How to cheat the seal-a-meal scam

[NM_Shooter]

I bought a "FoodSaver" brand seal a meal today. 

Those bags are really expensive, huh?  I think the good bags are worth the money for longterm storage or for sharper (bony?) food like pasta.  But they get you with the bags.  Sort of like the fact that they darn near give printers away and then gig you for the cartridges.

But there is other stuff that I might want to seal for shorter periods of time, where I might not want to use expensive bags.

I think I figured out a way to use regular Glad bags to do this and have had some success tonight with this method.  Normally you can't use these thin zip plastic bags, because there is no vent structure in the bag (that criss-cross pattern) so you can't get a vacuum in the thing when you clamp down.

Here's the trick.  Take a gallon ziplock bag.  Cut the ziplock closure off of it.  Peel the ziplock closure apart so that you only have a half of the zip closure.  Cut this closure into roughly 2" strips. Those little plastic ridges are going to provide your vent.

Tuck three of the strips in between the layers of the plastic bag, and align them so that they overlap the heat element and the vacuum chamber.  Try not to make the strips extend too far down into the bag. 

I put the thing on a wet seal, as it vacuums longer.  Let it evacuate the bag and run through the seal cycle.  This plastic is much thinner than the regular bags, so open the top and wait 30 seconds or so to let the plastic cool before carefully pulling it off.

Now, reinsert the bag into the machine so that the heat element is down below the zip strip pieces, and re-seal. 

I'll post pictures later assuming I'm not too lazy to do so.   

-f-

[peternap]

Plastic coffee stirrers will work too

[Sassy]

Frank, that sounds like too much work...      I bought the bags when Costco had a coupon for $5 off or something...  have 3 boxes full now (the ones they sell).  Still expensive, but if food will stay fresher in the freezer for long term storage, guess it pays...  

[StinkerBell]

I never had any luck with that storage system. Only cause after you freeze the food and it shrivels a bit there an air pocket.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

We had an off-brand vacuum sealer, and for the most part it worked pretty well.  However, after we'd had it about a year, we couldn't find bags that went to it, and try as we might, we could get it to seal other bags, but not to vacuum them.  I finally gave it away.