vaccum sealed food

Hi Evan,
Have used a home cryovac machine before, brought for our Simpson desert trip,
we found it extremely good for what we used it for.
We prepared a few cooked meals before we left and froze them for a couple of days before we left.
We then selected the meal we wanted for the evening before we packed up in the morning, let it defrost during the day then it was a case of opening the package popping the meal into the pot.
Usually cooked up some rice or veggies in a separate pot.
We even cryovaced separate slices of pizza from our local pizza shop and my daughter enjoyed pizza in the middle of the desert.
One tip if you go done that track is freeze the food in a container that will fit into the size bag you are using then freeze the food then cryovac it.
We voted the cryovac machine one of the best bits of gear we brought for the trip.
Hope that is even slightly that you were asking about and was usefull.

Aren't they used for storing woollen jumpers over the summer? :)

Andrew

Hi Evan

A lot cheaper than the proper vacuum sealers such as Sunbeam, and even cheaper than the Deals Direct type alternatives. At the price it may be worth a try if you want cryovaced food.

Motherhen

Hi Evren1

We use a home vacuum sealer, like William. Butchers are good, but hard to get them to cryovac pizza!

We also seal pre cut vegies, like pumpkin, sweet potato etc, kept them fresh, then just open, heat and serve. Also gets rid of the problem of them getting wet in the fridge, and going off. Saves a lot of space and time when you are away.

One other thing we tried was vacuum sealing sliced bread, in packs of 2 or 4, for toast in the mornings... NOT a good idea...lol

Cheers, Dave

We also vacuum seal some food before a longish trip.
I bought the Deals Direct jobbie and it has performed faultlessly for 3 years now.
Cost was around the $80 mark from memory, which is much cheaper than the brand name ones and does just as good a job.


We simply seal enough perishable food for our entire trip and leave the sealer at home.

Not sure on the effectiveness of the ZipVac though.
The more common sealers use larger bags or rolls to vaccum then seal the bags entirely. You cut the bag to open and never reuse them.

Bill.

We purchased one of the Sunbeam ones a couple of weeks ago to try out when we went to Fraser for a week. I guess for a trip of only a week you don't need to worry so much for the quality/freshness but I was more interested in the space saving you get. We loaded up the fridge with everything in before we did the vacuum and it was just about full....when then sealed up each nights meal in a bag and restocked the fridge and we managed to free up nearly halve the fridge simply by removing the packaging the meat comes in.

Evan

Be carefull with re-useable sealing bags.. if they let you down, it will not be close to a town, it will be out in the middle of no where..

Cryovac for us
Last year SWMBO did 80 meals, vacuum sealed them, with our "el cheapo", cryovac sealer from ALDI..... apart from a few paid for Barra Burgers, and the odd eat out night

3 months travel in the outback, and never once had a problem with quality,,

Topped up with snags in Kununurra, and the Butcher did cryovac them, at no extra charge..


Either way a good vacuum and seal will guarantee that quality will last..
Cheers
Bucky

Evan, Not familiar with the specific product you have mentioned, but we are big users of 'vac packing'.

For the first few years, we just got butchers to cryovac - if they didn't offer the service, we just went elsewhere. We have kept beef (whole, no bones) for 8 weeks in the fridge with no problems. Chicken much less, mince, meat with bones a bit less.

About three years ago we bought a cheap EBay vac packer. We don't expect the meat to last as long as the 'commercial' packaging, but we would not be without our machine now.

I now do good portion control prior to packing. We can do vegies, fruit, cooked stuff etc. Most of our meat is now vac packed and frozen using our little machine. It lasts much longer and better than ordinary freezer bags. When defrosted, there is no leakage in the fridge.

We carry the machine and bags on our travels (now full time). We do a lot of fishing and I vac pac fish we plan to keep before freezing. We are currently in Tas, eating NT barra caught last winter - almost as good as fresh. Also, I can now keep bait in the freezer with our food. Vac packing means no odours.

Have not answered re your specific question, but hope I have helped with the principle involved.

Norm C

thanks all for the replies.

have decided to go with the disposible type bags . Sounds like a winner for space saving too!

cheers,

Evan