Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Vacuum Sealers

Hi Y'all what are you running for vacuum sealers. I am on my 3rd food saver and the first lasted 12 years and kept wild game for 1.5 years. The second VAC350 lasted 4 years and kept wild game for a year. The new unit FM5200 only keeps wild game foe about 8 months without signs of going bad. I have always used the food saver bags don't think I am going to purchase another food saver.

Thanks for your opinions.

I have 2 Cabelas commercial units (Weston OEM) The first is 14 years old. A year or two after I bought it a T crcked in one of the vacuum lines. I found a replacement at a hardware store and it still works perfect. The other is 4 years old and has no issues. I seal 4 deer per year, a bunch of fish and certain veggies. I usually buy meat in larger chunks and cut it the way I want it and then seal it and freeze it. They get a workout here.

I prefer Zip Lock brand sealer rolls. I have used a few of the generic brand rolls from Walmart and they are good. Cabelas bags are crap.

I have had a couple of Food Saver brand sealers and one Euro made model. The Food savers aren't up to the level of use they get here and don't tend to last long.

If you get a Cabelas (Weston) get a couple extra foam sealer rings (sold as a maintenance kit). When they get old they need to be replaced. You can get through a few days of sealing buy soaking them in warm water and them gently wringing them out.

My Cabelas (Weston) sealer was/is a piece of hot garbage. I spent $175 for something that my $49.95 Walmart special could do better. I bought the Cabelas after the Walmart finally wore out. The Cabelas won’t vacuum worth a toot, refuses to seal half the time and when it does seal, the seals won’t last but 6-8 months. I’ve called Weston about it and all they’ll tell me is the meat needs to be absolutely dry before sealing....you can’t get it dry enough for it to work effectively.

I ended up replacing it with a Foodsaver from Walmart @ about $75 and am very happy with it. The Cabelas is headed back in todays mail for a refund. I should have read the reviews online before wasting $175.....they weren’t favorable at all.

Food saver is pretty good

We've been using a Food Saver for many years and it still works fine, but we only use it for odd-shaped stuff, like whole gamebirds, that we're going to eat within a year or two. We use heavy freezer paper for big game, instead of vacuum-sealing everything.

I have a Vac Master chamber vacuum sealer. If you do enough its totally worth it. Never overheats when doing large quantities, bags are heavier duty, double seals and you can even vac pac liquids. Red meat will go a year and a half to two years easily.

Might not be worth it if you only process a deer or two a year.I use mine all the time for salmon, halibut, crab, shrimp, blacktail, sheep, moose etc... Consider it one of my best investments in outdoor gear I've ever made. I've had it for 8 years now and figure I would have worn out enough food savers in that time that I'm money ahead!

I agree with TrapperJ
I'm money ahead by a long shot, and the food stays better longer than the old foodsaver stuff I used to use.

A couple other comments on this thread:

Frozen game meat, trimmed of fat, lasts a LONG time in good freezer paper. But it has to be double-wrapped correctly, and stored in a NON-self-defrosting chest freezer, and not bounced around a lot. To a certain extent, the same is true of vacuum-packaging.

Freezer burn is accelerated in frost-free and stand-up freezers. If lean game meat is wrapped correctly in good freezer paper and stored in non-frost-free chest freezers, it last far more and a year or two without freezer burn, especially if you don't bounce the packages around a lot. No matter what it's wrapped in, rummaging for packages will result in freezer-burn whether you use paper or whatever brand of vacuum bags--especially in an upright freezer, because every time you open it, the cold air falls out, which like frost-free freezers accelerates freezer-burn, which is essentially dehydration.

We have three 15 cubic-foot freezers to store our game, plus some other stuff. NONE are frost-free.Only one is an upright, used for Eileen's "special" stuff saved for articles and cookbooks. It might be opened once or twice a month. The "savings account" freezer is in the basement, and gets opened MAYBE once every month or two. Its gets filled to the brim every fall, but also contains some meat from 1-2 previous seasons.

The everyday chest freezer is filled with the oldest meat, along with stuff that won't last long frozen, such as frozen fruit from our trees, or fat for sausages. We regularly eat antelope, deer, elk and other big game meat that's been frozen for 3-4 years and was paper-wrapped, and never encounter freezer-burn.

How long frozen big game lasts depends more on the freezer and how often the packages get pawed through than the packaging.

How do you organize your freezer so that you are not rummaging through the packages? Seems like there is always something that you want that is buried.

The every-day freezer contains tall boxes, each full of different cuts, whether steaks, roasts, burger or stew meat. Each has the oldest packages on top, with newer packages on the bottom. So when we want to cook steaks, we grab a package from that box. There's also a box for gamebirds, same deal.

Each year just before hunting season we take everything out of all the freezers and defrost them, then rearrange the packages in the boxes. It doesn't take nearly as long as you might imagine, usually 2-3 hours.

Thanks, John. The boxes is a good idea. I guess the once a year rearranging is less shuffling than rustling around in there on a semi-daily basis.

Exactly. We also have a chart above the freezer, showing which stuff is in each box.

But we live on wild meat, so learned long ago how to keep it preserved and accessible.

There is some good deals going on at the Food Saver website right now.

https://www.foodsaver.com/vacuum-sealers/counter-top-vacuum-sealers/

Just ordered a couple for Christmas presents. Thanks for the heads-up.

I bought one of the Foodsaver models made in Italy by Tilia in the mid-80's. It lasted for more than 30 years! Sadly they went out of business and no parts or service is available. I have no idea where Foodsavers are made nowadays.

I decided to buy a 12" model from Cabelas on a recommendation from a friend's wife. It's vacuum is more powerful and overall easier to use than the Foodsaver. I even vacuum froze a 35# beaver I trapped last winter.

I said this back in the 80's and I'll say it again: It is such a useful appliance, I don't know how I lived without one.

When my current Foodsaver craps out I'm going back to wrapping venison first in Saran Wrap then freezer paper. I often do the Saran Wrap and freezer for certain cuts and the vacuum sealer for others.

I have had good luck with the Foodsaver. I’m only on number two however . Like many the first one lasted forever it seemed and I loved it so much I almost gave full burial rights. I’m thinking that the company like many others figured out making something that lasted so long wasn’t profitable. My second one doesn’t seem as robust as the first. I’m primarily a deer and black bear hunter so meat doesn’t last much past a year. I don’t see spoilage within the time frame it lasts around here but it may be different if I had an elk in the freezer. Thanks Mule deer for your pointers as I’ll be heeding your advice even with my small in comparison amounts. I have noticed in the past some bags losing their seal after digging around in the freezer. I just resealed them in a new bag when it happens.

John, excellent point on the rummaging around.
We see people every summer who toss their frozen vac packed fish into coolers or dump it in a freezer and then wonder why the bags leak.
Even though we use 4 mil bags and have boneless fish, dropping it or rough handling will puncture the bags and break the seal.

Agree completely.

We often have multiple units working at once and we cut multiple moose back-to-back. Packing hundreds of pounds of meat and fish at a time it is faster and does a better job. Regardless how it is frozen, or held, the vac packers do a better job. The quality of the bags is critical to longevity in the freezer. Proper handling of the packages is always important.

Ditto on what trapper said. I have 3 of the vacmaster 215s and will probably get a few more. It does a great job and makes quick work of game and fish. With how much the foodsaver bags are, you'll eventually pay for the vacmaster by using the bulk packs of bags.