Freezing Food With a food Saver Device

Good for you!

One thing on meats or anything rather "wet" - be sure to put them in the bags, wipe down the top 1-1/2" or so, and freeze before sealing.  That way you don't suck any liquid out as you're sealing. 

The sealer doesn't like wet or greasy.

Good tip.  I was wondering how to get really wet things in the bags without getting "juice" on the sealing area.  Duh, since its going in the Freezer, a clean paper towel should be good enough. I used the canning funnel for something recently so that may also help.

They actually sell a food saver freezer bag that has some type of material in the top that stops the liquid from coming out.  I tried it once and it worked but they are pricey compared to the other bags.

Here is how I get my bag of liquids  sorted
First cut a tube of rain pipe etc ,then slice it from to to bottom once and smooth all the edges so there are no sharp edges 


Slip a strong vac & heat seal bag over your hand and push your hand into the tube .. extract hand leaving bag in place. 


 Fold the excess bag back over the outer edge don't go mad and stretch it as this will make it difficult to heat seal in some heat sealer machines. 


Fill the bags ..I have four tubes at present , each bag takes one litre of liquid to bring the level to about an inch below the rim of the tube.



 When the bags are filled , wipe off any spillage off the bag with a clean hot damp cloth ,ease the folded down part back up the sleeve , carefully put them in the freezer to freeze solid over night then  take the bag out the sleeve to vac pack & heat seal it . Now label the bag and put it back in the freezer ..


This freezer picture shows the bags before I discovered it was better to have the neck of the bag released off the tube before freezing .
The problem was that the frozen bag had to be stretched to bring the folded back portion upright and this caused me to stretch the bag rim which then made it difficult to insert in my type of heat sealing machine.


 TIP.
When picking up the unfrozen bag still in the tube , hold the bag neck and lift it a tad so the bag stays inside the tube and does not slip through or catch in the slot you cut .

 The slot is to allow for the expansion of the liquid when it freezes ..my first tubes were not split . I had the very devil of a job getting the rock solid frozen bag of contents out the tubes.
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Plantoid, Clever idea. Thanks also for including the reasoning for slicing the pipe down the side.

I forgot to add..

My 110 mm external diameter black plastic tubes...... Were a smidgeon too big to comfortably turn the top of the freeze bag back over .
 So I simply press on one side of the slit to put it inside the other to reduce the diameter by a bit.
Whilst in this state I turn the top of the bag over the smaller diameter ,then carefully let it go free , it presses out gently on the bag without stretching it enough to cause a problem with my vac heat sealer machine  .
 I always let any really hot liquid cool to hand hot in the bags before I attempt to  move them or ease the turned back bit of the bags off the tubes . I did this after I found out the hard way that hot soup burns if it is splashes up as you turn the filled bag back on itself .

That IS a clever idea...  Thanks, Plantoid! 

I'll show this one to hubby.

Plantoid, What is the width of the plastic bag? The is some thing I would at least like to tinker with as we have a section of 4" PVC left over from another project.

My tubes are just over 6 inches tall and the width is 115 mm external diameter , my bags are embossed heavy duty heat sealable ones ..

The  bag I show in the picture below is a bigger size than that shown in the fridge shot earlier on ,
 the reason for the bigger bag was ease of putting  it in the tube & folding the top back plus I can put bigger portions /joints of meat or bones etc  in the bigger bags .

 This picture shows a steel nut holding the split in the tube open .. I used this method to hold the tube open whilst I was sanding down the sharp saw cut edges  all edges , corners , inner & outer rims are free from any burr or sharp edge for obvious reasons .  Once fully smoothed I put the tubes in the dishwasher to clean them and they did not melt or distort .



  This pictures shows the bigger bag 230 mm wide internally when flat by 350 long when flat with  the tube inside to give you an idea of things .

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This picture shows the crisscross of the raised embossed pattern on the bags .
These bags are fantastic , for the tunnels created by the embossing allow quick escape of air from all of the bag when doing the vac pack & heat seal exercise .
 It does not seem to matter if the embossing is upper most or facing down it works well either way .. 
Being made of a nice thick plastic the bags sealing edge slips deep inside my type of heat sealers " bag slot  much better than any of the softer ones  , thus I rarely have a sealed seam failure .





 A simple way of finding of the bag width needed is to run a strip of paper round the pipe and then cut it where it meets the end and fold it in half ,  then measure the half folded paper to find your bag width .. allow a bit more so it is easy to slip the bag over the pipe .

Thanks, Plantoid.

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