The Original Dry Bag Steak | Make Artisan Dry Age Steak at Home › Forums › UMAi Dry® Forum Questions › General Questions › Snorkel vs food saver
- This topic has 16 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 13 years ago by
Scott Mark.
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December 10, 2011 at 9:31 pm #1315
Charlie
MemberI have two fs vac machines and love how they work. But the bags are about ten times the cost of the bags I purchased for the snorkel machine and not as thick. Also I prefer the snorkel machine more than the fs machine because it is faster and makes less noise. Since using the snorkel of sealed over 300bags and can do it in my sleep. And the bags don’t have a blurry side so you can see the product inside clearly.
Charlie B)
December 10, 2011 at 9:53 pm #5182MemberI’ve never tried the paper clip or raft. It seams like a great idea. I have become very comfortable just using my thumb and index finger to message the bag a little right in front of the snorkle to create a small wrinkle in the bag and like magic it extracts all the air 90percent of the time. 10 percent I may need to message the air from the back of the bag to the front. This is easy. Just force the air forward and if it won’t go stop the vac and reposition and vac again. I can bag and vac and seal ten steaks in about four minutes while drinking an icy cold schooner and talking with friend and family. The more I use the machine the easier it is. Lastly when I do the big bags some times I need two hands to message the wrinkle ne’er the snorkel and some times Instead of sealing both corners to create a v for the snorkel I seal one corner further over to the other side and then snork the other side and seal. This saves me on a third seal and allows my hand to message the snorkel while the other hand messages air out.. If I see blood I stop, remove the blood with a paper napkin and start again. This is easier to do if you leave at least a six inch opening for your second vac on the other corner.
Enjoy!
Charlie
December 10, 2011 at 11:36 pm #5185Ron Pratt
MemberCharlie,
It’s like anything else practice makes perfect. While it’s no skin off my nose I go nutty reading that someone goes through all their Drybags the first time they try to seal one! I always suggest using 1 bag several times to practice.
BTW recently I found a site that sells Food Saver comparable bags for 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of FS bags – I just bought 100 pint size ones myself as I use a lot that size making and freezing various soups. You might want to take a look at this site. I got my order in like 3 days!
http://www.thesweetattack.com/page/page/2380629.htmRon
PS for some reason the http:// isn’t showing up in front of the www.
December 11, 2011 at 1:03 am #5186MemberAwesome thank you.
December 11, 2011 at 1:06 am #5187MemberWondering if the chamber sealer is a better solution for me. Looking into it.
Charlie B)
December 11, 2011 at 5:57 am #5188Scott Mark
MemberMy chamber sealer is a Vacmaster VP-112. Oddly, it is cheaper than the other (TRULY commercial) Vacmaster units, and it ALSO accepts larger bags! (It doesn’t draw quite as hard a vacuum, and it doesn’t have two sealing bars)
I am in love with it. For thanksgiving we bagged about 18 qts of turkey stock in 13 bags, total liquid.
We bagged my son’s venison. The leftover turkey. Leftover soup. Mashed potatoes and gravy in separate compartments of a single bag.
I drybagged a 15 lb sirloin subprimal. The sealer isn’t big enough to hold a full strip or ribeye, but if the sub-primal were cut in half into two bags I think it it would work. I think it will do the “roast” size of drybag and certainly the dinner party size.
I think the bags are cheap. From < 10 cents to about 15 cents, I think. My plan is to finish dry-aging the sub-primal, then do all the trimming I plan to do. Steak it out, and seal two steaks in a bag. Freeze most of them. From the freezer, they get thawed and then into the sous-vide (or other method) for a couple of hours, then finished with grill, frypan, or blowtorch. You need to observe some simple precautions with liquids, but otherwise it's such a huge convenience. And if you make a terrible mistake, cleanup is pretty easy, and no fear of getting liquids into your pump. And many other interesting things are possible, like removing the "air" in meats or vegetables or fruits and replacing the air with flavorings, picklings, spirits... I really like my Vacmaster.
December 11, 2011 at 6:01 pm #5189MemberI buy the quart size bags 8×12 for about 7cents each per 1000. When I need smaller bags I cut one I half. They are 3mil and FDA approved food grade. I looked at your chamber vac online and it is very cool. When I finish my kitchen I will have more counter space and room for a machine like that. Thanks for the information.
Charlie B)
December 11, 2011 at 6:14 pm #5190MemberToasty
How fast and how noisy is your chamber vac?
Thank you!
Charlie B)
December 12, 2011 at 6:47 am #5191MemberFast — “user discretion”.
This is one of the features I do NOT like: you set your vacuum according to time, not according to level of vacuum. I don’t know how this compares to other Vacmaster sealers or to other brands.
But, to me, time is not what matters – I would rather seal according to the level of vacuum.
My sealer allows you to select the vacuum time (default is 30 seconds) with a max of 60 seconds and a minimum — it doesn’t matter, because you can press the “Stop” button at any time and it will try to seal. Be forewarned – below a certain level of vacuum the pressure won’t push the seal bar tight enough and the seal won’t work. This is an EASY thing to manage. More if you want details. You can also adjust the seal time, to match your bag. I find that drybagsteak works with the maximum “9” setting for seal time. A lower setting might work.
I’d say that 30-40 seconds, plus seal time, plus repressurization – we’re talking 40 – 50 seconds in most cases. But it takes only 2-3 seconds to put the food bag in the chamber, position the neck of the bag, close the chamber and press the start button. Compared to the FoodSaver, sizing, cutting, and sealing one end of the bag… Placing the bag on the snorkel, adjusting everything for good airflow and good vacuum.
It’s certainly an investment — $500 – $600 in the USA. I’m very pleased with the return-on-investment. No more trying to vacuum-seal a piece of meat in a FoodSaver bag, only to watch the juices run up and into the FoodSaver before the air is all out. No more botched seals. I’ve had tons of problems with FoodSaver bags losing their seal in the freezer and allowing freezer burn.
There’s this one technique for FoodSaver that is something like “Leave yourself an extra foot of bag material, and hang the contents over the edge of the counter, and all the air will bubble up before the liquids start to rise.” — that technique might be effective, but I was paying about $1 USD per foot.
And, as I’ve mentioned, there are the fun tricks you can do with a chamber sealer.
As for noise – I think it’s comparable to a FoodSaver. I can surely carry on a conversation while it is running. I don’t know of an objective way to measure – if you have an objective way, I’ll see if I can do it.
December 12, 2011 at 6:07 pm #5192MemberThe food saver machine is very load if you turn it on at midnight. If I use the snorkel it is not as loud.
Can you seal more than one bag at a time?
Thank you!
Charlie B)
December 12, 2011 at 6:10 pm #5193MemberThese quart bags – are they the textured FoodSaver bags, or are they plain bags? Chamber sealers tend to use plain bags. FoodSavers with the “automatic seal” function tend to need the textured bags.
December 12, 2011 at 6:15 pm #5194MemberThey are plain clear bags.
December 12, 2011 at 6:19 pm #5195MemberIt’s not clear, based on the forum threading, if you are speaking to me, but I’ll answer and apologize if you aren’t.
It’s not really loud, but I try to keep a closed door between the chamber vacuum and anybody who is sleeping. No complaints so far.
No, I can’t seal more than one bag at a time. But at Thanksgiving, we produced many quarts of turkey stock. !5? 18? I don’t remember. We set up a production line and I was doing the long (60-second) vacuum and I was able to more-or-less keep pace with the people who were straining and filling the bags with broth.
And – no contest on venison. It takes longer to process a muscle portion than it does to ladle broth.
And that was with the extended 60-second vacuum. Which is actually not much stronger than the 30-second vacuum.
Oh……. wups. Maybe I didn’t understand your question. The sealer bar is 12″ wide. If you have two bags that are less than 6″ wide, then – yes – you can seal more than one bag at a time. Putting the bags side-by-side works fine.
December 12, 2011 at 6:25 pm #5196MemberToasty,
When I use my food saver it sounds like an airplane is getting ready for takeoff and I don’t want my neighbors to call the police. Very noisy.
Charlie B)
December 12, 2011 at 6:31 pm #5197MemberClam Digger wrote:
quote :Toasty,When I use my food saver it sounds like an airplane is getting ready for takeoff and I don’t want my neighbors to call the police. Very noisy.
Charlie B)
I’ve got a FoodSaver, a Sinbo (actually, two) and a VacMaster chamber sealer. I’d be willing to set everything up and record the noise level, but audio is SO subjective that I’d want input on parameters before wasting time. Do I just use a headset mic and position it equidistant to each machine? Hopefully far enough away from each one that the actual corner of the machine that is loudest doesn’t make such a difference.
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