Nothing annoys me more than pulling something out of the freezer only to find that it is festooned with frost.  Although using a straw to suck air out of a zip top bag is easy and economical, it isn’t always pleasant, and not nearly as fun as a new gadget.

My neighbor has a Food Saver, but it costs about $130 on sale, and it's bulky and I have enough appliances on my counter.  So, I bought a $9.99 Reynolds Handi-Vac (before the $3 coupon).  To see if we can commit to food preservation.  The real expense is the bags, the quart size are $3.55 for 14, and the gallon size are $3.55 for 8.  I was breaking up beef and pork chops and went through almost all of them.  

It took a few minutes to get the feel of it.  It’s not too loud, and goes pretty quickly if you press most of the air out of the bag first.  For the last batch of chops I added some bbq sauce (not recommended by Reynolds), making sure to keep it below the fill line.   A week later I pulled some chops out of the freezer (one pack with sauce and one without).  They defrosted nicely, and did not appear to leak.

The issue was when I tried to wash out the bags to reuse them - which Reynolds says not to do (but which I always do with zip top bags).  There is a permeable layer in the middle third of the bag that absorbs juices and sauce, making washing them tedious and a waste of water.   I was a little rough with one, and the bottom of the layer came loose, as it is not sealed as well as the top.  I threw a few leaves of leftover lettuce into the damaged one and applied the vac, and it seemed to work just fine (not that I would normally seal lettuce, but it was there and going to be tossed anyhow).  This seal did not last as long the breakfast sausages sealed around the same time.  It is worth noting that the sausages got sealed so tightly that they were flattened out.

What have I sealed so far besides beef, pork, lettuce, and sausages?  Lunch meat – awesome for this, it stays fresher longer.  Waffles - great because the frost always makes them soggy; I take out what we need and re-seal the bag.  Leftovers, nice because you can easily see what’s inside., and coffee beans - which works nicely but if you don't store them in the freezer or a cold part of the 'fridge the bag loses its seal. 

There is a little bit of frost on some of the packages in the deep freeze where all of the air wasn't properly removed (operator error), but there is far lest frost on the packages I sealed than the ones tossed right in the freezer from the store.   So I'd say it's been a decent investment so far, especially considering that it's easy to use for short term storage.

I'd love to hear about experiences with the FoodSaver if anyone has one!