Vacuum Sealers: home use

Rhody

Rhody

There is a thread out there on storing peppers using a vacuum sealing system, but it is four years old, so, time to start a new one.

There are a number of systems out there, and personal stories about success or failures of their little suckers (pun intended) is welcome.

I looked at 3 or 4 brands all in the 80 - 105 dollar range, a couple examples: here and here:

Does anyone have experience with the Deni or Vacmaster, and if not what kind do you use and are there any special prep techniques you use to keep your pods are fresh as possible ?

Here is a decent video, also includes mylar and a workaround to get a good seal.


Ghosty...
 
Wow! I never really thought about this. My mom got me a sealer for my BDay last week....now I know what I am gonna use it for.... :lol:
 
I got this one from Cabelas when I really started back up bow hunting a few years ago, works great, I just suggest (and I assume it is the same for most if not all vacuum sealers) is that you keep the area that will be sealed dry, otherwise it might not properly seal, I also used this to seal up some peppers, they get floppy, or.. well they are not crisp anymore, but it works great otherwise, perfect to make into sauces or to grind up in a salsa or something later on
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Home-Cabin/Food-Processing/Vacuum-Sealers|/pc/104798880/c/104723280/sc/104668380/FoodSaver174-GameSaver-Deluxe/727606.uts?destination=%2Fcatalog%2Fbrowse%2Fhome-cabin-food-processing-vacuum-sealers%2F_%2FN-1101302&WTz_l=SEO%3Bcat104668380
 
I freeze my peppers, meats or anything else containing moisture for 2 hours or more then vacuum seal. Keeps moisture from the sealing area which as mentioned is not good. Fresh peppers will vacuum to a mush. I personally think when picked, cleaned, cut, then froze for 2 hours the resulting thawed peppers have a fresher taste then the other way. It also makes it easier to just open and take out one or two to play with then seal it back up. Sealing at room temp then freezing results in a frozen chunk 'o peppers. I have gone from freezer to dehydrator and that works to...of course longer time needed, but who is complaining when there is snow outside. :D

I use an old Kenmore Seal-N-Save that has never done me wrong.
 
I've been using a Food Saver V2490 for about 4 years. Its paid for itself many times over. I've probably vac'd a couple thousand bags of everything from cheese to salmon to hardware parts. I believe I got it from Costco for about $79 bucks. If for whatever reason it shit the bed on me I'd buy another in a heartbeat.
 
texas blues said:
I've been using a Food Saver V2490 for about 4 years. Its paid for itself many times over. I've probably vac'd a couple thousand bags of everything from cheese to salmon to hardware parts. I believe I got it from Costco for about $79 bucks. If for whatever reason it shit the bed on me I'd buy another in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...

I am also using a FoodSaver, but mine is a V2480...probably smaller...and I agree with everything you said about it...
 
Justaguy said:
I freeze my peppers, meats or anything else containing moisture for 2 hours or more then vacuum seal. Keeps moisture from the sealing area which as mentioned is not good. Fresh peppers will vacuum to a mush. I personally think when picked, cleaned, cut, then froze for 2 hours the resulting thawed peppers have a fresher taste then the other way. It also makes it easier to just open and take out one or two to play with then seal it back up. Sealing at room temp then freezing results in a frozen chunk 'o peppers. I have gone from freezer to dehydrator and that works to...of course longer time needed, but who is complaining when there is snow outside. :D

I use an old Kenmore Seal-N-Save that has never done me wrong.
Click to expand...

nice good to know, I actually did that with some hamburger patties I made, I did the first 2 bags and realized it wasn't going to work because they just kept squishing into 1 big patty lol, so then I just froze them all first and then vacuum sealed them.. worked great, I will do that with the peppers, because they did turn out like mush after being thawed again.
 
Justaguy said:
I freeze my peppers, meats or anything else containing moisture for 2 hours or more then vacuum seal. Keeps moisture from the sealing area which as mentioned is not good. Fresh peppers will vacuum to a mush. I personally think when picked, cleaned, cut, then froze for 2 hours the resulting thawed peppers have a fresher taste then the other way. It also makes it easier to just open and take out one or two to play with then seal it back up. Sealing at room temp then freezing results in a frozen chunk 'o peppers. I have gone from freezer to dehydrator and that works to...of course longer time needed, but who is complaining when there is snow outside. :D

I use an old Kenmore Seal-N-Save that has never done me wrong.
Click to expand...

Thanks Justaguy, a friend and I discussed your technique, freezing before sealing, and then making sure there was as little moisture condensing on the outside of the peppers before quickly sealing them in the vacuum sealer. He said he does this with his habs, dries them carefully, and in his case triple bags (without a vacuum) them quickly back to the freezer, keeping everything as dry as humanly possible. He said that kept this way, the pepper's lose a bit of their flavor maybe 10%, firmness, but they last at least 6 months or more. He is a stickler for details like me and often comes up with things like the drying I mentioed above before storing and or sealing them in vacuum bags.

I will check out the Kenmore Seal-N-Save . The price is reasonable. It must be decent because a few sites I went to were out of stock, always a good sign..

Ghosty...
 
A few last thoughts on freezing, put the pods on a cookie sheet, then in the freezer just long enough to make them stiff. When they come out quickly dry them as best you can, put them in the vacuum bags and seal them, if you are over the top, throw in one of those moisture absorbing dessication packs too. Then seal them, and then put the sealed bag in another unsealed one, just for good measure.

Ghosty...
 
Just a thought, but each day looking at the bowl of peppers in the fridge, and as time marches on they are beginning to soften, eventually they will go bad and have to be tossed. Do you gain anything by vaccum sealing them before they go in the fridge ?
And if so, by how much ? I have never tried it, but I am guessing at least a coupe of weeks because their is little air, mostly a vacuum around them. Theoretically, they should keep longer vacuum sealed.

Ghosty...
 
Not good to vac-pack fresh pods unless they are going straight into the freezer. Chiles need to breath and vac-sealing them will make them turn to mush faster.

Get some of those breathable Veggie-fresh bags. I have several that I got from Camp-Mor maaany years ago. I think Ziploc or Glad makes some. They really work to keep veggies of all sorts fresh for a long time. I've had pods in the bags for up to a month. I'd pick the fresh ones each day and throw them into the bag until there was enough to do something with.
 
I have a small industrial/home system from cabela's I paid 400.00 for it.

http://www.cabelas.c...EO;cat104668380

This thing is a beast.. Used it up in Alaska the first few years. They sell a rebuild kit for the pump[ and for the heat bar. Just be sure and use real vac bags,,, Do not use food saver bags. with this..At least I could never get that brand to work. I also never tryed mylar bags... Might have too.
 
vacuum packing fresh will squeeze them together, then you freeze and you get a frozen chunk. That is why I freeze first the vac seal then back in the fridge.
 
The vacuum sealer bags are somewhat expensive. On ebay you can get some rolls of bag material that would come out to .29 cents to .49 cents per quart-sized bag. Even more expensive if you use larger bags. The name-brand bags cost even more yet. Mylar is even more costly.

The least expensive way to "keep" anything is in canning jars. Even in the freezer. Just about every decent vacuum sealer out there offers a canning-jar attachment with their sealing machine. The jars probably make more sense in a chest-type freezer due to the less chance of jars tumbling out of the freezer onto the floor. The initial up-front costs of jars and lids is more but, the jars have no limit to the number of times they can be reused. The lids can be used over 50 times if handled gently, probably even more. The canning rings can also be used many many times.

When you consider all of the costs involved in growing, putting-up and preparing peppers, sealer bags probably add more cost-per-quart than anything else. Unless your production is as bad as mine has been with bell-type peppers these last few years!
 
texas blues said:
I've been using a Food Saver V2490 for about 4 years. Its paid for itself many times over. I've probably vac'd a couple thousand bags of everything from cheese to salmon to hardware parts. I believe I got it from Costco for about $79 bucks. If for whatever reason it shit the bed on me I'd buy another in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...

I've got the same model... same price... same age... and same attitude towards it. It does what it's supposed to do, and if it dies on me... then I'm heading back to Costco to pick up another one.

On vac-sealing peppers... I haven't tried it. Most fresh peppers are used upon picking, or they end up in a jar of picklese, pickled onions, pickles, straight vinegar, dehydrated, or left on their own to dry out so I can harvest seeds. FD freezes his surplus in Ziplocs, but they are usually utilized within a month or two. Then again, SoFlo isn't dealing with thousands of pods like some growers on here are. Freezing then sealing... sealing then freezing... doesn't matter what you do if you're freezing them, they'll never be crispy again. Freezing expands the water in the pod's cells and ruptures them. Expect frozen then thawed pods to be flaccid.
 
Bigoledude said:
The vacuum sealer bags are somewhat expensive. On ebay you can get some rolls of bag material that would come out to .29 cents to .49 cents per quart-sized bag. Even more expensive if you use larger bags. The name-brand bags cost even more yet. Mylar is even more costly.

The least expensive way to "keep" anything is in canning jars. Even in the freezer. Just about every decent vacuum sealer out there offers a canning-jar attachment with their sealing machine. The jars probably make more sense in a chest-type freezer due to the less chance of jars tumbling out of the freezer onto the floor. The initial up-front costs of jars and lids is more but, the jars have no limit to the number of times they can be reused. The lids can be used over 50 times if handled gently, probably even more. The canning rings can also be used many many times.

When you consider all of the costs involved in growing, putting-up and preparing peppers, sealer bags probably add more cost-per-quart than anything else. Unless your production is as bad as mine has been with bell-type peppers these last few years!
Click to expand...

Good idea to use canning jars just for the cost and re-use points. If a person has a large freezer, they might want to consider that option. Jars will waste a lot of space as the product gets used and there are several 1/2-full jars in the freezer.

Using justaguy's method of freezing the sealing allows for small bits of chile to be taken out as needed. The bag can also be re-sealed.

Another method I've used, and seen other food processors use, is to grind/mince/chop up the fresh pods and freeze in flat ziploc freezer bags. The product is thin enough that it breaks easily even when frozen. You can open the bag, take out what's needed, and reseal it right back into the freezer. It's also a very space-efficient method of preserving chiles, garlic, and many other items.

I'm partial to this method because ground chiles in a flat ziploc bag take up less room than whole pods, and, as SumBits said, once the chile is frozen there ain't no crispy in 'em. 99% of the time, frozen chiles are destined for the chopper and into a cooked dish anyway. Why not just get the chopping done all at once and save time later?

We probably shouldn't get totally side-tracked with talking about Vac-sealers just with chiles. Vac-sealers are a great tool to have in the kitchen arsenal for lots of stuff.
 
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