Tips on vacuum sealing food

Don't normally freeze the meat before we put it in the Engel on fridge mode.
Just out of the fridge at home.
Have had meat for up to 5 weeks travelling that way.
Also same with some meals.
If we think we will have a late camp in a day ro so time while travelling, we usually cook double the night before and keep the leftovers in the fridge for the next night.
Important though that the bags are not pierced, and we always check the bags and contents as we open them just in case.

Have the butcher vacuum seal it and then put it into your fridge and it will last 6 weeks easy...
Cooked meals,,,, next night for me....

If you've cryovacing the food, freezing it defeats the purpose. It'd be just as to put the food in sealed containers and treating as such.

However if you're trying to combine the storage time of cryovac + freezing, you'll be playing a hazardous game. The effectiveness of vacuum sealing depends entirely on the ability to remove gas from the package. By the time a food is frozen and then defrosted, that vacuum in most cases will be lost and hence render the cryovacing redundant.

I've had no experience with cryovacing pre-cooked meals, but see no reason why it would not work (although I would not expect the life to be as long). Why not give it a try at home? You could seal half a dozen packages of the same stew, and after a couple of weeks start opening them at weekly intervals. Your nose & stomach will soon tell you how it's survived!

Personally, when I buy a cryovac I put it in the fridge for a month before opening anyway (provided the seal is good), so I'd have no compunction about taking fresh, unfrozen meat on a two week trip. However it's your trip so do what you're happy with.

Post 18578 had lots of info

Especially this one -

"Member - Davoe (WA) posted this followup
DEFINITLY DO NOT KEEP CRYOVACCED MEAT UNREFRIDGERATED.
Sorry to shout but it is sooooooooooooooo important. It is mainly spoilage bacteria like pseudamonis (smelly slimey stuff) that needs air so it lets you know that the meat is off. It is the truly insidious bacteria that grows anaerobically (without air) heard of clostidium botulinum yea thats botulism. It is for this reason that canned food (same idea as cryovaccing) must be heated for a combination of time and heat sufficient to kill 110% of all clostridium botulinum spores. this bacteria can grow in ideal conditions - no air and no competition from spoilage behavior in cryovacced unrefridgerated meat. This information comes from my experience as a Butcher and Food technologist "

We did what you propose on one leg of our recetn 14 week trip.

In Broome, we bought a heap of cryocac meat. Spoke to the butcher and he froze about half of it. We put some of that in the fridge and some in the freezer.

Freezing, then putting in the fridge adds little to the 'shelf life' of the meat as defrosting starts almost immediately. We kept some of the defrosted meat for close to 4 weeks and it was fine. It did help keep the fridge cold and reduce power consumption for a couple of days though.

Tips:
Freezing increases the chance of puncturing a bag by rubbing together during travel. If this happens, you need to use the meat within a couple of days.

Chicken keeps for a much shorter time than beef, lamb or pork. If you cryovac chicken, use it within a couple of weeks. We threw out one pack of chicken as it had started to swell up.

Diced meat, mince etc keeps for a shorter time than whole cuts, but we had no trouble keeping mince for 3 weeks.

Make sure you store the meat at 4 degrees or below for maximum life. Even a few degrees higher will dramatically reduce life.

Overall though, cryovacing is great. Over 14 weeks, we bulk purchased meat just 4 times, Home, Katherine, Broome and Darwin. All excellent meat and only rejected one pack (chicken).

Somehow we didn't get to eat a fine piece of cryovaced meat on the April/May expedition. When I got home it came out of the Engel and into the home freezer and then in mid June got packed up again for the next adventure and we had it a week ago and it was good stuff!! So it was around 15 weeks of age. Cryovacing and freezing works

Hi phillowe
Most people here are talking about cryovacing where as your original question was about vacuum packing.
I vacuum pack meat with a sunbeam machine and over a 4 week trip through the centre I only bought meat at home and then in Alice Springs.
Like cryovacing the chicken needs to be used with in a few days but straight cut meats should last around 2 weeks.
One no no I found is don't vacuum pack meat with bones. I find it doesn't look real good after a few days but with straight cuts like steak 2 weeks is fine.
We vacuumed ours and then placed them in the engel. Outside temps were around 40 degrees and we got 2 weeks OK.
With just vacuum packed meat I wouldn't expect to get any longer than 2 weeks. If going away for longer go for cryovacing.
Hope this answers your question
120scruiser

BTW I haven't done pre cooked meals.

Check out this gov site, lots of interesting and useful info www.foodstandards.gov.au/