Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation weston 2300 vac sealer

I haven't posted much at the campfire and i'm a bit out of practice. I tried tossing this up top in the main forum because I forgot there was a food section.



It's a beast

seal bar is 16"



The vac door is 1" thick, stout!

Aside from the dog jokes on the freak show Dave, what do you plan on sealing?

First task will be large batches of bbq pulled pork for my daughter's wedding. After that, regular use will be venison and walleye for the most part.

How you used a vacuum sealer before Dave? I'd like to have one, but don't want buy one $$.

I had a food saver many years ago. It crapped out on us. We've been without one for probably 15 yrs or more.

I wanted a good one, hopefully I did ok choosing this one.

I have been looking very seriously at a vac sealer.



Hope you got a good one Dave.

I love my vacuum sealers. I use then almost daily. That Weston Dave has is made by the people that make Cabelas sealers which are good units. They are repairable when things go wrong. I had one get a crack in a T in the vacuum line and it came apart easily enough and I got a replacement T at the hardware store.

I too have had cheap Food Saver units and I also picked up a cheap Italian model that was better but I just didn't like it much for some reason.

Vacuum bags can be had cheaper at Walmart and I like the Zip-Lock bags the best of the ones I have tried so far.

I buy a lot of stuff in bulk when I come across good deal. Things like wild rice vacuum seal very well and become little solid bricks when sealed up and it lasts forever without degradation. Fish and venison store twice as long in the freezer and degrade much less than any other way I have used. I make breakfast sausage and bratwurst regularly, so when Aldi has pork shoulder on sale for $1.50 boneless I throw a few into the big freezer and just get one out when I am making sausage or venison burger.

I find it pretty easy to make better sausage than I can buy, and having the right tools to make it and store it with minimal fuss means I eat better with less effort. Making brats or breakfast sausage is literally as simple as take a pork shoulder out of the freezer and thaw, cut it into grinder size chunks, coat the chunks with seasoning mix, grind, form balls and freeze them and lastly vacuum seal the frozen balls. A.C. Legg in Alabama makes an excellent seasoning mix for brats and breakfast sausage. The casings do not matter to me when I am not smoking the sausage and I prefer pan fried patties. Freezing the balls prevents them getting smashed together when I vacuum seal them.
About the only thing to look out for is bags. I profoundly dislike Cabelas bags/rolls. Light weight bags/rolls can work, but there will be more failures and they will not store as long.

Lots of good info there, thanks Miles.

I have used the A.C.Legg brat seasoning and the maple breakfast sausage seasoning. The brat seasoning is about perfect the way it comes out of the package. The Maple breakfast sausage is a little light on the maple flavor, but up here it's easy to get some real maple syrup and 3/4 to a cup of maple syrup to 6-8 lbs boned pork shoulder fixes that in a big way. When you do that, cook it at a little lower temp and watch for the sugar to carmelize but not burn. The brats, I love to make really crispy on the outside. Just thaw both and mash the balls with a spatula. I should have added that I have a couple of those copper grilling sheets and I lay one of those on a cookie sheet and drop the balls onto it, then the whole works goes into the freezer. The copper mat freezes them faster. If the balls get frozen together, I use the wooden stomper for my grinder as a bat and it separates them pronto. If you keep a fish bat in the boat that'll do.

At least with the pork shoulders I have bought here at Aldi I have found them to be a little smaller because after deboning they also trim some of the fat off too which is not necessarily good if you're making sausage or venison burger. Sometimes it's better to buy bone in shoulders and debone/trim yourself. Also, the brat/breakfast sausage seasoning is about right for me when I throw a pound or two into a big bowl and generously shake a little more than enough seasoning onto the meat to coat it well all the way around then run that through the grinder and repeat as many times as necessary to use up the meat you are grinding in that batch. There's less waste seasoning and no dicking around with measuring anything.

Use tip: When you put things into the bag or when you make bags out of the roll stock. If it is something that will go into the freezer and them be used out of the bag multiple times from the fridge (like bacon) leave an inch or two of extra bag above the stored item so the it can be folded over and clipped with a clothespin or chip clip.

I usually buy baby back ribs by the case and the whole works goes into the freezer. When it's time to make ribs I grab out a package of three full racks rub them down and run them through the smoker. When they come out of the smoker I cut them into 2/3 bone chunks and vacuum pack those, then toss them back into the freezer. They make great fast lunches, just nuke them for a couple minutes and put on your favorite sauce. A little messy for out in the deer stand, but the deer seems to like the smell. Killer good for around the fire at night though.

Dave, one of the privileges of owning ones own shop/business is, you get to pick the quality of your shops "tools" !

ten four

https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ar...tvdnH3QIVCcNkCh2xNQZCEAQYBCABEgI9NfD_BwE

I have one of these and it works fantastic.

nice!

ND,

I have the same vac sealer - it's three, maybe four years old. I've done probably 6-8 deer with it, probably 400-500 pounds of fish, and another 200-300 pounds of ground meat.

My hunting partner has the same, his is probably twice as old as mine, he has done at least double of mine, and probably triple the amounts of meat.

I just used mine Monday night for elk backstrap that I forgot to take in with the quarters to the local butcher.

I'm with Miles - when the pork shoulders go on sale here, smoke them, shred them, and package in the pound-ish size bags - thaw, nuke, and serve!

We do fresh fruit - strawberries, peaches, and cherries - no issues.

I use the bulk rolls for bags as well, there's a demand here for deer shoulders, and I've had to do a tuna loin for friends on more than one occasion - being able to cut a bag to the needed length is easy and quick.

Nice, Yeah I was thinking with the bulk rolls and the wide seal bar a person could seal deer quarters if needed.

You probably wouldn't want to vacuum seal a whole quarter, but I do seal whole top round muscles after they come out of the smoker, and that's a very decent moral thing to do with them.

True - but it also depends on the duration of the frozen storage.

We save the whole front shoulder, and have them curried later by a bowhunting club member, or pressure cooked - they keep fine for up to six months, and I'd be willing to bet I've eaten older - and just didn't know it.

The larger chunks are a bit harder to get all of the air out, but the Wesson does a pretty good job with everything I've put under the lid, and I've also traveled mine a number of miles to hunting camps, OBX, and local for grinding meat.

ND - save the box and Styrofoam, it's easy to pack and move it with you, if you need the mobility.

We have the Weston pro 3000 for a few years. Like it pretty well but get the occasional leak from a bag.

I’ve attributed it to the Foodsaver bags as that’s all I’ve seen. Will have to look some more.

The leaks are mostly from salmon filets when they occur. Might be bone pokes as the cause.

I have a Weston Grinder and Sausage Stuffer....the Stuffer is actually made in Czechoslovakia and sold by Weston.....it's a beast.

FWIW....They're very good tools but they're both manually operated sooooo.

Good luck with the vacuum sealer....wish I had one.