Vacuum Sealer

They are the best thing to happen for hunting in 30 years, IMO.

They allow you to keep meat super fresh. We even pkg our trim in 5lb pkg's to make sausage later, at our convenience. Without a vacum sealer I doubt we'd be doing the amount of personal butchering we do. (game, pork, beef)
Not to mention you can vacum seal other things, like say the dry ingredients for a ham brine to take with you bear hunting, or even your documents for a canoe trip to keep them dry. Very handy unit.

We also have the foodsaver brand. Works good, can be a little persnickity about lining up the bag edge to the unit. If it's not quite right, or the bag edge has a minute curl, it won't suck. All in all though, hard to complain about it. We had figured when this one eventually dies we'd buy a, "good one", however, when last in the city at basspro we looked at some, "good ones", for, like, $500.00 b:
I think when our well used 3 yr old one eventually dies we'll just buy another like it.

Keep an eye out for cheap rolls of bag though, Costco usually has them at a good price. Off the shelf at most places can be pretty pricey.
 
I have one also, works very well. As suka mentioned Costco has the variety box and at least twice a year they go on sale using those coupons they send you by mail. ( and in store).
Trust me, food sealers have gone a long way since the old Decosonic food sealer came out 20+ yrs. ago. I think what made the most improvement are the bags. I still have a 20+ yr old decosonic, and it sucked and sealed, but air would enter the bag after a little while.
 
We have one but never use it anymore. Instead we wrap with saran wrap then in freezer paper. We just cleaned out the big freezer and found venison that was 3 years old with no freezer burn at all, I couldn't believe it.
 
I have a Foodsaver as well. Another great thing is that you can buy the giant Costco-packs of chicken or whatnot and divvy them up into portions and seal 'em down. Zero wastage and less fooling around than butcher paper. Even better you can put a kid or non-hunting spouse to work running the sealer and turn processing into a high-efficiency affair.
 
We have a Foodsaver 3840 we picked up at Costco. Works well, can be picky when sealing bags, but in the end does a great job of sealing the bulk chicken and steak we buy at Costco. Def a good purchase.
 
I have a Cabelas CV-15 good thing to have for any hunter keeps food a lot longer. I put green peppers and mushrooms in a bag to try one time I was going away even after two weeks they were still as fresh and crisp as the day I cought them.
 
My mother-in-law has a Costco one - I can't remember the brand name now. I tried it on a huge turkey I broke down and I didn't like it at all. The instructions recommended using a paper towel in the package if the meat had lots of fluid (what meat doesn't?) and even that didn't help much. The front part of the bag would suck down around the meat, causing air bubbles to get caught behind the meat (furthest from the machine).

I didn't like it. I'll save up and buy a good one when I can afford it.
 
I'm a chef, and we just got one at our facility in the spring. Worked with it all summer till we closed the course down.

Cool things you can do, other then just sealing it.

Marinate-just add your favorite seasonings and spices, with a little oil seal it. The vacuum pressure opens up the pores and and allows for RAPID deep marinating.

Cooking- For more of the camp perspective, you can make some stuff at home, mashed potatoes for instance, seal it. Then once at the camp just boil it up until the contents are hot, and cut it open and squeeze it out, no dishes. :D Even Things like raw stuffed chicken breasts in the bags, can be put into boiling water and cooked losing NO moisture and your meat stays nice and white.

Saves freezer space (or cooler)- Even liquids can be put in the vac packer, then put on their sides and frozen flat, allowing perfect rectangles of frozen soup, sauce, whatever. Everything is the same shape and can be easily arranged to save space.

Saves on purchased Ice for coolers- while at home just vac pack some water and freeze it, no need to purchase those expensive blocks of ice when you just make your own. (NOTE: if you pack liquids, make sure to ONLY fill it about half or 2/3rd's. Experiment to be sure what your machine can do, as when it is sucking the air out, it can...explode...)


Down sides of the packer

-B!tch to clean if you explode something gooey in there

-bags can be expensive (depending on where you get em)

-Most machines can only do small bags, or at lower pressures (need one of them $500 machines to get the super pressure ;) )

-meat stays fresh longer when its packed, but once you open the pack, the shelf life is DRAMATICALLY reduced, so be sure to use up what you opened

-Some things can pop the bags in the packing process (few that come to mind, lobster tails and ice cubes... :( )
 
We got a Rival brand vacuum sealer as a gift. The heating element fried the first time we used it. Took it to the warranty depot and they gave us a new one that was an upgrade from what we had. It fried the power supply first time used. In to the garbage.

Moral of the story, never buy a Rival.
 
I have a foodsaver from Costco too and it has been excellent. It is so much better than anything else that I have tried for freezing food. The bag material isn't cheap, but it works so well it is worth it to me.

One tip that I have for you is to not keep them latched closed while not in use, as this compresses the seal and it won't work seal properly after that.
 
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