Four Kitchen Gadgets Put to the Test: Roast Easy, Bread Keeper, Kebab Maker and Vacu Vin

Introduction

Kitchen gadgets tend to fall into two camps: the ones that quietly earn their place, and the ones that end up in the back of a drawer. We tested four popular products across roasting, bread storage, barbecue prep and wine preservation to find out which camp each belongs to. Some surprised us, some underwhelmed, and one turned out to be an unexpected bargain.

Roast Easy Stainless Steel Chain Mail Roasting Wrap

The Roast Easy is exactly what it sounds like: a sheet of stainless steel chain mail with a small pendant, designed to replace aluminium foil when roasting meat. The pitch is simple. It is reusable, it eliminates single-use foil, and it is claimed to keep meat soft and succulent while still crisping the outside. You can even baste the meat mid-roast without fully removing it.

To put that claim to the test, two chickens were roasted side by side at 200 degrees for roughly an hour, one under chain mail and one under foil. The chain mail chicken was basted halfway through, which is easy to do since the wrap simply lifts off.

The results were close. The chain mail chicken browned more and the skin sounded noticeably crispier, leaving a subtle mottled pattern on the breast. But in the tasting, both birds came out succulent and delicious with no huge difference between them. As a foil replacement, it does the job, and unlike foil you simply wash it and use it again.

The catch is price. At around £44 to £47, it is far more than most people would intuitively pay for a roasting accessory. If you roast whole birds regularly and want to cut down on foil waste, it makes sense. For occasional roasters, it is harder to justify.

Kitchen Craft Stay Fresh Expanding Bread Keeper and Slicer

This one was highly requested: a clear acrylic bread bin with twisty vents and an expanding design, sold with a slicing guide. Kitchen Craft claims it keeps bread fresh and bouncy, letting the loaf breathe rather than trapping condensation the way sealed plastic wrap can, which helps prevent mould and staleness.

As a bread bin, the basics work. Being see-through means you can see how much bread is left without opening anything, and the expanding design accommodates a standard loaf. It is not airtight by design, which is the point.

The slicing guide is where it genuinely earns its keep. Place the loaf inside, run your knife along the grooves, and the slices come out remarkably even. The result looks close to bakery-cut bread, and uniform slices make for better sandwiches.

There is an honest trade-off, though. It is functional but not beautiful, and it takes up work surface space. At £16 it undercuts what many would expect to pay, and the maths on wasted bread is persuasive: save half a loaf a week and it pays for itself several times over in a year. The verdict landed on a split decision: a slice of genius in execution, but arguably superfluous if you already manage your bread well. For households where kids make their own packed lunches, it also removes some of the jeopardy of a serrated blade.

Easy Kebab Maker

The Easy Kebab Maker looks odd at first glance: a tube with a plunger and a set of skewers. The process is straightforward. Remove the plunger, load the skewers into it, reassemble, fill the tube with minced meat, then press down. As the mince emerges from the nozzle, insert a skewer through the hole at the back and the meat moulds itself around the skewer. Pinch it off at your chosen length and you have a kebab.

It sounds gimmicky, but it worked surprisingly well. The kebabs came out with good structural integrity, held together on the stick during cooking, and slid off cleanly at the table, which is not always the case with hand-moulded kebabs.

The honest comparison is against making kebabs by hand, and a well-shaped hand-made kebab can look better and costs nothing extra. But the gadget is fun to use, produces consistent results, and would appeal to children and adults alike for barbecue nights. At £24.97 including skewers, the tester’s verdict was that the price is not enough to put them off once they had tried it, though it is enough to make you think twice. For anyone grilling kebabs every week, it is easy to recommend; for a once-a-year barbecue, your hands will do fine.

Vacu Vin Wine Saver and Stopper

The Vacu Vin is a small vacuum pump with a rubber stopper, and it has been a fixture of wine preservation for years, ranking as the number one wine accessory on Amazon with thousands of reviews. The claim is bold: it keeps wine preserved for up to 10 days. Pump until you hear a click, and the air is out of the bottle.

To test the claim, two identical bottles of wine were opened nine days earlier. One was resealed with the Vacu Vin, the other with a regular cork. The difference after nine days was clear. The Vacu Vin bottle retained a deeper burgundy colour, while the cork-sealed bottle had turned gently rosy and lost some of its aromas. On tasting, the corked bottle had the slight twang of wine that has been open for a couple of days. Still drinkable, but noticeably faded. The Vacu Vin bottle held its fresh fruit character far better.

The science is straightforward: less oxygen in the bottle means slower oxidation, so the wine holds its fresh fruit character instead of drifting towards vinegary, cooked-fruit notes. It will not stop deterioration entirely, but it slows it meaningfully. At £9.95, it sits almost exactly where most people would price it themselves, and it ranks just behind the corkscrew among wine accessories worth owning. If you regularly open a bottle for a glass or two, this is one of the few gadgets that justifies itself almost immediately.

Buying Advice

If you want the lowest-risk purchase, the Vacu Vin is the clear winner: cheap, proven, and it visibly works. The Easy Kebab Maker is a fun buy for regular grillers, and the bread keeper is a clever £16 solution for households that waste bread. The Roast Easy is the hardest to recommend outright: it performs well, but the price demands a genuine commitment to foil-free roasting.

Conclusion

Four gadgets, four very different verdicts. The wine saver and the kebab maker earned genuine enthusiasm, the bread keeper impressed on function if not on necessity, and the chain mail roasting wrap delivered on its promises but at a price that only frequent roasters will stomach. Match the gadget to how often you will actually use it, and each of these can find a place in the right kitchen.