Vacuum Sealers

Anyone who has a vacuum sealer............what brand do you have? Do you love it? What don't you like about it? Would you buy another one?

DH is researching whether we should purchase a sealer and has asked for your opinons.

TIA

I have one of the larger Food Saver vac-sealers and the jar attachments. I love it and use it daily. It not only seals up my preps in jars; fruits, veggies and meats for the freezer; but also keeps my fresh produce fresh by about 2 or 3 times longer that it would last without it. I use a few canisters that I purchase via the internet at the Jardin website. They make the Food Saver in several models and sell not only the appliance but all attachments and bag material. I buy the bulk bag rolls and make my own bags. Much cheaper.

What is Jardin website?

I use a Food Saver also. Use the bags primarily for meat bought in bulk. I use the jar attachment extensively for sealing herbs, pasta, flour, rice, etc.

If you have a costco near you, they have 6 roll box for just under $40. Other stores here sell one roll pack for $10 per roll.
Do get the kind that you can vac. seal jars.
Some items that you might want to seal are a bit sharp edges, for instance, dried carrots. These will puncture the bags, and then loose the seal. That is why you use the jars.

I've had a Food Saver for a couple of years and am very happy with it. I only use it for sealing food for long term storage in mason jars. (If you decide to do this, don't forget to buy the special attachments.) I haven't tried using it with the bags.

Anyone who uses the hose and jar attachments might want to get extras. The end of one of my hoses broke off in one of the jar attachments, making both of them unusable.

Butterfly said:

What is Jardin website?

Click to expand...

I think this is what they meant:

http://www.foodsaver.com/

This is Jarden's Foodsaver website.

Thanks genrim. I was finding nothing under "Jardin". Appreciate it.

I have a "Rival" , I bought it because I wanted to seal Jars of dehydrated food. I am very happy with it. I haven't even used the bags come to think of it.

pk

I have a foodsaver and love it. While it (and the other 12000lbs of my stuff) was in transit/storage during my move, I really wanted a sealer to package bulk meat. Since I already had a foodsaver, I went cheap and got the rival seal-a-meal. The seal-a-meal did not seal anywhere near as well as the foodsaver. It did a little better when I started using the foodsaver bags with the seal-a-meal appliance, but still no where near as good a vacuum (there was still some air left in the bag, most of the time. I'd go with foodsaver, hands down.

DH got one of the first Tillia Foodsavers several years before rollover. That one was used extensively and eventually lost the ability to do up stuff in bags but still pulls a good vacuum for the jars. He got me a new one a year or so ago that does both. Very happy with the Foodsaver brand, and use it a lot.

In a word...get one (ok, two words). We've had a Foodsaver Professional II (looks like this, just an earler version) and it works great.



The only problem we've ever had with it, is that the small jar sealer just doesn't want to seal and I don't know why, the large jar sealer works every time.

The one suggestion I'd make, is get an upgraded version if money allows. I called Tillia before we bought ours to find out what the differences were and the woman I spoke with said that the Professional II model (It's called the Gamesaver now), has an upgraded sealing bar and pump. I think you'll find that you will use this much more than you might initially think so the extra money spent will be worth it.