vacumm sealers?

bmmc

does anyone know of a sealer that also has replacement parts available?foodsaver has none & you toss it & buy a new one.

reel stamas

I view them as I view my cheap gas grills... I buy a new one for ~$150 every ~3-5 yrs & feel I got more than my money's worth...

RexLan

My experience with Food Saver is that it is JUNK and they bags are not any better.

I like my VacMaster Pro 260. It has held up well, supported by the factory and an overall great machine.

Lisa owns the company at http://shop.vacuumsealersunlimited.com/VacMaster-Home-Use-Vacuum-Sealing-Machines_c12.htm

She is first class and helpful. I have also found the qt. bags the most versatile. Buy an extra 100 of them from her. Gallons are WAY too big and points are pretty small.

We wash the bags and reuse them also until they get too small .... cheap!!

dbourbon

RexLan I respect your opinion after reading a lot of posts from the good ol days in the kitchen when all the old guys were around and posted on a regular basis.

Unless I am doing something wrong, I have used her bags (still have some) and they don't seal as good as the FoodSavers. The strip down the middle seems to be a flaw for me. They don't seem to hold up in the freezer longer than 60-90 days before they start leaking. My two cents. I always wait for FoodSaver to have their sales which seem like once a month and then reload on bags.

I really do need to take a look at her vac sealers though. Getting tired of FoodSaver's. I don't like paying $125-$150.00 every two to three years.

Docked Wages

When my food saver stopped working I threw it away. It died a slow painful death which means I spent months trying to get bags to seal with questionable results.

I now use the ziplock hand powered air removal pump (fancy description for an inexpensive hand pump). No power, no batteries and it works everytime and better than my old food saver. The bags are also easier to reuse if you choose to.

This is a great heap alternative that really works and travels well.

http://http://www.ziploc.com/products/pages/vacuumfreezersystem.aspx



http://www.ziploc.com/products/pages/vacuumfreezersystem.aspx

Flash

Still have a vacuum sealer 550 that I got for $10 out of a thrift store. Around 2008. Still got it, still working. No telling how old it was when I found it. I found most of the time if the bags are losing air, you did not get a good seal, either on the bottom due to too close to the edge or the last seal due to moisture getting thru the seal as it vacuums out the air. I have been using the vacuum sealers unlimited bags for sometime now. Had a few issues, but not many.

RexLan

dbourbon wrote: »

RexLan I respect your opinion after reading a lot of posts from the good ol days in the kitchen when all the old guys were around and posted on a regular basis.

Unless I am doing something wrong, I have used her bags (still have some) and they don't seal as good as the FoodSavers. The strip down the middle seems to be a flaw for me. They don't seem to hold up in the freezer longer than 60-90 days before they start leaking. My two cents. I always wait for FoodSaver to have their sales which seem like once a month and then reload on bags.

I really do need to take a look at her vac sealers though. Getting tired of FoodSaver's. I don't like paying $125-$150.00 every two to three years.

I have had the opposite result. I buy the premium bag and rarely have a failure. I have some stuff that is well over a year in the freezer. I usually start with a bit oversize bag and I easily get 2-3 uses out of them.

With the food saver machine I would guess a 50-75% failure rate .. had 3 of them before I got this machine.

I also have a lot of issues with FoodSaver bags. They don't want to seal well and I think I get 25% or more that will leak in a month or so.

Permit Rat

I must say that I had a great experience with Foodsaver's customer service. Mine lost it's suction after the first or second use and after all the normal avenues of repair were exhausted, they sent me a new one.

You DO want to put a small piece of paper towel in the bag, to catch any liquid that might be sucked out and get into the seal. Liquid will prevent a proper seal. Several people here, already know this. Along those lines, I wish that the Foodsaver's vacuum was not quite so strong. I have now begun to hit the "seal" button, before the machine does so automatically. This helps in preventing liquid being sucked out of the meat/fish (a bad thing) as well as when the meat/fish is thawed, and I forget to puncture the bag when I take it out of the freezer. I just finished eating the last steaks that I aged in late April/May and there was no freezer burn problem. No reason to think that 6 more months would change anything.

I think this time, I will leave the Foodsaver in Mexico and try the Ziplock system in Florida when I return.