EmailVacuum food sealers can save you money. They allow you to take advantage of sale prices on expensive foods, such as meat and poultry, and they let you freeze home-grown fruits and vegetables or fish you've caught yourself.
Experts and owners say the following about choosing one:
- Handheld food sealers can't be used for every task. These inexpensive sealers are good for items you only plan to seal once. It's unwise to seal bags of cereal, flour or other frequently used dry goods with a handheld sealer, because the seals are prone to weakening over time.
- Compare bag prices. Reviews say that you don't have to use the manufacturer's bags; you can buy compatible, generic bags at warehouse stores such as Costco and at outdoor stores such as Cabela's.
- Some plastic bags can't be reused. Reusing plastic bags that have been used to store meat, fish, poultry or unwashed produce can lead to cross-contamination of food.
- Speed sealing. Save time by forcing as much as air as possible out of bags before sealing.
- Save money by cutting carefully. When using a countertop vacuum sealer, you can manually roll the bag cutter back a few inches before cutting, instead of allowing the machine to select the location of the cut. The more plastic you save, the fewer rolls you must buy.
- Vacuum sealers have "off-label" uses. You can save luggage space by making your own vacuum-sealed bags of clothing. You can also compress out-of-season clothing for storage while protecting it from moths and dust. Silverware, too, can be protected from air, which causes tarnish.
- You don't need a vacuum sealer. Although they are handy, you don't need a vacuum sealer to keep air away from food. Denise Landis, equipment tester for The New York Times, writes, "I wrap meats tightly in heavy-duty freezer paper or plastic freezer wrap and seal the openings with freezer tape. Heavy-duty aluminum foil will also work well as long as it does not tear."
- Allow hot foods to come to room temperature before sealing. With hot casseroles, this may take as long as two hours. Foods that go into the freezer hot will form a layer of frozen steam. When thawed, this condensation will cause the casserole to become soggy.
- Cooking vacuum-sealed food is a culinary frontier. Using a vacuum sealer, you can experiment with "sous vide" cooking. Many chefs regard sous vide cooking as superior to roasting, boiling or poaching in wine or stock. In order to cook sous vide (or "under vacuum"), you must cook sealed food in water at a constant, fairly low temperature, which can be very difficult to do. The water is not hot enough to kill bacteria, making sous vide cooking inherently risky, but epicures say that the results are well worth the time and effort.