Quote Originally Posted by CharlesWaugh View Post
Howzabout this:
1) put your food-filled bag (with its zipper about half-closed) into a another bigger non-zip-lock plastic bag lying flat on the counter top
2) wrap the outer bag's open end around a tube that is about the same opening size as a wine bottle neck
3) suck out the air that YOU can with lung-power
4) stick one of those pump-pump-pump wine bottle vacuum sealer things (for keeping a half-open bottle of wine fresh) into the tube and pump out all the air
5) you can now finish the seal on your food-filled bag by pressing it down through the plastic outer bag
6) VOILA! a vacuum-evacuated food-filled bag ready to cook!
I have tried something similar. Instead of me sucking the air out, I used the partial vacuum created by connecting the tube to the top of a 2L bottle filled with water that had a small hole in the bottom. As the water drained out, it sucked air out of the bag. I found that the larger bag would seal around the smaller bag and leave air in there. Pressing down did help but not enough. Not sure why it didn't work better.

Rick