vacuum bag sealer

I use it to make ziploc freezer bags smaller. Then you have a ziploc. You got to play with it a little to see how to get it to work – leave the plastic on a bit so it cools some so it doesn't rip apart.

If you are shipping for resupply boxes, use bead bags found at Walmart in the beading and craft section, then use the sealer bags, especially bathroom and soap products. For liquids I use dropper bottles, double bagged for shipping or single for in my pack with the beading ziplocks. Amazon carries lots of tiny dropper bottles and lipgloss containers in the cosmetic sections.

oh, when you seal zip loc bags, it doesn't form a good seal right at the zip loc. I turn on a solder iron and melt a bit right at the zip loc to get a better seal, and so it doesn't come apart as easily

I have never done it with a home bag sealer, however i have a lot of experience cryovacing things in a commercial kitchen. make sure you set the vacuum pressure low when doing watery things and build a little ramp up to the sealing strip so you don't have "blow out", like hot sauce. you can vacuum pack things like peanut butter on a high vacuum. Always lay things as flat as possible to seal them, the bags will sometimes get extremely small creases in them and will not hold vacuum.

Let me provide a little more information about what I am trying to accomplish. I usually go on shorter trips (1-3days). I am looking to create small portions for single use (not using the vacuum function).

Don't use too much vacuum pressure then, you could vac something like your FAK to nearly nothing in size.

Oh, just cut what sizes you need from the roll before each trip and use as you go. Its actually cheaper to get the larger rolls and cut your own bags to size cause with the sealer you can make any size you want.

Perhaps Valerie will chime in, she's used the ordinary ziplock bags and the vacuum sealer bags a lot with the sealer machine.

I usually use my vacuum sealer to portion out stuff like chicken breasts at home for the freezer. I've learned that something like pulled pork is great cooked, shredded, cooled, and then tossed into a freezer bag and sealed. Reheating it means tossing the sealed back into a pot of boiling water for 15 minutes. Works pretty well.

I've played with it when it comes to backpacking and… I'm not sold on it. At least the vacuum part. If it works you've got a hard brick of stuff that doesn't reshape very well. If it's something mildly pointy you have to pack it with paper towels or it will poke holes in your back and let air in.

I guess you could do a first night out type meal like chili or something in a bag, vacuum seal it, freeze it, and boil it first night out while it's still cold.

On the up shot for what you're doing you can pump most of the air out without going for a vacuum and then manually hit the seal button so that you get the "best" of both worlds. Though by that point I'm not sure but a ziplock may be an improvement.

I can see it's use for resupply boxes though if you're not going the commercial food route.

What I can see it good for is sealing up sraws and micro-baggies as mentioned to do single serving soap or medicine or whatever. I can see that working pretty well.

Edit: If you're a costco member you can get giant packs of bags & rolls of bags pretty cheap. I know a lot of people hit ebay as well for good deals.

I think maybe the idea is when you freeze stuff for a long time, the vacuum seal prevents air from contacting the food so you don't get freezer burn.

For backpacking it would conserve space a little, like if you wanted to get food to fit into bear canister.

And, you can make bags exactly the right size which conserves a tiny bit of weight.

I tried packing food for 1 5-day trip (2 people) with my vacuum sealer, then putting it in the bear cannister. Maybe if you turned off the vacuum function it would be okay, but what I then had were lots of little bricks that wouldn't shape to the cannister or each other. I couldn't fit as much in as I can when I use ziploc bags. Ended up ripping everything open at home and repacking in ziplocs so I could get enough in.

http://www.minimus.biz for the tiny things. Beware of those hard bricks that Diane speaks of.

I've been packaging small portions of food and toiletries (using the heat sealing function only, no vacuum) for a long time, and it works really well. I generally take a snack-sized Ziploc, seal it into 3 or 4 narrow bags, and cut carefully along the sealed strip to separate them.

Jerry is right — they don't seal well at the "zipper", so I touch that up carefully with a lighter and my (ouch!) fingers (as Jerry suggested, a soldering iron would be a better choice).

I couldn't be bothered using the cut-to-size rolls for most backpacking purposes because the resulting bags would not be resealable. That's why I use the Ziplocs…

There are some things I ALWAYS have in my PFD. And I ALWAYS wear my PFD in an open boat. Knife, cordage, VHF, Powerbar, mini Bic, firestarter, sometimes a map. The first three are waterproof and might be needed quickly. Nothing can damage a Powerbar. The last three, I heat-seal in a vac-packer (but without the vacuum or it gets hard and inflexible).

Keep your first roll of toilet paper handy. Because. . . . .

Heat-seal your second roll. Because. . . .

The volume reduction of toilet paper using vacuum is one of the few times it is worth it.

General advice: don't let liquids get into the heat-sealing zone. Sometimes it seals okay, sometimes it doesn't. Not much of a concern of the OP since he has no vacuum ability (that is to say, He doesn't suck?), but patting a fish fillet dry first helps. So does putting a bit of paper towel inside to intercept the liquid as it wicks towards the opening. For liquids (hot sauce, some cooking oils, pesto, etc) freeze them in advance (ice-cube trays work nicely) and then vac-pack them while still frozen.

>"Before I go and make a ton of small bags for PB, Jelly, oil, hotsauce, toothpaste, sunscreen, etc. Is there any advice?"

Yeah, don't re-heat-seal the wheel. just get those things at restaurants / hotel rooms or in bulk at Costco or a wholesaler as single-serving portions.

Thanks for all the great advice.

I haven't vacuum sealed before but looking to get into it (inc getting the kit for it).

Any indication of how heavy the packaging comes out to, say if I just want to use the rolls to seal up freeze dried meals? Eg a typical freeze dried rice meal, sealed up, how much would the packaging weigh? No need for zip locks for me for this, once use item.

8" x 12" weighs 0.4 oz

ziploc bags weigh less, thinner plastic, possible to use but you have to let it sit there a bit for the plastic to solidify or it will tear

Oy! this thread has revived me wanting to get a vacuum sealer.
I can see their utility on preserving my meals better on food drops, and being able to prepare meals further in advance to a trip.

… question to the experienced folks here:

What would brand & model would you recommend?

Thanks in advance!

Daisy Seal-a-Meal? (for people that remember old infomercial)

I have a FoodSaver Vac 1200 that's worked pretty good.

Tony, I started out with an entry level FoodSaver model V 2244. It worked fine for several years, until it didn't. FoodSaver had a good sale when I needed a replacement, so I decided on a GameSaver DeluxePlus. It's more bulky, but it has some nice extra features over the more spartan V 2244. For example, it allows you to do a speed vacuum to very quickly suck the air, and it also has a setting for when you are vacuuming moist things.

It turned out that the V 2244 wasn't destroyed, but rather that the sealing rings had worn out and simply needed replacement. When I ordered the GameSaver, I also ordered a bunch of sealing rings, which completely fixed the problem. They do wear out and lose their ability to seal after a couple years of heavy use. So if you order directly from FoodSaver, order a couple sets of the rings to have on hand. Also, that would be a good time to order a case of their 1-pint bags. It's a handy size and they're hard to find in stores.

My FoodSaver model (V3880) has an accessory hose that allows it to be used with a wide-mouth jar sealer (a $10 accessory).

Since I use wide-mouth Kerr jars for household food storage this makes the vacuum sealer much more useful and economical since it reduces the use of plastic bags.

I highly recommend something with the accessory port to vacuum seal mason jars. I use mine to store dehydrated foods (beans, peppers, veggies, etc) in bulk. Shelf life is years when kept cool & dark and the foods can be easily accessed and resealed to make individual meals before each trip. The sealed jars also keep everyday items (nuts, crackers, cereal, brown sugar, etc) from going stale.

I can't remember exactly which model I have (some iteration of the FoodSaver GameSaver) that I got for $30 on Craigslist, but it works great.

Thanks Jerry, 0.4oz is pretty heavy. Guess I'll have to look for appropriate ziplocs.

Ziplocs are the other option (and what I've always used), but its hit and miss with them, not so much with durability of the bag itself but of the zip mechanism. Cheaper ones are usually lighter (great) but the zips are terrible. With the sealer I could go the cheaper ones, save money and weight woohoo :-)

Adam, Jerry's mention of the ZipLocs being lighter is true, for the thin ones. The ZipLoc freezer bags are actually a bit heavier than the FoodSaver bags for the same size. The thing about FoodSaver bags is that you can custom make the size you need. The down side is that they are one-use only, with no real way to adequately reseal them in the field. I do think, however, that a meal packaged in a vacuum sealed pouch will emit little to zero food odors to attract critters, whereas freezer bags can't make that claim.

"I do think, however, that a meal packaged in a vacuum sealed pouch will emit little to zero food odors to attract critters, whereas freezer bags can't make that claim."

The problem with vacuum sealed bags is that they are like bricks, and you can't mold them to conform to empty spaces in a canister or even a stuff sack. You end up wasting a lot of space. Maybe better to double bag with NyloBarrier odor proof/
odor resistant bags?