A cheap vacuum sealer can be made under $2 for vacuum sealing and preserving the excess food that you have bought for cheap deals at any supermarket. Vacuum sealer machines are expensive and if you are not an occasional bulk buyer, then it will be an expensive investment for you. Moreover, it will consume a good percentage of space in your kitchen table.
How To Make Your Own Vacuum Sealer?
Vacuum sealing your foods, it will last longer and will also help you to store more stuff in your refrigerator freezer box. Vacuum sealing helps you to preserve the freshness and the quality of the food. Let us try to make a simple vacuum sealer that will work with the same principle of a vacuum sealer machine at home.
Things you need to Make Vacuum Sealer
- Zip-lock resealable bags.
- 50 ml large syringe – 1 no.
- Aquarium check valves – 2 nos.
- Air-line tube – 4 feet
- Aquarium air-line “T” connector – 1 no.
- Packaging tape for sealing.
Steps to Make A Vacuum Sealer
- Take the aquarium air-line tube and cut three pieces of tubing about 4 cm in length.
- Join the T connector with the three air-line tubes.
- Take a check value and connect the input side of the value to one of the connectors in the middle.
- Join the output side of the second connector to the second air-line tube. This is very important because one side should have an input and the other hand should have an output for sucking out the air.
- To the third air-line tube, connect your 50 ml syringe and check the values for the suction.
- Make a small hole near the zip lock side of the bag and keep the ingredients to be vacuum sealed.
- Through the small hole, insert one end of the air-line tube and seal the bag completely.
- Now pump the syringe continuously several times to completely suck out the air from the bag.
- Remove the tube and seal the end immediately with a cello tape. Congrats! Your vacuum sealer has done an excellent job. Repeat the same procedure to vacuum seal all the bags.
How to Vacuum Seal without a Sealer?
Well, can you vacuum seal the food packets without a vacuum sealer? My answer is yes, you can. If you want to vacuum seal your food on a camping site, yes, you can do it with some essential steps and techniques. Vacuum sealing is the method of removing the air present inside the bag and keeping the food away from the contact of air and microbes. Vacuuming at the camping site can be done using a bowl of water and a zipper bag. So now, let me take you through the instructions of how to vacuum seal the fish you caught in the river using a bowl and a zip-close bag.
- Fill the bowl with water.
- Place the fish inside the zipper bag and seal the top with only an inch to enable air to escape the bag.
- Keep the bag inside the water, to enable the water pressure to push out the air from the bag. You can observe that air has escaped out of the bag and the bag is vacuum-sealed. (The bag should be nearly submerged not wholly).
- Keep the vacuum-sealed fish inside the fridge for future use.
Homemade Vacuum Sealer Tips and Tricks
Homemade vacuum sealers produced in the above methods are technically not vacuum sealers, but they will perform equally well like that of commercial vacuum sealers. The two methods discussed above are simple and more reliable. They are excellent alternatives for expensive vacuum sealers.
- Make sure that air and moisture are completely out for a tight seal.
- If you want to freeze liquids, then freeze them first before vacuum sealing them.
- Make proper portions of meat and food before vacuum sealing.
- Trim down the meat and vacuum seal it. So that you can open one bag per meal and preserve the rest of the meat for future use, avoiding contamination.