Do you use a Food Saver ?


 

Lynn Dollar

TVWBB Emerald Member
We bought one 10+ years ago. It failed quickly, we talked to Food Saver and they replaced it , and told us we needed to be careful about getting moisture in the machine. Well, we tried our best , but the second one did not last long either. We just chunked it and moved on.

Are they improved now ? If ya own one, do you use it and have ya had problems ? If buying today, which model would you buy ?

I bought some spare ribs at Sams yesterday, they come two racks per package, and I want to smoke just one rack on the 26. But saving the other rack is a problem.

Does your Food Saver come with " bags " that are large enough for a rack of spare ribs ?
 
I bought a FS a few years ago and had reliability issues. Last year, I bought a VacMaster PRO380 and, so far, it has worked well but I will say that finding the sweet spot for the first seal (before the vacuum) can be finicky. For that reason, I sometimes to a double seal at that first end. With the 16" seal bar, it is easy to vac seal a roast or chicken. I have read reports where users are able to order parts from VacMaster/ARY. FS will not sell parts. VacMaster rolls and bags from Amazon, and possibly other sources, are exponentially less costly than FS.

On another fairly recent thread Chris reported excellent service from his FS vac sealer over x years.

I would be LOST without a vac sealer!
 
I've had one for many years, don't use it very often, so I'll let others comment on brands, durability, etc.
There are rolls available that would probably accommodate baby backs, not sure about the wider spares.
For whole slabs, of either type, I wrap in plastic wrap then in heavy, coated butcher paper.
 
I'll never, ever, buy another device with a FoodSaver brand on it. I'd go on, but I could be arrested....

I picked up an Ary Vacmaster 260 a couple of years ago, it runs rings around anything I've ever seen from Rival/FoodSaver. AND..... Ary has people who answer phones and are knowledgeable about their product.

I've been buying bags & rolls from Webstaurantstore.com. The bags are cheap enough that I use them instead of the rolls, mostly.
 
As I wrote in this thread, I bought my first FoodSaver at Costco in September 1999 and it ran for 19 years and never stopped running. The only problem it ever had was that after many years of use, the spring action of the right side latch stopped "springing", so I had to hold the latch down until the vacuum started, then the lid would stay shut and complete the vacuum process.

I upgraded to a FoodSaver 5480 in February 2018, also from Costco, and it works great, too. I like how you make bags from rolls in this unit, it was more effort with the old FoodSaver. These new units have a removable drip tray that catches any liquid that gets sucked in from the bag, an improvement over my old unit. But I prefer to freeze meat in open bags for a couple of hours, then seal the bag. No liquids at all if you use that method.

I don't know why these things last a long time for some people and not others. I do tend to baby everything I own...I have a lot of things that look and work like they did when they were new. If I had to guess, I would attribute it to that.

As for ribs, I don't seal stuff like that very much, but as Bob says, when you do you have to pad the ends of the bones because they will puncture the bag. I don't think the widest FoodSaver bag would be wide enough for a whole sparerib, you'd have to trim it down.
 
I'm on my second one of these: https://www.impakcorporation.com/sealers/KF108
It's relatively cheap, and uses cheaper bags than the Foodsaver textured ones. Bags are available in many sizes and configurations (even ziplock style) from a number of sources. The machine will seal bags up to 10.8 inches wide, and you can get bags as big as 10" x 24" which should accommodate a rack of ribs.
 
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I have used my Foodsavers a lot. We fish and garden besides BBQ'ing. They have all lasted a long time.
 
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I have a foodsaver brand,auto when the bag is inserted,5 year warranty , works well. Only down side is you have to let the sealing bar cool a minute if you have a bunch of stuff prepped. It's pretty fast no grabbing the bar and locking it just slide the bag in with both hands and it will clamp vac and seal by its self. around $130-$140 a few years ago
 
Considered it but up here larger bags are almost $30 for 32 bags. Too much for something to throw away after one use.
 
I've had one for many years, don't use it very often, so I'll let others comment on brands, durability, etc.
There are rolls available that would probably accommodate baby backs, not sure about the wider spares.
For whole slabs, of either type, I wrap in plastic wrap then in heavy, coated butcher paper.

It seems like you've been doing in cooking field of business ... for years.
 
Considered it but up here larger bags are almost $30 for 32 bags. Too much for something to throw away after one use.

While not bags, I've been buying generic rolls from Amazon for over 3 years. Two 50' rolls 11" wide for less than $20.
 
Anyone have experience with Geryon? I've been trying to convince the other half that a vaccuum sealer would actually be an addition to the kitchen and not a nuisance, and these seem well reviewed and in the right budget range.

If not, anything in general for vaccuum sealers I should avoid, since I've never owned one?
 
We bought ours six years ago, V4880, at Costco. We love it and have not had any problems whatsoever. We too order the generic bags through Amazon. I recently froze two racks of spares but they had been St. Louis trimmed. Don't think untrimmed spares would fit.
 
We bought a FS Gm 700 which is called the Game Saver. It's a heavy duty continuous use model. I can and have done 50 bags in a row without having to wait for it to cool down every 5-6 bags like our old one. It also comes with a 12 volt adapter for field use. I bought direct from FS with a sale price of under $100.
We've had it for over two years and I am extremely happy with it.
We get our rolls 6"and 11" from eBay, I just shop for the lowest buy it now price for 50' rolls. I've been able to beat Amazon every time even with my Prime acct.
 
I've got just the basic food saver model and I've had it a few years. . Never had any trouble. I don't use the hell out of it or anything.
 
Yes.

Useful for freezing leftovers (my mom reheats in a pan of water and pours it over rice). Useful for Sous Vide (rolls from Amazon are within reason, baggie/water displacement too much work for me). I buy a whole rib eye, age it, cut it up and freeze dinner portions.

Russell
 
Ours is a V4420 food saver and would buy the same again if needed,just looked and bought it nov of 2015, receipt is taped on the back of it so have almost a 1-1/2 of warranty left
 

 

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