New Toy! (vacuum sealer) [General]

2009 Sep 18
I recently bought a house and finally acquired a small chest freezer.
It's heaven! I love stocking that sucker up and have decided to fully take advantage of it with sales and bulk cooking (like making sausage).
Then I realized there's no point in stocking it up just to deal with everything being freezer burned.
I finally bought a Foodsaver from Costco. Whee! Can't wait to take it out the box tomorrow and figure it out. I'm particularly looking forward to using the marinating feature. Conveniently enough pork loin was on sale at Farmboy today.
Anyone have great tips for using the Foodsaver?

2009 Sep 19
We use ours quite a bit. Other than some of the more obvious uses, we also freeze small broth packets, cut up large cheese blocks (6+ months in the fridge), and marinate meats to pack for camping.

If you are really into the numbers, you need to watch the economics of using the sealer and the freezer. First, the sealer plastic is not cheap, there are just some things that aren't worth storing (leftovers, single serve meats, etc). We've actually decommissioned our freezer chest and I'll be getting rid of it soon. It is too easy to overbuy, it encourages purchases of lower quality goods, and in our case, with the electricity ($180 annually) it was hard to come out in the black.


2009 Sep 19
But if you are preparing for the apocalypse like I am, the freezer is about more than just saving money :-)

2009 Sep 19
My family uses them to vac pack meat when the hunting/fishing season is right: pickerel filets, moose, deer, duck... what they commonly do is store the game meat in the vac pack WITH seasoning... it somehow permeates the meat even better this way for some reason.

2009 Sep 19
Sous-vide cooking is all i have to say...makes everything taste so much better...

2009 Sep 19
A freezer that costs $180 annually to run would have to be huge, and ancient! We bought a new 10 cu. ft. chest freezer about a year ago that has an EnerGuide rating of 282 kWh/year. That unit costs about $30 a year to operate at current electricity rates. It's hard to think of an appliance that gives more bang for the buck!

We use our vacuum sealer a lot, mainly for veggies, fish and poultry. It's true that the plastic is not cheap, but it can often be reused. We don't reuse the bags used for fish or poultry, but the veggie bags we wash, air dry, and use again. Of course, they get a bit smaller each time you cut them open, but we usually get at least three uses from one bag. We used to use those freezer bags where you have to try and suck the air out with a straw, then slide the straw out and put on a twist-tie - the vacuum sealer is infinitely superior!

2009 Sep 19
All excellent points.
I'm not worried about the electricity costs as the freezer is wee and not particularly old (plus it was free!).
I won't be worried about buying cheap meat just tro freeze as I have no patience for substandard food.
Glad to hear the vac pack is great for preserving (and intensifying?) seasoning.
I'm of two minds about the sous-vide cooking. I'd like to try it but I can't bring myself to because of the chemical leaching. It creeps me out.

I used to do the straw/freezer ziploc combo. I got so tired of bits ending up sucked into through the straw *cough cough*. Thank goodness those days are mostly over! (I won't vac pack things I'm keeping unfrozen like biscotti). Yay that I can re-use the bags for fruit and veg.

2009 Sep 20
One useful approach is to use milk bags for vacuum sealing. They are pretty much free and work quite well for most purposes.

2009 Sep 20
Hmmm, I'll try that Jagash, but am doubtful. The thing about the Foodsaver bags is the air channels on the inside that allow air to easily be sucked from the far side of the bag.

2009 Sep 20
BB....if sous vide cooking wasnt a safe thing to do i really dont think some of the best chefs in the world would be doing it,,,if your using proper vac pac bags there wont be any leeching of chemicals,,,,because your cooking it at such low temperatures it would be impossible for this to happen....its very safe....and it really does make things taste superior...ive cooked everything from meat, fish, veggies and i was shocked at the difference...you should give it a try,,,you'll be hooked...

2009 Sep 20
I just read what this means (en.wikipedia.org) and I wouldn't do it. That's not a very convincing conclusion piglover "if so-and-so is doing it, it must be safe"

2009 Sep 20
sous vide moose, now *that* would be interesting.

2009 Sep 21
im sure if people like joel robuchon, thomas keller, paul bocuse etc. have endorsed it and practice the technique themselves and in there restaurants it must be safe...these people have built there reputations and lives on feeding the public and wouldnt do anything to endanger that..i think its the responsibility of foodies like all of us to be open minded and give different things a try....

Ferran adria of El Bulli(repeated #1 restaurant in the world) was the chef who started using this technique(more recently) and brought it more into the mainstream...His restaurant is only open six months a year while the other part of the year, himself, his brother also a chef, a flat wear designer, and two scientists try to create new hyper modern food...and part of this process is making sure that everything that they are experimenting with is safe for consumption...


2009 Sep 21
The milk bag approach works moderately well and is very environmentally friendly as far as the different options go. I think that I have done Sous Vide in camping while I was young, though the food safety issue does warrant some concern.

2009 Sep 21
piglover - lots of chefs continue to grill even though it is proven to introduce carcinogens to the food. Not very convincing argument.

2009 Sep 21
Lots of chefs do it because it yields tasty morsels of deliciousness.

2009 Sep 21
just read this on the wikipedia page - does not sound so terribly safe to me :

Clostridium botulinum bacteria can grow in food in the absence of oxygen and produce the deadly botulinum toxin, so sous-vide cooking must be performed under carefully controlled conditions to avoid botulism poisoning.[3] To help with food safety and taste, relatively expensive water-bath machines (thermal immersion circulators) are used to circulate precisely heated water. Differences of even one degree can affect the finished product.

2009 Sep 21
just for curiosity sake do you eat grilled foods....if so i suppose there wouldnt be much difference...we'll just agree to disagree....but if its something you seem so against, i would make sure that if your ever eating out at any higher end restaurants in ottawa you ask them if there doing it because i can name at least 15 place in town that do....

2009 Sep 22
I was tempted not to get into this but I have to say I just don't get this alarmism...

a) toxins - I suppose this certainly could be a problem. It is rather obvious that one would need to use bags that are designed for holding food near boiling temperatures for extended periods. Similarly, I presume people don't microwave food in just any disposable-type dish they have kicking around...perhaps I am wrong about this

b) botulism - as in canning, cured meats, cheeses and other preserved products that you prepare yourself, there are risks involved and you have to work cleanly and be as educated as possible.

There are all kinds of safety concerns when it comes to preparing food. Pretty much anything worth eating has some degree of danger in it: soft boiled eggs, rare hamburgers and medium rare pork chops, broccoli and cauliflower, steak tartare, mussels, oysters, artesenal cured meats, raw milk cheeses etc.

However, despite the fact that I eat these things all the time at home, the only time I have been sick from food in the last five years (twice) was at restaurants, both of which were highly regarded by the Ottawa community and this website.

I guess I am trying to say that almost anything can make you sick if prepared improperly or in a cavalier manner and similarly if you know what you are doing and take proper precautions, there is no reason to dismiss something out of hand because of what you read on the internet.

2009 Sep 22
I think regarding botulinum we have to look at the biology. It is quite obvious that sous-vide cooking will NOT IN ANY WAY kill botulinum spores... but I'm not sure that's the point. The botulism toxin is from the bacteria growing over a period of time. I do not expect that even if the botulinum spores were to wake up in the 4 or 5 hours of sous-vide cooking, that they could really 'get going' in that time. Sort of the same reason (as Tracinho points out) you can eat blue steak, but you would never prepare it blue, and leave it on the counter for a day, and THEN eat it. Botulism has traditionally been a problem limited to foods which are canned or stored for long periods of time at room temperature, with no oxygen present. Also, you can limit the effect of various nasties by having acidic (or brine, or other) environments (which sous-vide could provide depending on the recipe).

2009 Sep 22
Pete you raise a good point that I agree with wholeheartedly...the process of low temp. cooking in an anaerobic environment certainly doesn't "sterilize" anything, particularly with respect to botulism spores.

But I think if you are conscientious regarding cross contamination and general good-practice cleanliness, I am not so sure you are taking any extreme or undue risks when using these techniques.


2009 Sep 23
Tracinho, I wasn't trying to discourage sous-vide cooking, was just trying to give it perspective wrt other cooking. In fact, it should probably not be referred to as cooking at all, but food preparation.

As for cross contamination and general food cleanliness I'm all for cleanliness. However, one must note what is 'clean' and what is not. All meat has the potential to be contaminated, hence the cultural norm of cooking it. In case anyone is not familiar with the meat production chain... I will clarify my statement about meat being potentially contaminated. As a part of a functioning healthy animal, meat is NOT contaminated with anything (hence the safety of eating a raw, freshly procured seal heart...thank you G.G.). Meat can become contaminated through poor, or sloppy slaughterhouse practices, and production methods. Since most of us (except Zym? ;-)) don't really know the provenance of our meat, it is safest to cook it (at least the outside of it ) or cure it to remove that risk.

I wonder if modern butchery practises have increased this risk? In the past, your local butcher would have sides of beef hanging in his storage. I remember a guy on Preston I used to buy meat from... if he didn't have your cut in the display, he picked up a BIG ASS knife, and went into his walk-in to cut your piece off the hanging side for you. As potential contamination resided on the outside of the meat, there seems to be a good reason to not 'expose', and potentially cross-contaminate the meat (by cutting off a slice) until you need to. Now, all the meat is pre-butchered and vac-packed at big processsing plants.

Now there's a question. Does anyone know of a butcher in town that stores and hangs their own sides of meat? I'm sure some of the popular ones must...

2009 Sep 23
An Ottawa Geek's Sous Vide Setup:

tinyurl.com/c42lwh

Here is the youtube video of their sous vide setup. A good video and I notice he has an engineer's ring . . .



Sounds like a lot of trouble though . . . there was a review of some sous vide food products for home, and the reviewer found all but one of them disappointing taste wise. I was reading it in the waiting room to make a blood donation a couple of weeks ago. It was MacLeans, Time or Newsweek . . . one of those news magazines.

p.s. Cooking in plastic may not be safe. Lots of chemicals can begin to breakdown in the plastic then leach from the plastic into the food.

2009 Sep 23
Just about any Muslim butcher shop in town does it like that PiO. Pick the one closest to you.

2010 Jul 30
We made a killer watermelon curry dish and it was wonderful. Two watermelons later and I`ve had my fix (for now). We got a watermelon today with such a sweet flavour but it is HUGE and a bit much to be eating right now especially after recently having so much.

This time I took a bunch of it and pureed. I just made a test batch of watermelon freezies with the sealer! (I am addicted to using the sealer and am finding reasons to use it.) Gonna try them in about an hour. If all works well, I`ll be make more with the rest. I may try adding lemon to another batch, lime to another, maybe some mint, perhaps some salt? Open to suggestions. Will keep you posted. :)

Update: YUM!!! Issue about the bags is that they have the texture inside, so eating them is different. Flavour wise it was good though I am curious about adding in the the other flavours. In an effort to be a bit greener, we are making refills after being empty BUT are writing names on them. These ones are shorter of course.

2010 Jul 30
In an effort to be greener why not just buy popsickel molds and sticks instead? We have some that we use all the time. Besides, this seems to me like it would be an awful lot more work to get it into the tiny vacuum bags and get it sealed properly.

2010 Jul 30
If anyone is really interested in sous vide cooking, you can check out Thomas Keller's book Under Pressure. I perused it at Chapters a few times. There is a rather thoughtful discussion in the book, on the precautions they take in their restaurants to avoid some of the problems noted above.

I was kind of keen on getting into Sous Vide but my brief read through the book left me feeling this was going to be a challenge to big for me.

cheers

2010 Jul 30
@zymurgist These are portable and disposable. Thanks for calling me on it. ;) I`ll look into the molds for use at home but I like these as a to go option. (I`m addicted to useing the sealer and it was a great exercise in learning exactly where it seals and doing my first liquids.) As for the work, not really hard to pour in with a mesureing cup and its pouring spout.

@medicinejar Thanks for the tip on the book. I`ll pass it on to my guy who is looking to get into it.

2010 Jul 31
The shop where I work has really neat stainless steel popsicle molds now:

www.extraordinarybabyshoppe.com

A good option, if you're at all concerned with using plastic with foods. ;) I have to say that those freezies look pretty yummy, though! ;D