Need Advice About The Best Vacuum Sealer Machine

I'm with you!  Hope there are some posts, as I too have been looking for advice.  Quite a few negative reviews out there.  I might try the one at Costco since I could return it for a refund if it's not up to snuff.  

I just bought the FoodSaver 3880 at Costco for about $150 plus a box of extra bags for about $35. I've used it on about a dozen items including 5-pound bags of flour and bags of seeds, etc. and I've been pleased with the performance. Of course, time will tell if they stay tight. I put them in large tin "lard" cans which I've been getting from Lehman's out of Ohio.

There is also an attachment for the FoodSaver (on Amazon) to suck the air (or some % of it) out of standard wide-mouth canning jars. I haven't used that yet.

Hi link54,

I bought the FoodSaver 3880 on July 9, 2012 and went home and sealed up about six 5-pound bags of flour plus about a dozen bags of rice, beans, etc. I cut little holes in the bags of beans, rice, etc. to let the FoodSaver suck out the air from them. I read carefully and followed the FS instructions meticulously, did a few test seals and then sealed up the above items nicely. I had no problem with getting good seals during the process. I was impressed with how tight the FS got the plastic bags around the food items. For instance, a bag of rice feels like a rock after the process. I have no complaints at this point. But the caveat is that we're only talking about a six-week test period. If online reviewers are complaining that the original sealing process is problematic I'm inclined to say "user error." If, however, they're saying that the seals fail after a certain period of time - then I can't provide any more help than that after six weeks all my sealed bags look fine.

Maybe in six months I'll find they've all leaked...

Or redneck method, whichever you prefer...

I use a normal household vacuum, with the crevice nozzle attachment and a hot iron (no steam).  If the material is loose and lightweight, a nylon stocking over the nozzle tip prevents it from sucking up any contents.  You fill the bag (I use mylar), then seal all but the last inch or so, then insert the crevice nozzle, turn on the vacuum, and seal the rest as the vacuum maintains suction.  I usually throw in a few oxygen scavengers.

This produces very tightly sealed bags, and can be done with mylar bags in plastic buckets.

My neighbor uses and recommends the FoodSaver he got from Costco.  He also uses the method I outlined.  Actually, he showed it to me.  He only uses the FoodSaver for meats.

I have and use this. the advantage is you can use regular bags. With the foood saver you need the textured bags that can be pricey. I also bought bags and absorbers  in bulk from the same company. Service was good, and I even got a follow up call from them.

http://www.sorbentsystems.com/sinbosealer.html

We had a Foodsaver from Costco and it worked okay sometimes, but other times, not so much. We noticed that the unit worked once or twice, and then it wouldn't operate. Couldn't figure out why at first but then after doing some research concluded that it was because we were vacuum sealing too many items in quick succesion. My wife would buy food in bulk or we would slaughter an animal and we would try to seal it. Sealing one item after another causes the heating strip to overheat which in turn would cause the machine to shut down as a preventative against self-destruction. The heating element has a recovery time that requires it to cool down after each sealing operation. Thus, if we were sealing a large number of bags, we would be forced to wait for the unit to cool down between bags before it would operate again. This dramatically slowed down the processing of packaging bulk foods on shopping day or meat on butchering day.

We eventually bought a Weston Pro-2300 which from appearance is the same unit that Cabela's sells. Not only did the heavier duty unit eliminate the overheating problem, allowing us to seal an unlimited quantity of food as quick as we could load it, but it has a significantly wider sealing strip that yields a much wider seal on the bag which produces a more secure closure. Also, this machine (and other higher grade units) can draw a stronger vacuum (higher inches of mercury: the method to measure vacuum) that reduces the amount of air left in the bag. Less air means less oxygen which in turn means less bacterial activity that degrades food quality.

The Foodsaver unit was okay for occasional sealing but we are much more satisfied with the better quality unit; to us, it was well worth the higher cost but YMMV.

As for storage shelf life here is a quote from the USDA website:

Freezer Storage Time

Because freezing keeps food safe almost indefinitely, recommended storage times are for quality only. Refer to the freezer storage chart at the end of this document, which lists optimum freezing times for best quality.

It would appear that food quality is affected by time but food safety is not. There's a lot of good info at that site.

My personal opinion is this: since vacuum sealing dramaticaly reduces the oxygen exposure, foods packaged this way will have their shelf life significantly extended relative to other packaging procedures, even from the quality standpoint as well  the safety perspective. How long, who knows? We have meat from well over a year ago and it seems just fine. Any longer than that I have no experience with.

I picked up a Foodsaver V845 about 3-4 years ago and use it only for frozen foods. I agree with other comments that you can't seal too many items one after the other; I can do about 6-8 before it starts to heat up. Other than that, it works perfectly. I buy 10-12 pounds of whatever is on sale (salmon, chicken, pork, etc.), break it up into family size servings, seal them, and throw them in my chest freezer. They keep their seal and I've had no problems with food that's12-18 months old.

The Foodsaver bags can get expensive so I buy 11" x 50' rolls from either VackPak Products (http://www.vackpak.com/Westonbags.html) or Meat Processing Products (http://www.meatprocessingproducts.com/vacuum-sealer-rolls.html), whichever site is the least expensive at the time.