Vacuum sealers for food - money-saving or not?

sb44

Angelina-M wrote: »

sb44 you are making me worse lol. I'm a sucker for Yahoo groups so i'm off to join now.

Is it sad to confess that i've been watching the HSN shopping channel on youtube to get ideas

I'd never even heard of these machines until I saw the ones in Lidl earlier. That one sounds excellent and the price is spot on, however I do batch cooking and would need to use it for a few hours at a time.

I'm very keen to try the straw trick to see if I can get away with the Lidl bags. sb44 you should try it, could save you a fortune in bags!

I was the same, looking on YouTube for ideas ( look for FoodSaver or Tilia on YouTube for some more ideas).

I have just noticed that there are 38 thousand entries on the foodsaver yahoo group!
:eek:

I will have to take my daughter to McDonalds then I can get a free straw .

sb44

This is what you can do with casseroles, freeze them in a plastic container first then put the frozen block of food in your vaccum bag, saves lots of room in your freezer and they don't get freezer burn.

sb44

Angelina-M wrote: »

Ha ha I thought your milky way comment was hilarious. I can imagine what they would look like!

There looked like I had stood on them!

Still didn't last long though, yum!

:rotfl:

Angelina-M

That is impressive! I can see me doing lasagna and chilli the same way. I have two freezers and they are always full but the space saving that you get with these is impressive.

Actually I thought they were pies at first because they look so firm. Bursting with colour, I bet they are delightful.

Yes get yourself off to McDonalds in the near future and report back. I already use the Lidl freezer bags and think they are great. I've just compared them to the bags I have in the freezer from the farmers market and they look the same so i'm confident it may work!

Right i'm going to bed. I'm off out for the day tomorrow but i'm going to order my vacuum sealer before I leave and then hopefully it will be here in a day or two... whoo hooo!

sb44

Angelina-M wrote: »

That is impressive! I can see me doing lasagna and chilli the same way. I have two freezers and they are always full but the space saving that you get with these is impressive.

Actually I thought they were pies at first because they look so firm. Bursting with colour, I bet they are delightful.

Yes get yourself off to McDonalds in the near future and report back. I already use the Lidl freezer bags and think they are great. I've just compared them to the bags I have in the freezer from the farmers market and they look the same so i'm confident it may work!

Right i'm going to bed. I'm off out for the day tomorrow but i'm going to order my vacuum sealer before I leave and then hopefully it will be here in a day or two... whoo hooo!

I was just going to say you aren't going to be retiring early tonight, you will be googling for food saving stuff!

Page 17 and 18 will give people an idea of the time food will last if you vaccum it.

http://www.sunbeam.com.au/media/14732/VS4400_IB%20Web%20Version.pdf

Off myself now before I get stuck on that foodsaver forum.

[Deleted User]

I had a small vac sealer, a foodsaver, many years ago from qvc and that is all it did vac + seal at the same time. I now have a much bigger and robust one from andrew james and it can seal, vac+seal, vacuum cannisters and has 2 strengths of seal. It is brilliant. I use mine all the time and it stays on my worktop, vacuming makes foods lost a lot longer. Re bread and cabbage and so on, I just have them in normal poly bags and give them a quick seal only. They stay fresh for ages. The special bags can be re-used time after time, I pack meat, beans etc in cheap bags an load them inside a bigger vac bag. The andrew james vac sealer is very much better

Angelina-M

Morning all.... I dreamt of my new food sealer lol!

Right i'm going out for the day but I just want to post this little video of a work around for normal freezer bags. The guy uses mylar but the idea is the same. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9dzaeC0hG0&feature=related

Also it seems you can just cut a strip from your normal vacuum bag and insert it into the top of the Lidl freezer bag and it will work the same as the sealer grabs and holds the bag and the strip of vacuum bag misses the sealer and falls out at the end.

I'm certainly going to give it a try!

sb44

Angelina-M wrote: »

Morning all.... I dreamt of my new food sealer lol!

Right i'm going out for the day but I just want to post this little video of a work around for normal freezer bags. The guy uses mylar but the idea is the same. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9dzaeC0hG0&feature=related

Also it seems you can just cut a strip from your normal vacuum bag and insert it into the top of the Lidl freezer bag and it will work the same as the sealer grabs and holds the bag and the strip of vacuum bag misses the sealer and falls out at the end.

I'm certainly going to give it a try!

I am going to give this a go later using the Lidl freezer bags. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytQGVYuHHKg&feature=related

Will let you all know how I got on, fingers crossed.

By the way, that tip about using jam jars in the canister.

I thought it would only be those with metal lids with the dimple in the top, it isn't.

I just sealed a Tesco Value Peanut Butter jar, the ones with white plastic lids, they work too!

Only thing is, you may need a piece of anti slip material to be able to get the lid off as they are quite tight.

Angelina-M

Errr I think someone needs to join the vacuum addiction group... its just me up to now :rotfl:

I can't wait to see how you get on with sealing the bag, i've just watched the video you posted and its brilliant if it works.

I'm going out for the day but I'm going to try to pop on here later to see how you get on.

I'm not sure what the peanut butter jar looks like? I can't imagine how you would seal plastic? honestly there seems so many uses for this its unreal!

sb44

Angelina-M wrote: »

I'm not sure what the peanut butter jar looks like? I can't imagine how you would seal plastic? honestly there seems so many uses for this its unreal!

No, the lid is plastic, the jar is glass.