Corey

iTrader: (1)

http://www.foodsaver.com/

Friend of mine bought two a year back from Costco.
His is an older model, a horizontal one, not the newer upright versions.
It could be this one.
http://www.foodsaver.com/ProductDeta...?productid=985

What are the advantages to one of these for camping?
I have never used one, but would like to pick up his extra one of get a newer vertical style.

I imagine I could precook some stuff at home and then throw the bags into the ARB fridge?
Can you boil with these type of bags too to heat up your dinner?

Lets say you want to cook up a stroganoff dish at home, then you can bag it, freeze it, then take them camping and simply drop the bag into a pot of water to warm it up?

I am trying to justify the need for one of these for the upcoming camping season next year.

They have a recipe area on the website, and indeed it looks like you can do pasta to boil in the bag later.
http://www.foodsaver.com/Recipes.aspx
This looks like a good model here, the one featured in their index page.
http://www.jardenstore.com/product.a...id=5569&cid=79

Tofer

sounds like a good way to bring food.... but i still prefer the good ol bbq pit cooking

johnhu

Here in Australia, these are used to enable food (usually meat) to be kept in the fridge longer than if it was just in a regular plastic bag. The vacume sealer sucks all of the air out of the bag, and then seals it. Rather than say a steak lasting a week or so in the fridge, it can last 4 weeks or more. Having no air around the meat, means the regular bacteria/aging process doesn't occur as quickly.

It would depend on how long you're away from resupply points for. Often our longer 4WD trips have a large time gap between shops for resupply. 3-4 weeks between resupply points is not uncommon. I run mine off a basic 300W inverter in the vehicle without any hassles when away from home.

You can pre-cook meals at home and put them in the bags, but there is one thing to be careful of. The meals must not have liquid in them. The vacume sealer will suck out all the air. If any liquid is in there, it will suck that out too (usually clogging up the sealer and making a horrible mess). The easiest thing to do there, is to freeze the meal first, then put the frozen 'lump' in the sealer bag to be vacume sealed.

I guess it will depend on the bags as to whether you can do a "boil in the bag" type meal. Different machines use different types of bags. I must admit I've never tried it.

I hope the info is of some use..........

John
Perth, West Australia

toy_tek

A buddy of mine pre-mixes omelets at home and seals them up with one of those. Then just drops them in boiling water for a few minutes then viola - instant custom omelet. He said it took a couple tries to get the process right, I can get his 'recipe' if anyone is interested.

hillbillydeelux

my dad and i bought one and it wore out after using it on the meat from 4 deer and 1 elk.

other than that it was cool. fish stayed fresh for a while.

Corey

iTrader: (1)

Thanks John, I read over on Expedition Portal about semi freezing food into a lump first, then putting it in the bag to vacuum.
Good tips for sure.

Jon, I also read over on the Portal or fjcruiserforums about the omelets in the bag trick.

dropzone

iTrader: (6)

Corey I feel it would be a good investment. When I was stationed in the Army in Alaska I would pre cook a lot of my food (could only eat so many MRE's)and boil in the food saver bag . I would only have to melt 3x's the snow during the winter to get enough water to fill the pot on my MSR whisperlite. We still use it to help prevent freezer burn when we freeze meat.

I also have got a couple pairs of socks and a sweat shirt that I put in a vacuum bag that is in the bottom of my daypack, that way I have a dry set of socks etc even if I take a dunk in a stream. Been there for almost three years and still sealed.

BT17R

My butcher swears by them and is pushing me to buy one for meats and fish storage. FYI, they're having a 25% off everything sale today and tomorrow only if you call them directly.