Vacuum Sealer Suggestions?

I have been doing a search on how to best store my feeders. I decided it would be much cheaper for me to have one breeding pair of mice for my one snake. The problem is, that the mice are going to reproduce quicker than my snake can eat. So I would like to store the offspring for a period of time. Sooo, after searching I decided to try the vacuum sealing to store the extra feeders. I searched ebay and there are a ton of options!

So, I wanted to ask those of you with experience with vacuum sealers what are a good brand to use? I know many of you have large numbers of snakes and breed your own feeders so I thought it wouldnt hurt to ask, as there wasnt a similar thread on this using the search method. If there was and I missed it, sorry about that!

It wouldnt be a huge deal on having extra mice because I also volunteer a raptor rehab and they could always use the extra mice! But, it would be nice to save up on them for future use. Thanks in advance!

With vacuum sealers, you pay for what you get. I've got a Black and Decker and it can be quite finicky. I've used that many a times, and I've also used the Foodsaver brand--the latter being much better.

I'd personally spend the extra cash and get the Foodsaver. They're really amazing little gadgets.

I absolutely detest my Black and Decker one. Detest, detest, detest!

After a year, the heat strip element doohickey isn't as warm anymore so I sometimes have to move the bag around multiple times in different places to make sure I got it sealed.

Plus, the element never was very hot anyway, so if you're sealing human food like something with moisture (raw meat or fruit) the juices get sucked up and don't allow it to seal properly. So you have this channel of goo, that allows air to leak back in slowly. Sure, a lot of that could be overcome by freezing your meat before packaging, but the average person doesn't have that much time usually.

Not to mention, you waste nearly 2" every time you seal an end because the sucker part is in the back and the sealer is in the front. I usually trim it off to make it look "neater", but its still a waste when you consider how expensive the rolls are.

As soon as my Grandmother has her yard sale, its going up for $10 and I'm getting a Food Saver.

I have the Black and Decker "Fresh Guard" and I love it. I don't know if there are differing models but mines only about a year old (maybe they have changed things with them?). Personally, I have never had any problems with mine and we use it quite frequently!

Not only is the B&D a cheaper unit to begin with but the rolls of bags (which we go through quite alot of) are cheaper as well!

Just offering up a different opinion on the B&D. I have nothing bad to say about mine.

Oh and about the liquids...

I just marinaded an 8lb pork tenderloin with a killer Jack Daniels sauce, just last weekend. Turned out awesome!

Q

I have a Food Saver brand and love it! You're still not supposed to do things with moister though, I get around that moister problem by pre-freezing everything that's wet and then vacuum saving it.

Ug I HATE the black and decker bags. I bought a large roll to cut in half length wise to make little bags for individual meals of mice. But because it doesn't have the little groves in the plastic all the way across (like food saver brand bags do) I couldn't get all the air out of the bags. I guess it was my own fault for not realizing that would happen though, the groves are there for a reason. lol

I have a Foodsaver, and it works great.
Recently I ran out of F/S bags, and couldn't find any around, so I picked up a double roll of B&D bags. The Black and Decker bags are flimsy and cheap, and easily punctured by claws. Also (unique to my package, I would hope) the bags were "self-sealed" at random places throughout the rolls. (spots in the middle of the bag about the size of a small hand were perfectly sealed together) This was extremely inconvenient, and it looks like I may get one roll's length out of the double roll pack.
Spring for the good stuff, it matters. :wavey:

Food Saver here, and you can actually get them fairly cheep now. At least the models with less options on them.