British BBQ Society Forums

OK - I know there has been discussions on here before but this is where we are at.....

We had a small budget of £50 put aside for this (we had seen quite a few on the net for this sort of price so thought we were ok with that)

A friend knew we were looking and found a vacuum sealer for £18.99 in Lidl (she got it for me as they were changing stock the next day) I opened it and tried it, it was crap!! It made a lot of noise and sucked a little then nothing - needless to say this was returned.

Today, in our largest local supermarket (near Gatwick) we found a whole pile of vacuum sealers reduced from £35.71 to £28.57. We got it home and even had some left over bbq to seal so we were happy to rip it open and try it. it was also crap and did pretty much the same as above!!

AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH

So back to the drawing board - are they crap cos of the price and is our budget of £50 really that far out??

I mentioned before about one i got off amazon which is ok but takes a while to get all the air out.

I'm starting to think that maybe i would have been better off spending the extra to get a fresherpack sealer

Once tried boil in the bag BBQ with a zip log and it ended in tears.

Unfortunately I can't Q all the time and when my craving takes a hold and I want a fix boil in the bag does it for me.

Claire, your budget is not out. It's at the bottom end of the home range of vac sealers but there are some decent ones out there for the money.

I work with Fresherpack who's base model comes in at £80 http://www.fresherpack.co.uk/products/1 ... ck_yjs100/ however you'll find that they do sometimes have them on offer for around £50. i can't recommend Fresherpack enough and that's not because they sponsor me. I actually chose the Fresherpack vac sealer before approaching them for sponsorship. In fact I only approach sponsors whose products i like.

When it comes to usage, I use mine all the time. It's something I didn't know i needed until I had one. The effects of freezer burn start to manifest within days of freezing something, often they can start during the freezing process and vac packing minimises these effects fantastically. If you have an eye for quality you will notice the difference quite easily in both raw meats and cooked product. I have not found a better way of reheating BBQ than boil in the bag vac sealed.

At the end of the day, the more you spend, the better the product, I love my Eiffel but it's £140 which is a fair outlay. I believe I've more than had my money's worth though.

Cheers guys for all your comments - we will give it a bit more thought.

I'll keep an eye out for any good ones that appear in your price range and let you know if I see one.

Cheers Steve

I just got an eiffel one, it is very cool. How long do you boil in the bag to reheat, say, ribs? From frozen?

DrSweetsmoke wrote:I have an inexpensive one that works ok and I know there is better out there. You guys have to remember I'm old school so I don't mind using Ziploc freezer bags rather than dealing with vac-suckers considering most things I freeze will be used well before two months.

If I came across a great quality yet low cost sucker then I would go for it but in the end it's just another gadget that looks great at first but gets regulated to the ' not so often used' shelf. That's not a lot of help but I'm just about out of space with rib racks, thermometers, George Forman, Slap Chop,wonder slicer,sharpeners, pig tails,stick blender, butter dispenser, injectors,smoke boxes etc living in there.

Whats a slap chop?!

Hi mate, mine were about 50 mins from frozen but defrosted they were 20 mins.

The "frozen" makes a huge difference.

Cheers for the grate heads up! Honestly it's "great"