Having seen these on display from time to time, and having had my share of “freezer burned” food, do they really work?
Many years back we had a “seal a meal” that worked fine, but did not suck the air out before sealing.
Do any Dopers have experience with these units? Any suggestions to share?
What’s wrong with Ziplock bags or even plain plastic bags?
Yes Gary they work really really well. I’ve had one for years and love it. But don’t spend the $100 for the one on TV. Go to Wally-World a.k.a. Wal-Mart, and get one for $25…
$25 for a vacuum machine or just a little heat seal device for potato chip bags? I’m interested in this too.
Ziplocs are fine for short term storage but not the same. I’d really like to know if a heat seal/vacuum system is worth the money.
Only $25! I can’t believe it’s the same type of unit. We paid that much or more just for the Seal-a-Meal years back.
Sailor,
Ziplocks and plastic bags have their uses, and we do use them, but they are really not the item for long term freezer use as they are not truely airtight.
I’ve also been told that the vacuum units are good for protecting items that are not in the 'fridge or freezer such as important papers and the like.
When I had the seal a meal, I used to put a sharp and oiled spare chain for the chainsaw in one and didn’t have to worry about rust or mess.
I have a foodSaver and love it!
One of the best features is the canning jar attachment. I can make a large pot of spaghetti sauce and store it in jars in the refrigerator for up to 6 weeks without it going bad and you can use the jars over and over indefinitely
Important Note: it does NOT replace traditional canning and the food will go bad quickly if not refrigerated/frozen.
I have one of these and it works just as well as the ads show. It is a great convenience. The vacuum really does allow food to last much longer refrigerated or frozen.
The bags are very good quality. Contrary to popular belief the Ziploc style bags are not airtight. Try this: Cut an onion in half and put it in a Ziploc bag. Make sure you touch the bag only with a clean hand. Seal the bag, then see if you can smell the onion through the bag. You will. Try the same thing with a Food Saver bag and you can’t.
You can buy bags, or you can buy a roll to make your own bags of any desired length (you just seal one end in the machine first, then use it like the pre-made bags). The bags are reusable if you go to the trouble to clean them, although the only way to open them is to cut the seal off.
Besides the bags, there are also various rigid containers available as well. They work great for storing foods that would be squashed in a vacuum bag. I used them for dehydrated fruit that otherwise would absorb moisture from the air, and also whole coffee beans.
A few caveats.
If you try to seal something that has a lot of liquid, the liquid will be drawn all the ways to the edges of the bag by the vacuum and the bag will not seal.
Some rigid foods trap some air which leaks back into the vacuum after sealing as it softens. Prime example is a bell pepper cut in half.
All the bags and cannisters are sold only by the machine manufacturer, so they tend to be expensive.
See http://www.tilia.com for everything including prices.
CookingWithGas
Thanks for the link. I didn’t know that they made that many models!
Now I just need to convince Mrs. M.
Actually, I discovered that quite by accident last week 
I used to have one when I lived with my cousin. She would buy meat in bulk, then butcher it, portion it, and seal it all at once. We’d have sliced, or cubed, or whatever style of meat in exact weights ready to go in the freezer. Nothing ever went bad, and we would defrost them in a jiffy by submerging the package in water. It really made meals easy, just pick the type of meat you want, defrost and go!
I also found the bags to be rather expensive.
My $25 vacuum sealer won’t crush cans like on the Tilia infomercial (at least I don’t think so), but it works perfectly and didn’t cost the outrageous amount the Tilia seems to cost.
We buys “rolls” of bags to make our own size as needed, but it also works great with sandwhich bags, chip bags, bags that frozen stuff comes in, and so on.
I’ll say what does look attractive about the Tilia model is the vacuum-jarring, which my $25 model does not do.
This is a sort of survey, so I’ll move this thread to IMHO.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Overall, I’m very happy with it, and yes, it keeps things fresh forever (especially cheese!) and it does really prevent freezer burn.
However, the bags are definitely expensive, and while re-using them is possible, it’s difficult. After they have been washed, they tend to curl and become very intractable. Using the rolls for bags is a pain, and my biggest beef is the basic design which demands a fairly precision placement of the bag across the strip in order to acheive a seal, or wose, in order to simply seal half the bag, which is what you have to do if you use rolls. It has to be cut very straight, and placed just so, and it usually takes me at least 3 tries per bag.
They should redesign it so that you can flip a switch and tell the machine what you are doing, rather than having it operate on some kind of sensor mechanism, which is what it does now.
** TIPS FOR VAC SEAL OWNERS: **
If you have the can attachment, it works on wide-mouth mason jars, which rocks the house completely. Store nuts, brown sugar, crackers, flour… foil every bug that ever dreamed of getting near your vittles, and stave off staleness forever.
If you have something wet, like a piece of meat or fish, place it in the bag and put a paper towel in after it. As the vaccuum sucks the moisture/blood up, it will be absorbed by the paper towel.
If you want to freeze completely liquid things like soup, freeze them in individual plastic containers, then when they are frozen, pop them out like ice cubes and vac-bag 'em.
Most breads will be crushed if you try to vac-seal them. So freeze the bread first, then vac-seal it.
We keep ours right out on the counter. That’s best if you have the space, otherwise you might not use it as much.
We save a bundle in grocery bills because we also have a slicer and a big freezer. You can buy stuff cheap in bulk, keep it for two years* and have it be almost indistinguishable from fresh.
We do five pound blocks of cheese, sliced and in chunks. When thawed, it’s like just bought, not all dry and crumbly.
We do whole pork loins, cut up in meal sized portions.
We do whole Hormel Cure 81 hams (on sale), sliced fine. That’d cost a fortune at the deli!
We do venison, fresh, and,
We make stuff like jerky and sausage. Not only do we seal those, we can also seal up the cures, spices and casings that we get in bulk to make 'em, so they’re good for the next deer season.
We do stew and spaghetti dinners. Did anyone mention that you can boil or microwave the bags?
Go now, Gary, and buy one. It’ll pay for itself shortly.
*This is with a deep freeze type. It might be less for a refigerater freezer compartment with a defrost cycle.
Your brain-in-a-vacuum-packed-jar,
Myron
Does it really work with non-food items, like sweaters, quilts, collectibles, etc?
Keep in mind, I have a Food Saver, that if you are going to use the food in a quick amount of time, don’t seal it.
I swear by my Tilia Food Saver but I have found that if you keep cheeses on the top shelf tightly wrapped in a good plastic wrap it will not go bad.
HOWEVER, meats and such, if you want to buy in bulk, go for it. Save a buttload of money.
Oh and one thing about the cheese thing. I had a 1 pound block of Cheddar cheese. I Food Saved it (the Tilia model) and it lasted 4 months before I broke open the package the day before Thanksgiving. It still tastes good (even though I have been wrapping it up in a FS bag since, no seal, no suction.)
So, yes, it’s a good investment if you use it on those things you don’t plan to use that week. If you use it up that week, you are wasting bags.
I have found, from my own personal experience that the bags don’t like to be reused. If you want to store coffee beans, they need to be in one layer in the bag. (I have the low end model.)
So use it wisely so you aren’t buying bags that you don’t need.
Also, get the model that has the container ability. I am bumming that I don’t have that. I can’t complain because I got mine as a gift.
But over all I give it two thumbs up. That’s all I have is two thumbs.
If it works for food, why wouldn’t it otherwise? I have never tried it in that manner but there’s no reason it would if my cheese lasts four months. I would assume that my non-food items like my Sports Illustrated with the Colorado Avalanche 1996 Stanley Cup winners wont last.
if it vaccum seals and you don’t put it in the sun, it should be as good as new.
Er something like that Guin, been one of those days and I am about to crash to sleep a good slumber. Even turned off the ringer on my phone.
All in all, I recommend the Food Saver but go for the professional models as seen on chefscatalog.com rather than the cheapo ones at Wal*Mart.
Tis my advice and I am sticking to it since I have the cheapo model and wish I have the accesssories that they have on those.
“Does it really work with non-food items, like sweaters, quilts, collectibles, etc?”
Yes, but you don’t have to buy anything.
Get a big plastic bag. Put the stuff in the bag. Get your hoover & stick the nozzle in the top of the bag & grab the plastic with your hands & hold it around zee nozzle. Turn on hoover, suck it out & then take out nozzle, secure with rubber band & that’s it. I saw a guy on PBS do this.
I was just by Target and saw a foodsaver Vac 200 model for $70. Unfortunately I couldn’t find that model on the Tilia site so emailed customer service. The low end models don’t come with the jar attachment but they had the attachments on the shelf which leads me to think it may be compatible. Anyone have one of these?