Homemade Vacuum Sealer

I came up with a way to use your vacuum cleaner and a space bag to vacuum seal food and other items.

Step 1 Materials

Materials:

Vacuum cleaner or Shop Vac.

Space Bag (vacuum compression bag for clothes) with one-way valve and zip top.

Folded Cloth.

Ziploc Bags in your choice of size.

Comments

[audioworm31]

Ingenious idea.

[sprocketscientist]

Awesome! I was pondering DIY vacuum food storage and vacuum bagging for sous vide cooking, and I had this exact same idea yesterday! Gonna try it later on today.

[spencernielsen]

This is super crafty! I just bought some Space Bags and wanted to vacuum seal my food with out buying a machine. Thanks!

[Fensterino]

This sounds awesome...I can't wait to try it! Ingenious!

[drcrash]

Food sealers generally use considerably stronger vacuum than a vacuum cleaner can provide. My Food Saver II pulls 23+ inches of mercury (29.9 is a perfect vacuum), but even a very good vacuum cleaner only does 4 or 5, possibly 6 for an expensive two-stage vacuum cleaner.

Here's an alternative vacuum source that pullls 24 inches or so, made from a cheap (tire inflator type) air compressor:

http://www.instructables.com/id/E791HNXF23Z39P6/

If you want to make a better food sealer, you might try it.

[drcrash]

Here's an instructable on making a manual vacuum pump from a bike pump, for less than $20. It would be suitable for vacuum sealing food.

http://www.instructables.com/id/EA58LR1F35J1I9N/

[tjb]

This would save fortune on space bags though if it works with the huge ziplocks for storing clothes and bedding and stuff that I don't want to get musty or the moths and spiders into on the off seasons. I use garbage bags in big stacked containers and if this could reduce the storage without all the money on space bags it would be wonderful. I'll have to give it a try - might be a great hack! Not just for food, can seal clothes and tax records, etc. I have lots of stuff in temp. storage.

[Cbrown]

This is brilliant, maybe someone should post an instructable on making a vacuum sealer- maybe out of an old vacuum engine and some pipe fittings. I would but i don't have an old vacuum engine

[Randy_che]

I've been doing some more testing. This still works great. If you want to do something liquid like soup or spaghetti sauce before freezing, put the liquid in the bag, put the bag in a tupperware container (rectangular and somewhat shallow seems to work best), and place the container in the freezer until the liquid is frozen. The frozen food will then be the shape of the container, and makes for more efficient storage in the freezer. Then proceed as before with the vacuum sealing.

[0.775volts]

If you're going to seal in liquids or semi-liquids like that, you need to put them in a container that does not collapse. you can still pull a vacum, and not have to worry about pulling out the food/soup/whatever. I like the idea, it's very innovative.

[Randy_che]

Like I said, it's in the early testing stages. I did some dry goods today (dried fruits and flour) as a proof of concept. It seemed to work as well as the Foodsaver commercials on TV. I think it would work well for things like meats, cheeses, rice, flour, spices, etc. In my opinion, the vacuum seal method is probably best for preventing freezer burn, but could provide some extra life for pantry items. I don't think it would work well with a Ziploc bag for liquids, but you could use a similar technique with a Tupperware or Rubbermade dish for liquids.

[radiorental]

I think you're going to have issues dealing with semi liquid foods (fish/soup/mashed potatos/mashed potato fish soup) Buts its a really good idea. I guess you would need some way to hang the ziplock bag inside the vacuum bag (punch a hole in the 'outside' part of the seal and have a hook in your vacuum bag) But I still feel this might be a hit or miss or messy operation. I've seen industrial food sealers in operation, thats an entire chamber, two plastic sheets and a frame that heats the sheets shut, very hard to replicate on a modder scale

[ColumbusGEEK]

Seems like a lot of work to me. Of course I like Miller High Life beer so I am not a good judge of anything.