Vacuum sealer recommendations ?

Si_Clist

Can anyone please recommend a good but reasonably-priced vacuum sealer machine thingy?  Main use will be vac-packing 1Kg paper bags of wholemeal flour in order to extend its shelf life.

Bossyboots

Lidl have their's coming back on sale soon (can't remember which week as we already have one) and we have been happy with ours.

joedenise

We bought a Lidl one a while back and it was OK but we have since bought a Fresko one (from A*azon) and it is far better.

However a vacuum sealer uses particular plastic bags/rolls and you would be unable to vac pack paper bags - you might be able to get away with putting the bag inside the bags although you may need to empty the flour into it.

We use ours mainly for vac packing meat into meal sized portions - ie splitting a large pack of chicken pieces or a large pack of pork steaks.  Also use it to pack HM ready meals into meal sized portions.

srn

We used to have a Lidl one but it used to get a bit hot, so bought a Bonsenkitchen one from Amazon.  It's very good, settings for dry and moist food, also has a cutter.  I use it to store flour, sugar any dry stuff in fact.  For flour I put the unopened bag into one of the special plastic bags and vac seal it like that.  I also reuse these bags.  I suppose you could wash and dry and reuse all of the bags, but I tend to only reuse if the stuff in them has been dry goods.  Amazing how it sucks out all of the air.  I also use it to freeze my homemade veg in in portion sizes and then use them like the steam packets you buy ready frozen, you do have to cut off a corner before microwaving as they tend to explode.  Perfect for cauliflower rice.  Also good for storing seeds.  Also good for resealing crisps, biscuits, cereals etc.  The list is endless.

Si_Clist

Thanks folks.  For the length of time we want to store flour, we've decided that the way forward is Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers.  But from what you say it does look like a cheap vac sealer would be useful anyhow for other stuff.