January 2006 update.

The 550 is still going strong. I have only sucked juice into the catch channel once so that may be the reason it still works perfectly. Mason jar sealing is still the primary use, but I have sealed holiday decorations in bags, such as vegetable-based Fall decorations that mice like to eat when stored away (corn, gourds). I have not been tempted since my purchase to upgrade. The 550 still has all the features I need. Instead of buying a coffee grinder, I now grind a months worth of coffee at the store and seal it up in mason jars. The coffee has that fresh-ground aroma and tastes great, but this might go against the rules for a true coffee connoisseur (by the way, I still love my Capresso Carrousel espresso/latte maker). Still haven’t found gallon Mason jars but find less of a need for them. Cereal and chips get eaten too fast to worry about sealing. Besides, the smaller jars force you to have portion control.

9-month update. Still using the sealer mostly for sealing mason jars. Still can't find gallon-size mason jars. I called herbalremedies.com to inquire about their gallon size jars, but they didn't come with lids and the store could not confirm that wide mouth jar lids would work, so I just dropped it. The excitement wore off about vacuum sealing everything in sight, such as cereal. Cereal around my house seems to last only about a week before it is all eaten, so what's the point? Coffee smells really fresh even after many weeks in storage. I'm still having issues about meats turning brown when vacuum bagged. One of these days I'll have to drop an email to Tillia about meat turning brown and recommended use-by time after meat is defrosted but left in the sealed bag.

6 week update. Most everything is still being vacuum sealed in my house in mason jars. I found half-gallon size, less than 10 dollars for six, in grocery stores that work great for larger quantities, such as a box of cereal. Lid prying is now a no-brainer if I wedge and twist the spoon against the lid where it meets the screw thread. I hand wash the lids and they work time and time again. My search for gallon size wide mouth mason jars continues.

Now it is really hard to know how long food stays safe to eat. Before, mold fuzz, smell, and dry-out was a signal to toss. Food looks fine vacuumed in the jars in the fridge after 10+ days, but can you really trust it? I now label the jars with the date I cooked the food so that I have some way to gauge the elapsed time.

Foods to be frozen are bag items, not for jars. But, when you throw a bag of steak that has been frozen into the meat keeper to defrost, I always wonder how long it will stay good to eat defrosted in the unopened state.

Original Review

After spending literally 10's of hours surfing the net for any and all information regarding all the FoodSaver models, including reviews and price comparisons, I finally made a decision on which FoodSaver model would be the biggest bang for the buck. Well, actually, design became the driving factor since I expected this machine to be in full view on tumbled slate counters under cherry cabinets in my kitchen. That left one choice, the gray Professional II.

After agonizing over the features offered by each model, ranking them in terms of usefulness based on reviews, and day-dreaming on how I was going to use this machine, I came up with a short list of have-to-have's. Reference the comparison chart at the Tillia.com website. Click on any of the machine links to find a link to the comparison chart.

Vacuum port and wide-mouth jar accessory for sealing mason jars. It didn’t take me long to see that one major gripe about the FoodSaver is the cost of the bags. It also didn’t take long to discover the solution; mason jars. The jars are about six to eight dollars for a dozen in the quart, pint, and half-pint size. Considering that they are glass, fully reusable, and dot fly around inside the dishwasher, I bought all three sizes before coming home with the FoodSaver. The lids are conditioned by placing them in a pot of hot water for ten minutes that had been heated to a boil and removed from the heat. I have yet to have a vacuum failure in one of these jars.

Bag holder and cutter The new models have built in storage and cutting for one roll of bag material. This appeared to be a necessity for containing the roll and cutting a straight line. This feature, according to the Tillia website, can be had with the purchase of the FoodSaver Center, which stores two rolls and includes a cutter. Where can you purchase the FS Center? The FS Center is no where to be found on the Tillia website. But, go to Google and search for the FoodSaver Center and you will get a link back to Tillia for the product page. Thirty dollars for the FS Center including one roll of 11 inch bag material. The other option is the Store n Cut Roll Holder and Cutter which is ten dollars (no bag material included) which holds one roll. That's what I got. Not a bad product. It is a handy storage option, and it cuts a straight line, but the slider knob and blade have popped off the accessory about 25% of the time requiring it to be snapped together again.

11 inch bag sealing The machine must be able to seal a gallon size bag and the 11 inch bag material, so the models that only seal 8 inch material that you can get for a low price used was not an option for me.

One button operation The wife demanded ease of operation. What can be more simple that a touch and release of a button? That's my first choice. The touch and hold button turns out to be a viable alternative if you can manage to hold a finger to a button for about ten seconds. The two-handed hold down machines were out.

Nice to have's, but not necessary What about consecutive sealing, manual/instant sealing, adjustable vacuum/sealing times, and auto lid locking?

The Pro II boasts no wait consecutive sealing. The 550 requires a 20 second cool down waiting period. I cant work fast enough to require a faster than 20 second cool down, even if the bags are filled, lined up, and ready to go. The seal strip heats up even when you use the vacuum port as it, the 550 at least, is not smart enough to know if you are using a bag or accessory.

All the machines have manual sealing; you use that to make a bag from a roll of bag material.

Instant sealing feature to prevent further crushing of the food in a bag begs the question of why would you defeat the benefits of a vacuum seal by sealing the bag while still containing air? If you must, why dot you just squeeze the air out of the bag and use manual sealing? Or, with the press and hold button machines, just hold the button and prematurely release the button at the desired vacuum point, slide the bag out slightly from the vacuum channel and use manual sealing to seal the bag. Better yet, simply use a jar with the jar sealer (cheap mason jars or very expensive Universal Lid) or very expensive FoodSaver Designer and/or Bulk Storage Containers.

Adjustable vacuum/sealing times might be one of the more handy of features to be able to adjust the suction for dry versus juicy foods, but there are workarounds. Stuff a paper towel at the top of the bag to absorb juices from meats, use an extra long bag to create a long path for the juices to travel, pre-freeze the food, or use a jar with a jar sealer. For me, I think a vacuum sealer cannot have too much vacuum and I would probably set it to max vacuum every time. Partial freezing of meats works very well.

Auto lid locking What the heck is that? For someone who has never watched the Infomercial or used a machine, you would have no clue what lid locks are for, but from reading the comparison chart, a non-lid lock feature is a must-have for making packaging easier. After using a 550, lid locks are not an ease of packaging issue. They really are a non-issue. The lid locks are simply push-in clips that temporarily hold the lid down keeping the bag in place, until the vacuum sucks the lid down tight which releases the lid locks. Lid locks are also used when using the accessory port which is an extra step in the jar sealing process. So what.

So, the final decision is the Pro II for having all the must have’s and, why not, the nice to have’s, especially considering that highlandgear.com sells them for $189. In fact, you wont find a better price anywhere for all FoodSaver products, than at highlandgear.com, unless you get something used or refurbished on eBay/Amazon.

My thorough, time consuming, obsessive research now at an end, I’m ready to log on to highlandgear.com to purchase my dark gray top of the line Pro-II. I hesitate only because at $189 for the machine, another $7-10 for the wide mouth jar accessory, and about $17 for shipping, this was getting to be very expensive. I'll give myself 24 hours to think it over. In the mean time, off to Best Buy for my monthly impulse buying of computer/electronics stuff only to find the FoodSaver 550 at a close out price of $79. Reconsidering my must have's, and the cash outlay for the Pro-II, what I go and do is go home and more re-evaluation. The next day I had a brand new 550 in my kitchen (Best Buy), along with 36 mason jars, a wide mouth jar sealer accessory, a holder/cutter, and after saving so much money, a $26 on sale square marinating dish accessory (Fred Meyer department/grocery store).

The above discussion includes hindsight based on my impressions of the 550 over a couple of days of use. All 36 jars are full and vacuum sealed shut. Prying the lid off of the jar with a spoon is tricky, but well worth it. Popping off the lid quickly will only get you a room full of ground coffee (and presumably any other light powders) stored in the jar. Slow prying of the lid is prudent and keeps you from bending and ruining the lid.

My first roll of bag material is almost used up. Thinking ahead about cleaning the bags after use, I came up with a brilliant idea of putting the food in a zip lock bag, zipping it about three-quarters shut and putting that in the vacuum bag. You get vacuum-bag sealing and a clean bag after use (I didn’t do a cost/benefit analysis though with the extra expense of the zip lock bag). Of course, having a zip lock bag inside the vacuum bag precludes the microwave or boil in the bag cooking methods.

I found one gallon size mason jars 4 four $15 at herbalremedies.com (I'm still inquiring whether these jars work with the wide-mouth mason jar lids), which sure beats the FoodSaver bulk storage container price of $22 for one gallon. I must admit, though, that the turn of a dial opening of the FoodSaver containers wins out over the prying of a lid with a spoon. For now, I'll pry.

The 550 has met all my expectations. It draws a vacuum for as long as it takes to suck out the air, then seals. I have had no bag failures nor jar lid failures so far. I have yet to suck any juice into the vacuum channel of the machine. The machine is loud; you cant hear a conversation during the vacuum process. The nice to have features of more costly machines dot seem important in hindsight. The 550 and its cousins have served many people well over many years, so it should work for me as well. If only it was black, it would be on my counter. It is now behind a cherry cabinet door within easy reach of a wall outlet for the plug on an as needed basis.




Recommended: Yes