Customer Reviews

FoodSaver T03-0006-01 Regular-Mouth Jar Sealer

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

I have had a Tilia FoodSaver for more than two years. This particular attachment is used regularly in my kitchen. It is a wonderful way to preserve foods from the ravages of spoilage. I vacuum seal all of my spices, brown sugar, coffee, candy, chips, strawberries, shredded cheeses, tea, etc., etc., etc. Using standard (regular small mouth) mouth jars that I have used for years in canning, I can seal just about anything that will fit into a jar that uses a small mouth lid.

Everything that is sealed in this manner stays very fresh and I can buy larger amounts of things on sale and seal in the freshness. My favorite use is for coffee beans. Recently, I purchased 10 lbs of beans of various types at half price ($4/lb instead of $8/lb) saving more than the cost of this item in that single purchase. The beans stay absolutely fresh until I use them!!

A warning about using the lids, both the jar and the lids must be VERY clean to hold the seal. You should regularly check your sealed jars to make sure that they remain sealed. Also, there can be no chips or cracks anywhere on the jar.

I really do enjoy the sound of popping a lid and hearing the whooosh of the air when it rushes into the vacuum created by my Tilia FoodSaver. I just know that what is inside that jar is FRESH.

At first I had the problem with it not sealing the lid also. After some investigation, I notice that the pump is acutally holding the lid up and away from the jar during vacuuming. When the pump stopped, the air slowly flowed back around the lid and into the jar. (Excuse me for I'm about to go scientific here) This slow movement of the air creates a pretty much equal pressure on both sides of the lid, therefore keeping the lid "afloat". The solution is to create a greater pressue on the topside of the lid than the bottom side of the lid. However, the clear plastic tube that's attached to the jar sealer has such a narrow channel that it won't allow the pressure to build up fast enough to "press" the lid down before air is leaked back into the jar.

The trick is to remove the tube quickly from the jar sealer while holding the jar sealer down on the lid. The hole on the jar sealer itself is large enough to build up air pressure quickly, but you must do it fast or else you'll let air back into the jar.

This is exactly how I do it:
1) Move the jar right next to the food saver
2) Hold the jar sealer on top of the jar with the thumb and index finger while pressing the power button on the food saver with other fingers of the same hand. Not very easy at first, but with practice it should become second nature.
3) With the other hand, hold the plug of the tube that's attached to the jar sealer.
4) Once the FoodSaver switches from vacuum to seal, quickly yank out the plug of the tube.
Now the lid should be tightly sealed against the jar.

I don't remember having this problem with bigger jars, only with the half-pint jars.

I gave it 2 stars for bad engineering, but I don't regret buying it.

This jar sealer is a necessity if you have a Foodsaver! Much cheaper than using those expensive canisters and it keeps your food fresh! There's nothing better than opening a jar and hearing the whoosh of air going in! Lets you know it's fresh! For all of those reviewers who had problems with it sealing, I have a tip that should eliminate those sealing problems. When you seal the jar put TWO mason lids on top, one on top of the other. Then seal the jar. The top lid should pop right off and the bottom lid will be vacuumed tight and secure! (If the top lid doesn't come off right away, just give it a few hours and it will come loose.) Not sure why it works this way, but it does! For those jars that you seal for longer than a week I would recommend checking the seal every once and a while. I have had a jar lose it's vacuum a time a two. BUT a great majority of the time it remains sealed. Highly recommend!

HERE'S THE TRICK I FOUND: (1) make sure the tubes are well-attached to the white jar sealer part and the machine (2) PUSH DOWN ON THE WHITE JAR SEALER while the machine vacuums. It works great!

I figured this out when I noticed that there is a rubber ring inside the jar sealer top and if it's not pressing down enough on the jar, the vacuum isn't as effective.

I read the previous reviews with interest - what contrasts of opinions! I just tried this product and found it to work perfectly. I tried both the wide and regular mouth sealers. They both work perfectly well. I used new lids. I did not heat them before using.

I didn't have to use two lids, either, when I pressed down on the jar sealer top.

As far as the reviewer who tested the amount of air in the jar - I just know that it is impossible to achieve such a tight seal on the jar lids without a proper vacuum. Removing the lids is as difficult after this vacuum sealing as it is with traditional canning - there is definitely a great amount of air gone from the jar to produce such a tight seal. So, in my opinion, it does a great job.

Make sure the tubes are connected properly and firmly, press down on the sealer while it's vacuuming and you should get great results.

I'm thrilled with this product.

P.S. The wide mouth jar sealer did come with a plastic attachment tube, but the regular mouth jar sealer did not. Also, I don't recommend storing any powdery substance (i.e. flour) as the vacuum process sucks some of the flour up and under the lid, making the seal inefficient. It's best for heavier substances like rice, beans, cookies, nuts, candy, etc.

I do not like to store food in plastic containers or bags. I have had the wide mouth jar sealer for several years and use it often. The jars store uniformly. I was happy to see the jar sealer also came in the regular mouth size. I have sealed some cookies or crackers in a jar and forget them for months and they were fresh when I tried them. I seal loose tea, coffee, grains, flours, baking ingredients like raisins, nuts and chocolate chips. I keep yeast in a sealed jar for bread baking. I even cut bulk raw cheddar cheese into jar size pieces and sealed them a year ago. I still have two jars of cheese in the refridgerator and they are still great. I seal all leftovers too. I found 1/2 gallon canning jars at Ace Hardware and they sealed fine too.

I had some difficulty getting this to work consistently when I first bought it. (I was using an accessory hose connected to a foodsaver system that could also seal in bags.)

The problem is that if the vacuum is relieved too slowly after the air is removed then

1. The lid is not pushed down sufficiently quickly by the returning air pressure.
2. Consequently, the air gets back into the jar.

There are two alternative solutions to this problem:

Solution 1: Pull the vacuum hose off of the jar when the pump has almost finished pumping. That lets the air in fast.

Solution 2: Don't buy this attachment, just use a foodsaver canister just large enough to hold your mason jar. Take the mason jar and put the lid on it. Screw the ring down until it is just touching the lid but NOT TIGHT. Put the mason jar into the foodsaver canister. Vacuum the canister. Remove the hose from the canister (this is important) and then let the air back into the canister. The lid of the mason jar will squeeze down onto the jar to seal the vacuum. (If you don't remove the hose then the vacuum may not be let back in quickly enough, and then you won't get as good a seal.)


I've found it's best to do some experiments to get the hang of getting a good vacuum. In particular, you can easily measure the vacuum inside a canister or jar. To do this, just fill the canister with water and put in an upside down cup which is full of air. You'll have to put a weight on top of the cup to keep it from floating up. Then let the air out. Air will bubble out from under the cup, and you can see when the vacuum is increasing. (Again, on my foodsaver the vacuum gets better with more presses of the button.) Then let the air back in and the water will flow up into the cup. The more water that flows into the cup the better the vacuum. So it's easy to get a good idea of how good a job your foodsaver is doing. I can get an 80% vacuum with several presses.

I have used the Wide mouth sealer before buying this Regular Mouth Jar Sealer. The regular mouth sealer does not work as well as the wide mouth jar sealer. But with a little modification it will work fine. I was fortunate to see a small youtube video online that demonstrated the problem with the regular mouth sealer and how to over come this. On occasion depending on the size of the regular mouth jar you are sealing and how full you have the jar you may find that it does not seal the lid. To overcome this all you need to do is put two lids on the jar before putting the sealer over the lids and jar and then seal as usual. It will seal one lid only. The other lid gives an additional spacing or something like that. I don't know how it works just that this trick will work if you have a jar that won't seal with only one lid. Still glad I purchased this size. Now I can use any size canning jar I have. You must remember that sealing with this and a vacume sealer is NOT canning. It is just sealing the lid down taking out most of the air but not all of it. I use them to store dried foods longer. Works great at storing any dehydrated foods. Keeps air and moisture out.

[For "why you don't need it," jump to third paragraph.] First of all, this thing came without instructions of any kind. After a variety of unsuccessful attempts to get a vacuum in the jar, I finally called FoodSaver customer service. The agent said the sealer did not come with instructions because not many people have trouble using it. (They obviously don't read the Amazon reviews.) She instructed me to put my FoodSaver appliance on "vacuum and seal" rather than just vacuum, to have the jar ring screwed on while I was vacuuming and, if all else failed, to just leave the sealer on the jar (like a lid--without a vacuum). To her first suggestion, I asked if she understood how the FoodSaver appliance works, and had to explain that the "seal" setting only applies if you are using a bag or roll; I later discovered that the second instruction was just plain wrong (after days of frustration trying different jars, different lids, screwing the ring to different tightnesses, "seasoning" the lid with oil, etc.); and finally, if I can't get a vacuum in the jar, how on earth does it help to leave the sealer accessory sitting on top (and thus unusable with any other jar)?

Turning to Amazon reviewers for wisdom, I tried the two lid technique mentioned by one reviewer. (Put two lids on while vacuuming; the bottom one will form a seal.) Couldn't get that to work (but at this point, I was still following FoodSaver's incorrect instructions to use the ring under the jar sealer). So I tried the canister technique suggested by another reviewer. (Put the whole jar, lid and sealer into a Foodsaver canister and suck the air out.) Lo and behold, a vacuum formed in the jar!

Some Amazon reviewers have explained the principle of how this sealer works--the lid floats while the air is being pumped out, until the vacuum device is turned off and air rushes in to push the lid down onto the vacuumed jar. (Thank you!) From that information, I realized that I DIDN'T NEED THE JAR SEALER AT ALL. Sure enough, I screwed the ring snugly (but loose enough to let air flow) over the lid on the jar, put the whole thing into a FoodSaver canister, and vacuumed. When I let the air back in and opened the canister--viola--I had a vacuum sealed mason jar! This technique hasn't failed me yet. The down side, of course, is that you need an empty Foodsaver canister sitting around that is large enough to hold the mason jar. But if you don't want to bother with this troublesome jar sealer, you might try it. (Due to strain on the canisters, which are also reputed to fail, I wouldn't recommend doing this every day.)

Before returning the jar sealer to FoodSaver for a refund, I decided to give their customer service another chance to explain the proper sealing technique. This time, I got an agent who laughed at the idea of using the ring while sealing, and suggested that I try the two lid method again WITHOUT the ring. This actually worked--twice. On the next 20+ attempts (until I gave up), the jar sealer just laughed at me. So I give this device zero stars for lack of instructions, poor engineering, ignorant customer service and the fact that it is not really necessary, and one star because Amazon won't let me record zero stars.

Does what it is supposed to. But go to Yahoo FoodSaver Group for lots of hints on how to make it work as well as it can.

I have collected canning jars for years (the old blue ones and other old or unique ones) and have always used them for food storage (with the old zinc caps). While this is better than the bags and boxes that the products originally come in, vacuum sealing is quite an improvement! I have thrown away certain spices such as onion salt, bbq rubs, gravy mixes and lecithin so many times because they absorb moisture and become either hard, clumpy or gummy. This wonderful little gadget has put an end to that.

I can't find a rhyme or reason as to why some jars seal and some don't but I blame it on the jars and not the jar sealer. After using this gadget for a while, you learn to detect almost immediately if you're going to get a good seal or not. When the air is being properly sucked out, the sound pitch of the Foodsaver unit changes to a higher and higher pitch.

I hope this tip helps some who are having problems: Often, for me, when the unit just sits and runs and a vacuum is not happening, I simply push down on the sealer while twisting it for about 1/2" and immediately feel the sealer or lid pop into proper position and the vacuum "grabs" the jar.

Also, while Ball and Kerr jars are recommended by the manufacturer, the brand of the jar doesn't seem to much matter. I am amazed when an empty spaghetti sauce or mayonnaise jar seals, while some of my Kerr and Ball jars won't. I have purchased Kerr wide-mouth 4 ounce jars and they work wonderfully for spices. It's odd and disappointing that the same brand of jar in the next larger size (Kerr wide-mouth 8-ounce jars) will not seal at all. If I was going to purchase jars to use with the Foodsaver, I would keep the receipt in case they didn't work. Once you get past the trial and error stage with jars, this little gadget is worth its weight in gold.

Also, you do need to be sure that the rim of the jar is clean and that you leave an inch of headspace in the jar.

(It's a shame that the Foodsaver company doesn't really give adequate instructions with their products. All of their accessories refer you to your user's manual and the manual that came with mine was just a few pages. I went to the Foodsaver site and downloaded the manual for one of their premium models and it helped immensely.)