Vacuum Sealers – What You Need to Know Before You Buy

A vacuum sealer is one of those kitchen machines you don’t realize how much you’ll use – until you buy one. We use our vacuum sealer for food storage, sealing jars and bottles, corrosion protection, resealing bags and emergency preparedness. You can also use your vacuum sealer for sous vide cooking. In this post, we’ll discuss ways to use your sealer, do a comparison of Foodsaver models and their features, and share some tips on Foodsaver bags.

How does a food storage vacuum sealer machine work?

Vacuum sealer machines sucks the air out of a plastic bag or container and seals it so no air can get back in. When sealing soft or juicy items in plastic bags for freezer storage, it’s best to freeze the items for a few hours before vacuum sealing them. This prevents the food from being crushed or losing its juice during the vacuum process. Vacuum sealing protects the contents from oxygen, liquids and bugs.

Why Get a food storage vacuum sealer machine?

I've put together a list of different ways to use a home vacuum sealer to demonstrate how a vacuum sealer can help in your kitchen and home.

#1 –  Food Storage

I use my vacuum sealer for food storage more than any other use. Vacuum sealing dramatically extends the shelf life of food in the freezer, refrigerator and pantry.

In the Freezer

Have you ever tossed a bag of produce into the fridge or freezer, thinking that you’ll use it up quickly so you don’t need to do anything special with packaging, only to find it later, freezer burned or moldy? It takes just seconds to vacuum seal food, and vacuum sealing extends the shelf life of foods to years instead of months. Vacuum sealed meats don’t oxidize and turn brown. We always get our bulk beef purchase vacuum sealed.

Produce Keeps for Years Instead of Months

I use my vacuum sealer for fresh frozen produce such as peas, broccoli, strawberries, peppers, blueberries, kale, chard, green beans and pretty much anything else that is not a puree. I like to freeze the produce on sheet pans, and then pack into meal/recipe size bags and seal. That way, when I open the bags, the peas or berries aren't all clumped in one big frozen block, and I can pour out at little or as much as I need at one time. Pre-freezing soft or high liquid items keeps them being crushed and juiced by the pull of the vacuum.

You can see my original vacuum sealer in action in this post about how to freeze peas, and the FM2000 in the post about freezing beans. The vacuum sealed bags can stack like books on a shelf in the freezer and take up little space. If you cut the vacuum sealer bags open neatly, you can also reseal and reuse the bags at least once, sometimes more.

I can easily store food for a year or more, which is great if we have a bumper crop of something one year and a crop failure the next. Two year old vacuum sealed berries look like they were picked and frozen the day before. Try that with produce in a regular zipper bag, and you'll end up with a block of ice.

Below is a comparison of two packages of broccoli, one vacuum sealed, one not. I thought I'd use the second package up quickly, so I didn't take the time to vacuum seal. Big mistake.

In the Refrigerator

In the refrigerator, vacuum sealing helps food to last for weeks instead of days. Once you break the seal, the shelf life on many liquids drops dramatically. Now you can use your vacuum sealer to reseal wine, oil or vinegar with Foodsaver bottle stoppers. Simply stick in the stopper, hook up the attachment hose, and seal. They sell the Foodsaver® bottle stoppers in a 3 pack, so you can seal more than one jar at a time. This would also be a nice option for sealing jars of herb infused vinegar or oil.

In the Pantry

Vacuum sealers are also great for extending the shelf life of bulk dry goods, such as dried fruit, herbs and spices, or even flour and sugar. For non-powdery dry foods, like fruit, peppercorns or rice, I place the items in a mason jar and use the jar sealer attachment. This is also known as dry canning. This is especially helpful when you have a bumper crop that will be in storage longer because there’s so much to use.

For powdery items such as flour and sugar, I leave them inside their paper storage bags, and vacuum seal the entire package inside a vacuum bag cut to size. If you want to try sealing powdery material in a mason jar, make sure to form a hole in the center of the contents to increase airflow, and place a coffee filter over the contents to reduce the amount of dust being sucked into the seal and sealer.

#2 – Sealing (or Resealing) Non-FoodSaver Bags

Chip clips and clothespins might keep bag contents from spilling all over the pantry, but they don't work very well to keep the bag contents fresh, especially under humid conditions.

To keep the crunch in your crackers, simply use the Seal Only function on your vacuum sealer. I buy a lot of herbs, spices and baking supplies in bulk Mylar bags, so this is a great way to keep them from going stale before I use them up.

Can I vacuum seal Mylar bags?

You can’t vacuum seal Mylar bags without using an extra step, like putting an inch wide strip of textured FoodSaver bag plastic near the opening of the Mylar bag. Vacuum sealing a bag requires a textured area of the bag in the vacuum sealing channel. The textured area provides space for the air to get sucked out. Without the texture, the sealer clamps tightly shut, and seals before it vacuums.

#3 – Sous Vide Cooking

Sous vide cooking is a hot trend in some circles, and a vacuum sealer can help you prep your sous vide dishes. Foodsaver bags are sturdy, and hold up well to extended heating and liquid exposure. Removing the air from your sous vide bag prevents the food from floating. (Floating leads to uneven cooking.)

#4 – Protect from Corrosion

From ammunition to fine silver, air and moisture exposure tarnish and corrode metals over time. You can use your vacuum sealer to protect the shine on your silver cutlery and save yourself a lot of time polishing. Just make sure to wrap the cutlery in a cloth or thick paper before sealing, so that the fork tines or sharp knife edges don't puncture the vacuum bag.

If you want to protect ammunition, make sure to use the seal only function, not the vacuum and seal.  Vacuum sealing bullets may cause the slug to “pop” out of the cartridge. You can add oxygen absorbers for extra protection.

For the welders out there, one of the members of SurvivalMonkey.com notes that they vacuum seal their Broco exothermic cutting rods and underwater welding electrodes to keep them fresh, which reduces waste from boxes being open and rods being exposed to the elements.

#5 – Emergency Preparedness

I like keep a stockpile of items we use regularly. When the boys were younger, we went through a ton of band-aids – because boys will be boys. I bought a LOT of band-aids. Most were used quickly, but one box got shoved to the back of the linen closet. By the time I found it, the adhesive was starting to break down, and they were basically useless. (Note to self – clean linen closet more than once a year.)

Now when there’s a sale on band-aids, I unfold and flatten the boxes with the bandages inside, and vacuum seal the whole thing. When it's time to use them, I snip open the bag, unfold the box, and it's ready to go. They last for years.