Reynold’s Handi-Vac Vacuum Sealer Review
Last week I saw a commercial on television for a Reynolds Handi-Vac Vacuum Sealer Kit. Honestly, it looked too good to be true, but I was indeed intrigued. When I was doing my grocery shopping this morning, my store had these in stock for $10.99, and the display also had pad of $5 rebate forms. Before I purchased this machine, I checked to see how much the special bags would cost me, and they seemed reasonable for what they do. Fourteen quart sized bags cost $3.69 and so did a box of nine gallon sized bags.
The kit comes complete with the hand held vacuum sealer, three quart-sized bags and batteries. The vacuum sealer is colored white with a cobalt blue top, and it’s not heavy even though it measures 9″ long. I was impressed with the quality of this kit from start to finish! The vacuum sealer is packaged inside a hard plastic container, and one look at it and I thought here we go again, I wonder how many cuts I’ll get trying to open this package. To my surprise (and other companies could learn a lesson here) there was a yellow tab in the corner that said “Pull tab to open”. I followed suit, and the top of the package ripped right off along preforated lines!! Easy.
There is a small phamplet that describes how to use the machine, and when I pressed the on button it didn’t work. I thought the batteries were dead, but again Reynold’s thought of everything! There was a small yellow plastic tab sticking out that was preventing the batteries from touching each other, thus the batteries were staying nice and fresh until I pulled the tab out.
I filled my gallon sized freezer bag, which measures 10.5″ by 11.5″, with six pieces of chicken thighs. The bag has a “fill line”, and you need to be sure the food is below that line. This still gives you plenty of room for your foods, since the fill line is pretty close to the top of the bag.
Once you have your food ready, you slide the blue colored ziplock tab across to shut the bag. The bag needs to remain flat on the counter with no food under the Air Valve. Since my chicken was bulky, I couldn’t do this, even though the food was indeed below the fill line. I held the bag against the side of the counter top so that the bag rested flat on the counter, and then pressed the suction cup styled end of the vacuum machine over the round blue dot (air valve) on the bag. Press the button and you can hear that the machine is working.
This took longer than they showed in the commercials, approximately 25 seconds to remove all the air from my package of chicken. I didn’t think it was going to work at first, because I didn’t see the results immediately. However, after about 10 seconds the bag started to shrink up, and the top of the bag started to curl inward. When the bag was tight around my chicken, I let go of the button and I was done. My bag looked great! We had 70 pounds of salmon professionally prepared and vacuum sealed this fall, and this Reynold’s Handi-Vac did just as good a job as the professionals that we paid $2.50 a pound to vacuum seal for us!
This is very easy to use. You just have to be sure of four things: (1) the bag has to be completely closed, (2) the air valve has to be on a flat surface, (3) the air suction tip and the air valve have to make secure contact, and (4) the batteries are good.
Of course you can’t use this methold for freezing soups or stews, or other foods with a lot of moisture in them. If the machine does get liquid inside it’s chamber, you can easily twist off the removable filter chamber and clean it with soapy water, then air dry.
This unit takes six AA batteries, which fit into the handle, and the battery cover is secured with a screw that can be removed with either a flat head or a phillips head screwdriver. This makes it a little bit more work, but keeps the batteries nice and tight and secure.
The quart sized bags measure 7.5″ x 7″. The freezer bags look like other Reynolds freezer bags, the top third contains two layers where the suction tip is located, and there is a white area where you can easily mark the date and contents.
This is a great idea, and it’s so affordable compared to having foods profesionally packaged and vacuum sealed! You can remove what you need from the bag, and quickly vacuum seal it shut again. I have found this works great for our raspberries, I can take out a handful and reseal the bag to return to the freezer. Once all the contents have been removed, the bags should be discarded.
The bags are suitable for defrosting in the microwave, as long as you open the zipper one inch to vent the bag first.
I think this is one of the smartest inventions I have seen in a long time, and I am so glad that I can now purchase meat in bulk at a lower cost, and repackage the food in these freezer bags knowing there is a way to completely remove the air with the Reynolds Handi-Vac. It’s a great product!
