Food Vacuum packer

idw

idw

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https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/110W-Fo...707601?hash=item1ea1270411:g:RqMAAOxyYu9SL-VA

Picked up this week for $45 delivered with a roll of bag material (even at full price it's a bargain). A fridge is out of the budget for the time being and I'm absolutely sick of soggy food and worrying about cross contaminating my food.

Was a little skeptical at the price but i figured if it was less than the butcher wanted to vacuum pack a weeks meat so it's no loss either way. Came with a 1 yr warranty, and a registered post tag pre-paid if it needs returning (how about that), the build of it is pretty dam good. At a third or even a fourth of the cost of some of the name brand ones it might be worth it for someone else as well.

Caution:Just in case anyone is wondering, you still need to refrigerate or freeze vacuum packed meat, in a freezer it will last a lot longer than just freezing it normally (Get asked this all to often). The nasties that make food go off or bad make it smell first, without oxygen these bacteria will not grow. Without oxygen present the really nasty bugs, such as those which cause botulism will still form. This means it's very important to package your food properly and keep mind of the date, vacuum packed meat for instance can for all intensive purposes look fine yet make you very sick if it's kept for too long before being consumed. Food smells bad and makes you sick before the really bad bacteria grow.
 
Good find, Id :biggrin:.

Vacuum pack it.

Freeze it.

Carry in some kind of refrigerated or cold container.

Be prepared to chuck away anything that's been defrosted for about 3-4 days, max.

If one gives the food about 15-30 seconds in a microwave before vacuum sealing it, this should kill many/most bacteria present. Not quite the same as irradiating the food with gamma rays after vacuum sealing it, but a similar process. Microwaves will kill most living things (except ants, cockroaches, etc; but one would possibly notice the presence of these prior to vacuum sealing ... :poke: :rotfl:).
 
I bought one last week too, ready for a week on Fraser Island at Christmas. So far I have sealed 4kgs of pilchards for bait. 5 pilchards per bag totaled 17 packs which used a full 3 meter roll to make. I will also be sealing meats and freezing them before the trip.

I have my car very well setup for camping now and have deliberated long and hard about installing a 40L compressor fridge and have ultimately decided against it. To be done properly it would need to be installed permanently with at least a 100Ahr battery which means adding about 80kgs of weight and loosing half of the boot space.

For a four day family trip I can get away with a good quality 40L ice box with a 20L block of home made ice. This new vacuum sealer will make the esky system easier to pack and keep the food more hygienic. Just don't know why I waited so long to buy one !
 
A decent esky is pretty dam good tbh. I've a big marine cooler that i pack to the brim with ice when going away, I usually get 5-6 days out of the ice (that's before it starts melting) before needing to re stock. Best $4 bucks I've ever spent was a little digital thermometer for it.

I've also got a smaller waterproof container I fill with ice every now and again to put in the smaller esky with stuff that doesn't need to be kept too cold.

I'll get the fridge down the track sometime, but it's not just the fridge, its the fridge +slide,+battery,+solenoid+ fabbing a new battery try for the d/s under the bonnet. probably not much change out of a grand before all that's done.
 
idw said:
probably not much change out of a grand before all that's done.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but I'd put it closer to $2,000. A Waeco CFX or Engel fridge will be more than $1000 alone. A good quality AGM battery will be $400, slide $300, solenoid $100, etc

And after all that the fridge will be lucky to run for 48 hours without charging the battery. Which is fine if you are on the move every day but no goof if you have set up a camp for 3 nights.
 
^ Too right.

Then another $500 for solar panels ...

At which point the gear is so expensive that one doesn't dare go off for a day trip without fear of it being stolen!

I'm coming to the conclusion that my choice of a 3 way fridge is probably a reasonable compromise, and not really worth pinching ...

If only all these fridges were made in around 25L sizes for us solo travellers. Would also be lighter to lift and smaller, so would fit in cars littler than a LC Sahara ...

One problem is that smaller Waeco 12/240 fridges don't get any cheaper when they drop from around 38L to ~16L, so the kit described by LV still costs a couple of grand+ ... :(.
 
I recently purchased a vacuum unit for a lot more but wanted one that I knew had a good reputation and would also run on 12 volts for longer trips so I can reseal food.
In regard to fridges I got a Waeco CF 25 that I bought before the desert trip I did in November. I trawled the internet for bargains and eventually paid $635. It is the right size for me and I will eventually make a fridge slide although it is not an absolute necessity. I am powering it with a 60amphr AMG battery which I sourced for $155 locally via the internet and have that plugged into a 12volt ac / 240 volt dc charger. I inadvertently ran the fridge on the battery with out charging it for 3 days and was surprised how well the battery stood up and then put it back on the charger. The good thing about my set up is I can transfer it from car to car. If the battery was wired in as a dual battery not so easy.
 
Gidday HC

Is the CF25 a compressor type fridge/freezer?

What are the precise dimensions? Will it fit under the cargo blind?
 
EDIT: Sorry, gotten off topic

I Bought the 30L version of this Techniice unit for under $500
https://www.techniice.com/car-fridges/45l-car-fridge.html
Notice it looks exactly like the previous Waeco..... ;)

A single 24AH SLA Deep cycle battery in the boot of the Forester easily powers it at 2'c for 4 days without extra charge.
Charging is simple
12V Acc socket in the boot connected to the batteries with a simple Diode to prevent the fridge batt's from back-powering the vehicle's accessory circuit.

It's ample space for half a box of beer, couple of bottles of wine and food for 3 days for 2 people.
you just keep rotating warm beers into the bottom and they come down to temp in no time at all.

at 30L and only 14kg empty, it's easy enough to carry and move even when it's full.
no need for slides and all that stuff.

But when I go for 3 days somewhere I usually have the camper, which has an 85L Waeco Ice Chest in it's guts (accessible from under the bed base)
which stores all the drinks and the fridge is left for food only.
with infrequent opening, you get even more run time out of it

85L Ice Box
2014-01-12%2015.11.59.jpg
 
Robbks said:
I Bought the 30L version of this Techniice unit for under $500
https://www.techniice.com/car-fridges/45l-car-fridge.html
Notice it looks exactly like the previous Waeco..... ;)

A single 24AH SLA Deep cycle battery in the boot of the Forester easily powers it at 2'c for 4 days without extra charge.
Click to expand...

Absolutely Impossible.

That fridge averages 1.48 Amps / Hour in Fridge mode from the link you supplied. Let's the generous and say your pulls only one amp.
Lets be generous again and say you run your battery down to 70% discharge (50% is standard for deep cycles).

A 24Ahr battery is only good for 17 hours at that rate.
 
^ thanks, mate. Not sure if this model is still made. I will look - and check the measurements ;).
 
My thoughts also. A 24 hour amp hour battery would be lucky to last half a day. Given that deep cycle batteries don`t like being discharged more than about 30%.
When camping I use a 13 yo 45 litre Waeco running on a 100 amp hour battery sitting on the floor behind the driver`s seat which is charged from the car when running and a double sided, ex (someone`s) space program, stand alone, 80 watt per side foldable solar panel, chained and padlocked to the car, when stopped and tent living.
I mostly use it these days at the Woodford Folk Festival, where I (did) volunteer and am camped there for about 5 weeks, damn hot, and the National in Canberra.
I used to use a roof mounted 45 watt then a 50 watt panel but these could not handle the heat at Woodford in the QLD summer.
The combination works extremely well, storing sufficient food and beer/wine supply without problems.
The deep cycle battery lasts only about 4 or 5 years as it doesn`t get used enough I suspect so these days it is connected permanently to my old 50 watt panel in the storage shed when not in use.
The battery is wired up such that it can also start the car if so required.
Overall a good system which works well.
Intend to traverse the Simpson next July with the SCC Adelaide but I shall not take the deep cycle battery, just the fridge running from the car only, for weight reasons Previous Simpson crossings I have taken the battery but it is too heavy. Car doesn`t need the extra 30 kgs. and nights will be cool enough to keep contents cool if not cold.
A mod I am contemplating making is to use a 12volt computer cooling fan blowing air through the fridge cooling ducts. Too slack to have done it yet.
 
Ateday, if you can incorporate one of these fans in your fridge, I have found it helps immensely in situations where you are unable to avoid your fridge being in a hot spot (for example in car parks when sometimes your car or trailer is locked for a couple of hours).

https://caravansplus.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=3647

We have a very old Engel which I installed one of these permanently within the 'guts' of the fridge. The fan cools the fridge coils by the solar powered panels, so whenever the sun shines, the fan runs. I noticed a significant difference particularly on hot days of how often the fridge runs with a relatively simple modification that takes no stored power to run.

Back on topic... I bought a vacuum food sealer awhile ago. It has really enhanced our whole fridge/camping experience. With careful pre-freezing of our meat on house power before a trip of the meat we will need, I then switch to fridge only and put our day to day fridge supplies on top. We can manage about 9 days this way food wise with a combination of cooling via the car driving and solar panels when stationary.

Best regards,
 
havachat said:
I recently purchased a vacuum unit for a lot more but wanted one that I knew had a good reputation and would also run on 12 volts for longer trips so I can reseal food.
Click to expand...

I was originally looking at one like the dometic, but couldn't really think of a time I'd need to pack on the road. I've a small handheld one with reusable bags that I'd used hiking to reseal dehydrated foods in the past (runs on batteries), but I take fresh produce camping and 4wd or dried veg which lasts long enough for me.

Good thing too is hopefully this will cut down on non burnable rubbish.
 
That's a good point! I'll have to wait and see how the quality turns out, if I get two trips out of it, it'll have paid for itself. Ultimately time will tell, I hope it lasts a while and the build would suggest that, but we'll see as I've found Chinese noname imports its the quality control that matters
 
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