vacum sealers

I have a hand held FoodSaver vacuum pump. It works with canning jars, for which I have the attachments. It cost me $15 a few years ago.

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I love my Foodsaver - mine is the cheaper one , about $75 on Amazon. I bought the adapter which also allows me to seal lids on canning jars. Food stays good basically forever in the freezer.

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The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. --Kent M. Keith

We sure have used ours.
We do a lot of chickens every year. Have put up a few pigs with it.
If we spot a deal in the meat case we will buy it up and repackage.
The ability to do jars is pretty cool too.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

If you want to get the air out of a plastic bag - seal the bag except for a small portion in the corner where you stuck a straw into the bag - suck on the straw and remove the air from the bag - while your sucking out the air then complete zipping the bag - you got a bag without any air in it - I'm talking about the quart size bags - haven't tried the gallon size bags -

I use mine often and love it. Makes on sale meat last forever. I don't use the genuine FS bags. I get off brands at Menards and on Amazon a lot cheaper and surprisingly I like the quality better. Good luck!

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Boldly going nowhere.

I am sorta leary of the food saver now with so many of you saying yours die or wore out . So here are my 2 new choices.http://www.amazon.com/Weston-65-0201.../dp/B001GP81R2 or http://www.amazon.com/TSM-Products-3...FFEAQ7AF9748A2They both will do the 15 inch bags .I am leaning towards the sausage maker brand because it's more hands free in operation.

I'm a big fan of the sausage maker... I order much of my sausage/ham/bacon/smoking supplies there. However, I would be a little bit leery about buying a $350 machine from them without any sort of review. They have one review on Amazon and zero on their website. I don't personally know anyone who has one. I am happy with their customer service though, although I've been happy with Weston's customer service as well.

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'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

Friedrich August von Hayek

I know the one review scared me too but they can't help how many reviews they get. I have nothing but good thing from their other products from various sausage making websites. The plexi glass sealer lid on the weston make me think of all the times i have seen that material spider or crack .

After wearing out a couple of foodsavers ( you can't replace anything on them), I bought the Weston as well. Great machine. We do 3 hogs/1beef/lot of veggies each year, and it's held up well. Did put a new heater strip on it recently. You can buy all the parts to rebuild it from Weston in Ohio.

We have used our Weston for 8-10 years now and no issues. We put up 20 or so deer a year with it along with fish and veggies for the freezer and no cracking yet. The thing seems almost bullet proof.

Of course, you can't tell it from the viewing an online ad photo, but that plexiglass lid is solid piece of material 3/4" thick, milled for the handle and the rubber sealing gasket underneath.

I'd be surprised if you could crack it with a hammer.

If you're used to dealing with Foodsaver type stuff, you'll be quite impressed.
This is NOT cheaply built, imported Chinese junk.

Thanks for telling me .I didn't know it was that thick .

What we got for our tiny butcher shop is the:

Minipack-America MVS45XII chamber vacuum packager

It is worth it if you're going to do much volume. My brother got a small bag sealer of the food saver variety and is not happy with it. He likes the vacuum packing but his unit wastes more bags and does not get as good a seal as well as being slower. On the other hand, his unit is cheaper at a few hundred dollars vs about $3,000 for ours. So it largely depends on the volume you'll be doing.

See:

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2014/02/06/e...-butcher-shop/

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2014/06/04/mini-packer-arrival/

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2014/06/16/f...acuum-package/

-Walter

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Does the Weston have the ability to vacuum mason jars like the Food Saver models? I totally agree that Food Savers are made like junk (I'm on my fourth one now in 14 years), but I find that particular feature extremely useful on a daily basis. I would pay for a quality machine that could do both.

Yes, but you have to buy the hose separately.

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'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

Friedrich August von Hayek

For a long time I used my Mity Vac to seal canning jars using the food saver adapter. Worked great!

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All our pain and all our tears will be no more.....