Freezing Food With a food Saver Device

First off that is a very nice thread on the cost of preserving food. My belief is that different crops do better with different methods of preserving. Currently my need is to put up Rhubarb and shortly Strawberries. My Food Saver has given up and can't be repaired any more times. There are other brands out there to do vacuum freezing with and some folks even report poor luck with certain models of the Food Saver line. To help make a decision for my next purchase my question is what are your experiences and opinions concerning vacuum freezing products.

I to am looking at a new vacum sealer and the 2 I am looking at are the Weston 2100\2300 and the Vacupack Deluxe. I have been researching them for a couple of months now and have found lots of reviews on them both and they both seem to be good products. I would give the edge to the Vacupack Deluxe based on it's warranty except I can't find anyplace to buy locally as of yet. I can get the Weston at Cabels. The Vacupack is cheaper running $389 compared to $499 for the Cabels brand Weston. You can get the Weston on sale through Weston for $409 at the moment.

I had one of the original Food Savers when they were built to last and had it for nearly 8 years. Bought another and it only lasted about a year. Wouldn't touch one again. I truly love vacum sealing my produce and our hog when we have one butcherd.

i have only ever owned a food saver brand so i can't speak to how other perform. i've had it for 8 years now and it is still going strong. i use it for bags and for sealing canning jars of dehydrated foods.

as to freezing food: i divide my food storage so that some of everything is frozen, some is dehydrated, some is canned, and some is root cellar-ish. this way, if one system fails, i won't lose everything. this has saved us over and over--the year we had the freak winter storm and lost power for days, i still had 2/3 of our food stored in a place other than the freezer--the spring of the 500 year flood that buried nashville, i still had 2/3 of our food storage in a place other than the cellar--and the year the ants invaded the pantry, i still have 2/3 of our food stored in a place other than the shelves.

just today i put up 14 pounds of potatoes--5 pounds cubed and canned (came to 8 pints), 7 pounds shredded in the dehydrator, 2 pounds shredded in the freezer in food saver bags.

Wow, Rowena, you are my new idol! And I thought I was a pretty good food saver. Nonna

I have had a food saver for years and wouldn't be without it. I am on my second one but have had it for several years. It is not only useful for freezing, but I also will vacuum pack shredded cheese in the fridge to keep it from spoiling.

i'm not doing anything special, lots of people can do what i'm doing but most people don't have the time at home to do it, or they lack the confidence because someone has told them it is hard to do.

later this year a series of posts on food storage that i wrote last fall on my romesticity blog will be published in the backwoods home magazine. the series is here, but when it is published it will be heavily edited:

http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/prepping-to-prep.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/food-dehydrating.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/home-canning-1.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/pantry-mixes-homemade-convenience.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/the-vacuum-sealer-my-new-bff.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/extreme-meal-planning.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/food-security-or-stuff-i-forgot-to-tell-you-in-the-other-posts.html

today i'll be putting up chicken stock, using carcasses that i've saved in the freezer after cooking a chicken and veggie trimmings that i've save either in the freezer or dehydrated in a jar. after the stock is made and in the canner, i'll puree the veggies and put them in the dehydrator, later to be powdered and stored for use to thicken and enrich stews--i'll put the chicken bones back in the pressure cooker and cook them until the turn to mush, then i'll put them in the dehydrator and turn them in to bone meal. some will go in the garden, some will go in homemade dog treats. there will be nothing left to put in the compostor.

Rowena;

As the Scots might say, "Canny lass".

Your method of saving food by different methods has really paid off. If you had saved by only one method, one of those years would have been a complete write-off. Well done, and a good lesson to us.

westie wrote:First off that is a very nice thread on the cost of preserving food. My belief is that different crops do better with different methods of preserving. Currently my need is to put up Rhubarb and shortly Strawberries. My Food Saver has given up and can't be repaired any more times. There are other brands out there to do vacuum freezing with and some folks even report poor luck with certain models of the Food Saver line. To help make a decision for my next purchase my question is what are your experiences and opinions concerning vacuum freezing products.

New to the forum but really in to vacuum packaging foods! Take a look at Vacmaster PRO and VP machines. I've been thoroughly impressed with mine. I currently own the PRO260 and love it a lot! I also want the VP112 chamber machine when I save up to get it. While I package many dry goods, I have not vacuum packaged many veggies and fruits yet but I have done corn, asparagus and some avocado with good success.

Rowena, when PapaVino and I first married, we bought a Squeezo auger press for canning, making at first, tomato sauce, seedless raspberry jam, pumpkin puree. Thirty years later, we still use it every fall for pureeing fruits and vegetables. One of our favorite tomato mixes is thick, but tastes somewhat like V-8 juice with a kick from that year's favored hot pepper (though the Bulgarian Carrot Chilis just about did us in without lots of cheese ). Makes great pasta sauce with fresh or frozen basil. The fibrous part that exits the auger as "waste" is often recycled as Rerun Veggie Soup, with sauteed chopped onion/carrot/celery and some of the sauce added back, along with some nice white beans, like cannelini. With good bread, a perfect end to a busy canning day! Of course, the wine PapaV brings up from celler doesn't hurt either!

a squeezo is on my wish list. actually for a person who claims to want a simple, uncluttered life i find that i want a lot of gadgets. LOL

If you get an all-metal Squeezo, you'll probably have it for over 20 years: cost divided by years--a real bargain to my thinking. My brother-in-law always enjoys my seedless raspberry and strawberry jams because, having a couple of teeth in a 'bridge,' he finds seeds annoying when caught under the thing.

Another appliance I find very helpful is a steamer-juicer. I pile its basket with lots of tomatoes, some onions, garlic, carrot or two, celery, parsley, a red beet to add more color, handful of jalapeno peppers, and let the thing draw off the almost-clear juice and concentrate the tomato mix. Then we run the mix through the Squeezo, add enough juice to make sauce the consistency desired, taste, add salt and/or pepper if needed, throw a lot of chopped basil in it, bring to a boil and can it. Instant spaghetti sauce. The left-over clear juice can become Kinda V-8 Juice with some of the sauce added back in. Then it can be canned, too.

I love this forum! You are all so wise!

Can't speak for everyone, but in my case, not so much wise as....just old. Nonna

Nonna.PapaVino wrote:If you get an all-metal Squeezo, you'll probably have it for over 20 years: cost divided by years--a real bargain to my thinking. My brother-in-law always enjoys my seedless raspberry and strawberry jams because, having a couple of teeth in a 'bridge,' he finds seeds annoying when caught under the thing.

Another appliance I find very helpful is a steamer-juicer. I pile its basket with lots of tomatoes, some onions, garlic, carrot or two, celery, parsley, a red beet to add more color, handful of jalapeno peppers, and let the thing draw off the almost-clear juice and concentrate the tomato mix. Then we run the mix through the Squeezo, add enough juice to make sauce the consistency desired, taste, add salt and/or pepper if needed, throw a lot of chopped basil in it, bring to a boil and can it. Instant spaghetti sauce. The left-over clear juice can become Kinda V-8 Juice with some of the sauce added back in. Then it can be canned, too.

The Squeezo is a wonderful gadget! We have the all metal one which has lasted for years! We also use it to make tomato juice for canning and applesauce.

Still undecided what to get for my next food saver gadget. Did not know what a squeezo was so googled it, well I have the Victorio version which does great for tomato juice making. Does the Squeezo do more or better than the victorio for the extra $150. I see on Amazon there is also a Roma Food Strainer that is under $50. I usually opt for quality but so far the Victorio has been flawless at tom juice for the last 8+ years and I did not know at that time there were other options.

Yes, Squeezo is more expensive, but, then, it contains more metal, less plastic. I can put really hot materials from the Steamer/juicer bin into the Squeezo and not worry about warping or melting of plastic. (Just take care not to splatter the hot liquid on anything you're fond of.) Eight years of use for an appliance isn't bad...25 years is better IMHO. I've never used a Victorio and had never heard of a Roma, so can't speak to their use. Do either or both of them come with three different meshes of strainer like Squeezo? That might make a decision easier. Nonna

rowena___. wrote:i'm not doing anything special, lots of people can do what i'm doing but most people don't have the time at home to do it, or they lack the confidence because someone has told them it is hard to do.

later this year a series of posts on food storage that i wrote last fall on my romesticity blog will be published in the backwoods home magazine. the series is here, but when it is published it will be heavily edited:

http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/prepping-to-prep.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/food-dehydrating.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/home-canning-1.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/pantry-mixes-homemade-convenience.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/the-vacuum-sealer-my-new-bff.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/extreme-meal-planning.html
http://www.romesticity.com/2011/08/food-security-or-stuff-i-forgot-to-tell-you-in-the-other-posts.html

today i'll be putting up chicken stock, using carcasses that i've saved in the freezer after cooking a chicken and veggie trimmings that i've save either in the freezer or dehydrated in a jar. after the stock is made and in the canner, i'll puree the veggies and put them in the dehydrator, later to be powdered and stored for use to thicken and enrich stews--i'll put the chicken bones back in the pressure cooker and cook them until the turn to mush, then i'll put them in the dehydrator and turn them in to bone meal. some will go in the garden, some will go in homemade dog treats. there will be nothing left to put in the compostor.

Does anyone have a Food Saver (R) FM2000 or V2244? I would like to try vacuum sealing and these are reasonably priced.

I started reading some of Rowena's blogs and they are funny as well as practical sounding.

Don't think mine are either of those, but my latest one was about $40. 

I'm using the rolls of bags from Cabela's as they are good & heavy duty & cheaper than Wally-world's thinner ones.  Uline also carries rolls, but still more than Cabela's...

I know this is in response to an old topic, but I just had to say that if you are looking for canning/dehydrator supplies, try Craigslist.  I have gotten many, many canning jars, lids, a dehydrator and a Squeezo for nothing or little of nothing.
Many of the newer generation are not interested in food saving so when time comes to clean out grandmas garage, closet, basement, they just want to get rid of the stuff...Gold mine for me!!!!

I have a Food Saver  V3425 and would Not recommend it.  I had a FS for years and when it finally died I got this one thinking an upright model would save counter space.  I don't like it at all and will probably replace it as soon as I can justify buying a new one.

We have a Food Saver V3250 and we like it a lot. Don't know what the differences are but it does what it is supposed to. We also got the whole vacuum set up and the accessory port but we haven't used it. I might do a lot more when I completely retire ( almost, almost) but nothing like that lady with all the posts, my goodness where would I store everything. I'm all ready stuffed to the gills from canning and freezing.

I have a food saver vac 420.  I love it but have never used the tube thingie.

I use the jar sealer all the time. 

GREAT investment if you dehydrate things with sharp edges, like potatoes or cooked grains, that cut thru the bags. 

Or stinky stuff like onions.  The smell migrates thru the plastic quite quickly.

Bought it tonight at Target, Food Saver FM2000:
I'll be trying it in a day or two