may buy if I get a Food Saver.

What do you look for in Food Process?

Do you need to buy their bags?

Best place to buy Food Saver and Bags? Costs??????

Thanks.

carolg

[raweater]

I bought the V2940 I think it is, let me go check... it's V2840, I was close. I bought it on eBay since that's where I found the best price. I chose this one because:
-I wanted one with a manual vacuum stop/seal button (I had bought the ultra cheap model from the grocery store and tried to vacuum seal zucchini pasta and since I could not stop the vacuum manually it sucked all the water out of it and essentially mostly dehydrated it and squished it into a pancake, with the manual seal button you can press seal when you want and the vacuum will stop and it will seal the bag)
-I wanted a built in roll storage and cutter
-I wanted one with the optional accesory port for all the optional accessories
-I wanted one that can simply seal regular bags without vacuuming (not sure if the cheaper models do this)

The accessories I got are:
-The 3 vacuum canister set
-The mason jar adapter to vacuum seal mason jars
-The universal lids to seal, dare I say, opened cans or other solid containers, these can seal anything with a flat top and the structural strenght to withstand the pressure of a vacuum
-The bottle caps to vacuum seal glass beverage bottles like wine bottles

To be honest what I use it most for it the built in cutter to open my bags of walnuts and stuff like that, and the heat sealer to seal the bags shut. My next biggest use is vacuum sealing mason jars, and then would be the bags which I rarely use but are useful every now and then. I've also found that moths can and do eat straight through regular zip lock bags so anything I want stored long term in a bag goes in food saver bags which are much thicker.

I prefer to make most of my meals one at a time and don't prepare much in advance so I don't use the vacuum feature that much but am still really glad I have it even thoguh my main use is cutting and heat sealing bags.

It's important to understand the food saver only adds a few days of storage and things that need to be refrigerated must still be refrigerated when vacuumed. It does not at all cause indefinate storage like dehydrating does.

[carolg]

Raweater,
Thanks SO much for sharing your detailed experience. I was thinking something like the mason jars would be nice to store the frozen ice cream in too. Right?

I don't freeze much, but still, the bananas would be nice to have frozen without having some hidden ice.

So this model will allow me to make juice, and seal the lid so that I can make juice up in advance for at least a few days?

This is the model I saw at Kohl's today. I am thinking Costco for that unbelievable guarantee. Hope I can get to Costco tomorrow to at least take a peak and then plan. My fruit "rolls" I can actually store in a plastic sealed container where absolutely nothing can get in except the determination from the mice. I think mice talk is under control.

Thanks again. Great way to close my eyes heading to bed now.

Have a great Saturday and also a great night's sleep.

carolg

[lisadozknit]

I Love my handivac sealer by reynolds~ !!!! It is handheld and you can get it under 10 dollars at walmart in the baggie section. You buy their ziploc handivac bags and use the handivac to vacuum all the air out and it will even crush a can. The fruit I freeze stays the original color and I just open it , take out what I want and then re use the vac to take the air out. Just wanted to share that as I am sure the food saver do a great job , but for people like me that can't afford one this is a great alternative. I have even re used the bags after washing , but they are cheap enough not to. hth Lisa

[carolg]

Lisa,
Thanks for sharing and jumping right in. Always great to get another's perspective. Actually another person wrote that they too loved the Walmart gadget as well.

I appreciate you sharing here.

carolg

[Ilse W.]

Does the little handi-vac work on any zip-lock type bag, like the freezer bags from Costco, or do I have to buy special bags? I've been dehydrating tomatoes and I want to freeze them. I can't afford to spend $150 to safe a few bucks on tomatoes in season. Right now I squish the air out, seal the bag most of the way and then suck the rest of the air out of the corner, sealing quickly. Works pretty well, but would like an improved method. :p

[raweater]

Why do you want to vacuum seal and freeze dehydrated tomatoes? They will keep at room temp indefinately in a closed container, that's how I keep mine, and I just dehydrated 60 lbs of tomatoes and will get another 60 lbs if they have some left.

[Ilse W.]

I think it's the Pacific NW. It must be too damp here. I dehydrate tomato slices until they are crips, put them in zip-loc bags (the ones with the double seal) and put them in the cupboard. A few days later they are limp. I read somewhere that you either have to vacuum seal, or better freeze the stuff to keep it from growing mold. I certainly would welcome any suggestions to avoid having to go through all that.

[raweater]

Have you tried putting them in mason jars or other jars with an airtight lid? I did notice my sweet potato chips loose their crisp if stored in a zip lock but remain crisp if stored in a mason jar (even if not vacuum sealed).

[Ilse W.]

Hmmm, that would require the purchase of a lot of mason jars. I think I'll try the little cheapie vacuum pump. I'll just assume that the zip-loc bags with the double lock from Costco will work.

[raweater]

Ziplocks are not air tight, the fact that dried food in ziplocks "remoisturizes" itself proves this fact. Even if you can vacuum a ziplock, it will eventually loose the vacuum since it's not air tight (the plastic of ziplocks is like a very fine screen and does let air through slowly but surely).

You can buy half gallon mason jars or other very large glass jars with airtight lids.