Foodsaver tip

Fisherpup · Post by **Fisherpup** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 8:43 pm

I'm probably not the first person to think of this, but the next time you are near the butcher section of the grocery store see if they will give you some of the small styrofoam trays that they package meat in for sale. My Randalls sold them to me for $0.05 a piece.

I put a small paper towel in the center of each one and laid the food (duck breasts in this case) on them and vacuum sealed them that way.

The flat bottom of the tray makes for a nice smooth surface to seal one side of the bag against and the lip on the tray + the paper towel make a good barrier for any residual moisture and you get a nice tight seal.

Finally, having the flat bottom makes them stack up nice and neat in the freezer.

fishnjavelina · Post by **fishnjavelina** » Wed Nov 29, 2006 11:20 am

good tip my wife and i use the food saver to package everything and sometimes we don't get a good seal. this will work great.

Yaklash · Post by **Yaklash** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 11:21 am

The most common reason for a bad seal is moisture. I dry fillets and shrimp or steaks with paper towels or a clean dish towel (that promptly gets a Clorox rinse afterwards). As the FoodSaver starts to remove the air from the plastic freezer bags, you can see the moisture creep toward the bar that seals the bag. If the moisture makes it to the bar/seal, you're not drying them enough.

Otherwise, with things like veggies, I don't have that problem. With liquids (soups, broths, stocks) you have to put them in the bag, unsealed, freeze them standing up, seal immediately after removing from the freezer, then put back into the freezer.