Vacuum food saver


 
We had a food saver for years. Initially it for sealing hops for homebrew but it's awesome to have for food. Just me and the ol lady so when we used to have a Costco it was great. The food saver gave it up last year and I bought an anova off Amazon. It has a very small footprint and it's been great so far. Figure the sous vide is great so I'd give it a go.

For my taste, I love the reheated bbq a few weeks or months later on a weeknight and not having to sit in the smoke all day. Like all others have said, I will never be without one again.
 
I have the Nesco and previously had Food Saver.The
Nesco is hands down better in my opinion.I use after market bags and they work great also,all depends on your needs and how often it will be used,I use it often and have had zero issue.
 
I have a foodsaver and it is currently gathering dust. Got the cheapest one, not sure the model. Worked well but for anything with liquid in it not so much as the liquid just stopped it sealing. Sure that's not an issue on bigger models and for freezing down cuts of meat. I was getting ahead of myself with fermentation I think.
 
I have been buying my rolls from foodvacbags.com and I'm on their mailing list. I was reading some of their tips this morning and thought this might be relevant:

foodvacbags.com

Can You Vacuum Seal Bread?

Bread is an easy food to stock up on for later. Bakeries offer discounts on day-old breads and rolls; you might enjoy a bagel now and then, but don't want to have to eat one every morning; or you bake bread and want to store extra loaves for later use. Whatever the reason, the best way to store...
foodvacbags.com foodvacbags.com

foodvacbags.com

101 Items You Didn't Know You Could Vacuum Seal

Did you know that vacuum sealing can be used for more than saving meat and cheese? You are going to find many new ways to use your machine in this mega list of "101 Ways to Use Your Vacuum Sealer".
foodvacbags.com foodvacbags.com

If you have the jar adapter accessories, you can seal many things in mason jars, things like lettuce and green beans to keep them fresher longer. Some jars, like pickle jars, are also re-sealable.

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EDIT: Had to get some HB from the freezer and found my vac sealed jar of lemon zest from 2/23.

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JKalchik said:
That's going to be an issue for any bag/roll sealer. My work-around is to freeze it first. Stocks, spaghetti sauce, Cincinnati chili, etc. all get portioned out into [mini-loaf pans first, popped out of the pan, then sealed.
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Yup. Even leftover grilled hamburger patties with cheese already melted on them, lasagna, apple pie. You name it, freeze it first, then vacuum seal and you're good. Doesn't even need to be hard Frozen usually just enough. I will make extra pans of lasagna just to freeze, I cut into single portion servings after it's frozen enough, then vacuum seal individually. Same with crawfish fettuccine.
 
I have had several “regular” vac sealers over the years. I have never used the jar function much so no longer care if I have that or not. My current regular sealer gets only occasional use. It’s my chamber sealer (Anova) I use very often. I use it for quick pickles and to speed up the marinating process along with the typical uses.

For bags (for virtually any type or brand of sealer) I buy from AvidArmor. I highly recommend.
 
I have a Foodsaver and am generally happy with it. As others have mentioned, I tend to use it when I have a batch of things to freeze as opposed to more regular one off use. What this means, IMHO, is that you lose the 'knack' of knowing how large a bag to trim off from the roll and the chances of cutting the wrong size are increased.

I use generic rolls from a supermarket and they work just the same. My only real peeve with the Foodsaver is how much it uses to make the seals. I have to feed about an inch into the machine each end for it to seal which I think is a real waste of money (but obviously where they make the real money after selling the machine to you). You also can't put the food too close to where it seals the bag at the end as you won't be able to get the ends in the machine.
 
I have a FoodSaver that I have been using since 2005, a Christmas gift from my wife. I couldn't guess as to how many pounds of salmon, halibut and game that I have put through that machine but it has to be in the thousands. I clean the drip tray and seal after every session and let the heat strip cool down between seals. The only thing that I have replaced is the the bag cutter. I must say I think I got my money's worth out of it.
 
PDay said:
I have a Foodsaver and am generally happy with it. As others have mentioned, I tend to use it when I have a batch of things to freeze as opposed to more regular one off use. What this means, IMHO, is that you lose the 'knack' of knowing how large a bag to trim off from the roll and the chances of cutting the wrong size are increased.

I use generic rolls from a supermarket and they work just the same. My only real peeve with the Foodsaver is how much it uses to make the seals. I have to feed about an inch into the machine each end for it to seal which I think is a real waste of money (but obviously where they make the real money after selling the machine to you). You also can't put the food too close to where it seals the bag at the end as you won't be able to get the ends in the machine.
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I use that extra length to make a double seal.
 
Here is my thoughts on wasting bag, I have never reused bags but I read that you can, if you make a bag a little ,longer after you cut it open and wash it you still could have enough length to go again , if losing a couple inches bothers you that much go back to the butcher wrapping paper. I have put dry stuff in and resealed for camping to keep it dry, same would work with anything else, I just won't wash them out.
 
John Neuser said:
Good day everyone. I'm considering buying a food vac machine. Read lots of comments on this site re: said machines and how most people think they are invaluable. Although it's just my wife and I we shop at Costco which means we typically buy larger packages of meat and fish. Additionally, when I smoke I like to do big batches. Last month I smoked a 12# brisket. LOs went into the freezer. This morning I took one of the packages out and it was full of ice crystals. So that pretty much sealed the deal. Also, love to do bacon, jerky, ribs, pork butt, etc. I do have a few questions.
1. I'm considering the Nesco VS-12. It gets good reviews and was Americas Test Kitchen's first choice. Any one have any experience with this brand and model?
2. How many of you bought a vacuum sealer but after six months or a year it's collecting dust?
3. Do use use name brand bags or do you procure through some other avenue?
4. What are your thoughts on the jar attachments?

Any additional thoughts, comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you and enjoy your weekend.

John

P.S. A little Costco humor. About ten years ago I developed this mantra, "Costco, where you buy more, eat more and throw more out."
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We have the Nesco. It's not the VS-12 as we got it about 5 years ago. Anyway haven't had any issues with our's and will be sticking with this brand. Like most here, we use the generic bag rolls from Amazon.

Haven't used the jar attachment so can't comment on it.

We use our's exclusively for sealing meat. You'll probably find that the 11.25" bag rolls are the most efficient. We do have a few of the 8" rolls but don't use them much. I wouldn't get the 50 foot long rolls as those won't fit inside the machine. The 25 foot ones fit just fine.
 
With our boxes of Hatch Chilis arriving tomorrow, both our kettle and Nesco VS-12 will be in use. Have had the VS-12 for right at 2 years. So far, very happy experience. As with Brian, we too will be sticking with this brand.
 
Had the Food Saver for a year before it died. Got the Anova, which is sleek looking, but had issues with some of the bag seals, so returned it and got the VS-12 and have been very happy with it. The Wevac bags from Amazon and Costco bags both have worked great.
 
Hello folks. I like to close the threads I open so, here I am. I did buy the Nesco VS-12 sealer. So far I've frozen some green coffee beans as the initial test as soon as I took it out of the box. I did this to monitor the seal over time. FYI, I use the double seal option for both ends of the bag. Next, I froze two nice steaks. I did this so I could monitor the color of the meat and the amount of ice, if any, that forms in the bag. The other day I smoked about six pounds of salmon jerky which yielded a little over three pounds of finished product. Froze it all. About six small bags. It was interesting in that it pulled some oil from the fish but not enough to affect the seal. I was not cheap with the size of the bags. Conclusion, money well spent. Thank you again for all of your comments.
 
Glad you got one! In my previous replies I mentioned that our Nesco wasn't the VS-12 as we got it about 5 years ago. Well, I checked the model # on the bottom after sealing some meat, and it turns that our model actually is the VS-12 😊.
 
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