Prep Genrl Cheap vacuum sealer for jars

nomifyle

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
This little thing is a gem and it only costs 26.99.


And the jar attachment works perfectly as opposed to the problems I've had with the ones that came with my food saver.

The power cord is usb, but I found one in my stuff that plugs into the wall to charge it.

It works so quickly and no more expensive food saver machines, which are actually not that easy to find.
 
tnphil

tnphil

Don't screw with an engineer
Looks interesting, if it works well.

We're big believers in Food Savers, we have two. First one still works and stored away, along with a couple of older dehydrators. Newer FS and two newer dehydrators still in the kitchen get regular use.
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
nomifyle said:
It works so quickly
Click to expand...

If this works great, I'm going to be very interested in getting one. How long have you been using this one?

I've tried several of the smaller versions (one was even made by food saver), and after thinking they worked pretty good, I found that they did not seem to seal nearly as well as my larger food saver. At first I could not tell the difference (I think I just did not pay close enough attention), but a few months afterwards when I would open them up I was able to tell the difference. The vacuum on the jars sealed with the full size device made the lids very difficult to pull off as compared to the other jars.

Are the seals on these are hard to break as they are when you seal them with your big food saver?
 
bw

bw

Fringe Ranger
nomifyle said:
And the jar attachment works perfectly as opposed to the problems I've had with the ones that came with my food saver.
Click to expand...
If you're having issues with a jar attachment, it's probably because the lid is not being held down on the jar rim. You can add a little spring from the hardware store, just big enough to fit over that protrusion in the center of the cap. You can add a crumple of paper towel under the cap that will smush down on the lid. Or you can put some kind of little weight on the lid, like a magnet or a couple washers. The point is that once you start to ease the vacuum, the lid should already be seated so no air can leak past into the jar.
 
nomifyle

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
bw said:
If you're having issues with a jar attachment, it's probably because the lid is not being held down on the jar rim. You can add a little spring from the hardware store, just big enough to fit over that protrusion in the center of the cap. You can add a crumple of paper towel under the cap that will smush down on the lid. Or you can put some kind of little weight on the lid, like a magnet or a couple washers. The point is that once you start to ease the vacuum, the lid should already be seated so no air can leak past into the jar.
Click to expand...
I don't have to fool with any of that nonsense or frustration anymore. The regular mouth lid never worked, but I have a canister that I've used. The lid attachments that comes with this sealer are made a little different and they work perfectly.

This little sealer is powered with a usb cord and I can use it if we have no power and charge it with a battery charger.
 
nomifyle

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
It
phloydius said:
If this works great, I'm going to be very interested in getting one. How long have you been using this one?

I've tried several of the smaller versions (one was even made by food saver), and after thinking they worked pretty good, I found that they did not seem to seal nearly as well as my larger food saver. At first I could not tell the difference (I think I just did not pay close enough attention), but a few months afterwards when I would open them up I was able to tell the difference. The vacuum on the jars sealed with the full size device made the lids very difficult to pull off as compared to the other jars.

Are the seals on these are hard to break as they are when you seal them with your big food saver?
Click to expand...
It just came today and I've sealed several jars with it already. The seals are tight. There is a little jar opener that comes with it. I like it so much I ordered 10 of them on ebay for under $10.
 
nomifyle

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
alpha said:
Since I have a brake bleeder pump Mityvac MV8000 already at hand, it serves double duty using the lid cover from one of my expired food savers. Works fine and reduces the wear and tear on my existing food saver clone.
Click to expand...
LOL, I have two break bleeders but I find it difficult to use them. I have two food savers too, but this peaked my interest.
 
hiwall

hiwall

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I was lucky enough to find a new Deni 1200 JarVac Vacuum Sealer.
It works excellent but no longer available.

​

 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
So I ordered one, and it was already delivered today. However, I'm testing it and can not seem to get it to pull much of a vacuum on a wide mouth mason jar. The vacuum is so weak the lid gets knocked off when I remove the lid attachment. I'll have to research and see if I can figure out why it does not seem to be working for me...
 
nomifyle

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
phloydius said:
So I ordered one, and it was already delivered today. However, I'm testing it and can not seem to get it to pull much of a vacuum on a wide mouth mason jar. The vacuum is so weak the lid gets knocked off when I remove the lid attachment. I'll have to research and see if I can figure out why it does not seem to be working for me...
Click to expand...
are you using the lid attachment that came with it. The ones from food saver don't work. and you have to make sure the lid attachment is all the way down on the jar, if not it will not seal well.
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
nomifyle said:
are you using the lid attachment that came with it. The ones from food saver don't work. and you have to make sure the lid attachment is all the way down on the jar, if not it will not seal well.
Click to expand...

Using the lid attachment that came with it. It also came with lids as well, and I tried those lids and new ball lids as well. Same effect. I tried it again a few more times, making sure to push down hard, but it did not make a difference.

I'm currently charging it. It acted like it was well charged when it came in, but just in case I'm going to try it again after it has had some time on the charger.
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
phloydius said:
I'm currently charging it.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately charging it did not make a difference.

I contacted the seller thru amazon, and they wrote back and had some promising language (although not in the best English) and plan to send me another one to see if this one is just defective. I'll plan to report back after I get the replacement. I am very hopeful that the product works. It would be very nice to make my foodsaver the backup for sealing my mason jars, instead of the primary.
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
The seller from your link above (MAOYUE), told me that I must have received a unit damaged in shipping and suggested that I return it via Amazon & get a replacement. The replacement arrived yesterday but it has the same problem.

I am able to get a small seal on the jar, but it is not strong enough to keep the lid from popping off while removing the attachment from the top of the jar. It does the same with both regular mouth and wide mouth mason jars.

It makes me a bit sad, I was really hoping that this would work. Pulling out the food saver each time I want to seal a mason jar is a bit time consuming.
 
nomifyle

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
phloydius said:
The seller from your link above (MAOYUE), told me that I must have received a unit damaged in shipping and suggested that I return it via Amazon & get a replacement. The replacement arrived yesterday but it has the same problem.

I am able to get a small seal on the jar, but it is not strong enough to keep the lid from popping off while removing the attachment from the top of the jar. It does the same with both regular mouth and wide mouth mason jars.

It makes me a bit sad, I was really hoping that this would work. Pulling out the food saver each time I want to seal a mason jar is a bit time consuming.
Click to expand...
I’m so disappointed
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
Millwright said:
Are you warming the lids before use?

It might help to soften the rubber, so it conforms to the mating surface mo bettah.
Click to expand...

No, did not think it was necessary. I don't do that with the food saver.

Is anyone else warming the lids for sealing dry goods with these smaller vacuum sealers?
 
Millwright

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
_______________
I'd guess that this vacuum pump doesn't have enough ooomph to overcome the minor surface flaws where the rubber isn't conforming well.

A food saver has more HP.

The difference in what people are experiencing with these could be as simple as how warm their kitchen is or perhaps how soft the rubber is in their particular batch of lids.



Vacuum is a funny thing. It really does work different than holding pressure.

The technical specs of the different units would tell a lot. How many CFM, max vacuum, etc.
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
Millwright said:
The difference in what people are experiencing with these could be as simple as how warm their kitchen is or perhaps how soft the rubber is in their particular batch of lids.
Click to expand...

I'll give it a shot. It will be 92F this afternoon here. I'll take all the items outside for a couple of hour and let them sit to come up to temp and then try it again.
 
Millwright

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
_______________
If I were addressing this as a technical problem, it would be with a systematic approach.

Use a few different brands and batches of lids.

Find a few that won't seal.

Then run them under hot water and try.

Maybe run a ring down on them to force the rubber to conform to the jar surface. Don't let them move once they have been pressed.


Also, the variations in rubber can be dramatic. (I worked in the QC lab of a rubber plant one time, long ago)
 
FollowTruth

FollowTruth

Phantom Lurker
At the link provided there is an option to buy a manual unit, which I did. It works great! I'm always looking for items that will work in a grid down scenario and this qualifies with five stars.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. It is a prep gem.

.
 
G

genrim

Veteran Member
phloydius said:
No, did not think it was necessary. I don't do that with the food saver.

Is anyone else warming the lids for sealing dry goods with these smaller vacuum sealers?
Click to expand...
I warm the lids when I seal jars with my Foodsaver. I think the instructions say to do that. I just drop the lids in a pan of boiling water. Take one out and dry it thoroughly before using it to seal a jar. Then on to the next.
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
My test with letting everything sit out in the heat for a couple of hours did not result in any different results. I have both vacuum sealers still, and tested with both.

genrim said:
I warm the lids when I seal jars with my Foodsaver. I think the instructions say to do that. I just drop the lids in a pan of boiling water. Take one out and dry it thoroughly before using it to seal a jar. Then on to the next.
Click to expand...

Thank you. I wonder how many others do this as well.

I don't know if I would want to do that with some of the jars that I'm sealing. I vacuum seal medications (for my fish) in jars so that they last longer. They are very susceptible to moisture, so I even include a desiccant. Honestly it probably would be fine as I should be able to get the lids dry enough. But I was hoping that the small portable sealer would make things less labor intensive. If warming the lids in water worked I would probably use the food saver instead, still since it would be less labor.

But I thought I'd try it, so I ran a test with warming lids (both new ones from ball/kerr & ones provided with the small sealer). I also used both of the small sealers from the company. The results were basically the same. The lids seemed to stay on a little better, but I still could not remove the adapter without the lids popping off.

Millwright said:
If I were addressing this as a technical problem, it would be with a systematic approach.
Click to expand...

Very good point.

After the warming of the lids, I decided to run a "marshmallow test" on the vacuum sealers to see how well they pulled a vacuum compared to the food saver. The idea being to see if the probably was more likely the: (1) rubber being too stiff and pulling the lid off, (2) not enough vacuum to keep the lid on, or (3) the lid not sealing probably to the jar.

Both of the small sealers failed the marshmallow test horribly, on both the regular mouth and wide mouth adapters. Although the manufacturer says they take 8-10 seconds, I also tried more time including 20s and 30s.

So it seems that at least the two sealers I received are not pulling enough vacuum to hold the lid on.

I spent some time trying to see if air was slipping by the rubber on he adapter either on the top or bottom, but do not see any indication of that.

FollowTruth said:
At the link provided there is an option to buy a manual unit, which I did. It works great!
Click to expand...

This is a hole in my emergency plans. Thanks for the reminder, I should try one of these.
 
Millwright

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
_______________
Sounds like a good test procedure.

Did you try pre-seating them with a ring before trying to pull down?

I wonder if it's the seal on the machine, not the lids?
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
Millwright said:
Sounds like a good test procedure.

Did you try pre-seating them with a ring before trying to pull down?

I wonder if it's the seal on the machine, not the lids?
Click to expand...

I don't think so, but I'm not exactly sure what you mean. By pre-seating do you mean putting the ring on and then taking the ring off before putting the adapter on? Can you give me a few more details?

Although I did just think of another test (based on what you said) that I might try: Running thru the procedure to test the vacuum (the marshmallow test) without a lid. To see if some how the adapter is holding the lid down and only applying the vacuum to the area between the adapter and the lid. I doubt it would be doing this, but I may test it anyways.
 
Millwright

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
_______________
phloydius said:
I don't think so, but I'm not exactly sure what you mean. By pre-seating do you mean putting the ring on and then taking the ring off before putting the adapter on? Can you give me a few more details?

Although I did just think of another test (based on what you said) that I might try: Running thru the procedure to test the vacuum (the marshmallow test) without a lid. To see if some how the adapter is holding the lid down and only applying the vacuum to the area between the adapter and the lid. I doubt it would be doing this, but I may test it anyways.
Click to expand...

If the thing will fit over a jar with the ring on, try that.

Or press the lid on with a ring, then carefully pull the ring off without disturbing the lid.

Does it pull enough vacuum to shrink a marshmallow?
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
Millwright said:
If the thing will fit over a jar with the ring on, try that.

Or press the lid on with a ring, then carefully pull the ring off without disturbing the lid.
Click to expand...

Thank you.

Millwright said:
Does it pull enough vacuum to shrink a marshmallow?
Click to expand...

With the foodsaver, the marshmallow becomes huge (well over 2x in size) while sealing. After complete the marshmallow slowly collapse to a small size, easily less than 1/2 the original size. When you open the jar and take the marshmallow out, it is a pretty hard texture.

With the small (MAOYUE) sealers, the marshmallow only gets slightly larger while sealing. At first I wasn't sure it was changing in size at all, but watching closely I was able to tell that it was, but only slightly. When taking the adapter off (which knocks the lid off), the marshmallow returns to normal size. Technically it might be smaller, but I can't really tell if it is or not.
 
Millwright

Millwright

Knuckle Dragger
_______________
Maybe cut a few squares of big bubble wrap and stick in?

That should show a change in pressure.
 
phloydius

phloydius

Veteran Member
Millwright said:
Maybe cut a few squares of big bubble wrap and stick in?

That should show a change in pressure.
Click to expand...

That is effectively what the marshmallow does as well. I don't have any big bubble wrap handy at the moment, but I'm sure there is some here somewhere. I'll give it a try.
 
nomifyle

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
I'm so sorry you are having this issue. Thus far its worked perfectly for me. And I never warm the lids or any special thing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top