Who uses a vaccum sealer?

use it regularly. Got it a year ago and i cant count how many bags ive gone through.

Use mine almost weekly. Buy meat on sale, seal, freeze. Frozen leftovers last much longer. I make homemade beef jerky often and use it for that too. My sister gave me my current one when she got a larger model. I'll buy another one in a heartbeat when it breaks.

Stupid vacuum sealer question: can you use the sealer to simply seal the plastic packaging, or must you use the vacuum part? I'm wondering if a vacuum sealer would work for packaging small items like cookies or pralines.

use mine frequently

Use mine on the reg. I recommend bulk rolls from amazon.. way cheaper than foodsaver brand.

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Question.....does anyone have any troubles putting in liquid with the food...like oil? When I put olive oil in the bag with my salmon it sucked a decent amount of the oil out (not sure what I expected ), but I had to clean out the machine. I swear I have seen others put liquid in before sealing.

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Physics isn't on your side here. You can't directly vacuum seal liquids in a flexible bag; it'll just suck the liquid out. You have to use a jar if you have to vacuum seal liquids. You can bag and seal sauces and soups and such, but you have to put them in the bag, freeze them, THEN vacuum seal it.

If I need to do meat with a little bit of oil for something like sous vide, I've done it a couple of ways before. If I know a couple of days ahead of time that I'll be doing it, I just take an ice cube tray and use it to freeze the liquids that I want in the bag. Pop the cube of frozen liquid in with the meat and pull a vacuum and seal nicely. If it's a more spur of the moment thing, I'll use the ziploc bag in water method to get the air out of the ziploc, then I'll toss THAT into the vacuum sealer bag to be able to pull a good hard vacuum and make sure it stays sealed through the cook.

EDIT: I should say all of the above are for my machine. It doesn't do the "shut off when liquids are encountered" all that well. Newer machines may work just fine. I've also found that if I put my machine on the edge of the sink and let the bag hang down into the sink with plenty of excess bag, I've been able to neatly pull a vacuum on a bag of gumbo before, but there's a lot of unused bag, so I just freeze first, then pack.

Maybe I need a newer machine...

EDIT 2: OHHHH. I forgot this one. I've used the paper towel method, too, for things like steaks and such that are wet, but I want to vacuum seal. Cut the bag a good bit longer than you need it to be. Fold up a piece of paper towel the width of the bag and slip it into the bag. Put the bag into the sealer and pull a vacuum and seal it above the paper towel. The paper towel will absorb all the liquid during sealing. Once it's sealed, then just move the bag a little further into the machine and seal it below the paper towel without pulling a vacuum. Cut off the part of the bag with the paper towel if you want to. Either way, the food's vacuum packed and isolated from the paper towel.

Great tools to have.

I love mine. Makes such a difference in the quality of the food when in a vac sealed bag. I have some sliced ham that didn't get used which I'm freezing this evening. Stuff will last nearly forever.

If you freeze food, you're going to love it. If you didn't freeze food, you'll start and enjoy the convenience.

Post link. People do it all day long

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For soups or other liquids I freeze in tupperware then move it to a vacuum bag later

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I pour the liquid into a bag and prop it upright in the freezer until solid, then simply seal.