Allow me to introduce you to the Guac-Lock: a container designed to keep guacamole fresh and combat the age-old dilemma of turning brown. I love a good kitchen experiment, but testing the Guac-Lock was a difficult assignment to take on because honestly, what kind of monster doesn’t finisha bowl of guacin one sitting? I persisted because I wanted to see if the Guac-Lock could defy science—there’s an enzyme in avocados that causes them to brown when exposed to oxygen—and prevent guacamole from browning after 24 hours.
Hypothetically speaking, theGuac-Lockshould keep its contents, guacamole or otherwise, fresher than yourstandard tupperware,thanks to its suctioned, air-tight seal. To determine if this claim is true, I tested the Guac-Lock on three different dips:hummus,smoky baba ghanoush, and of course, guacamole.
Here’s how the container works:
- Fill ‘er up and level ‘er out, making sure the contents are even across the container and there are no air pockets (this is important, we’ll get to that in a minute).
- Place cover on top and snap the three closures into place, but leave the lock open.
- Place the main compartment onto the “elevator” and slowly apply pressure; contents will be pushed to the top of the container, removing air. This is why the leveling is important—if it isn’t level, you’ll be left with air pockets, thus defeating the whole purpose of the Guac-Lock!
- Lock it.
I am happy to report that after 24 hours in the Lock, all dips still thrived. After 48, all dips had remained edible, though you could tell they were not freshly made. The Guac-Lock's pièce de resistance, the guac, was definitely greener after a day in the fridge than if it had been stored in a standard tupperware, but alas, nature prevailed and my guac had begun to brown after a mere 24 hours in the lock.
Browning aside, the Guac-Lock is a surefire way to increase thelifespan of party dips, but nobody’s perfect, and it comes with its fair share of shortcomings. For starters, when you press the contents up against the container’s ceiling, they stick to the top—Guac-Lock-ers, if you’re reading this, throw a spatula into the packaging! Every time I broke the seal, the contents that snuck into the crevases had dried out, creating a ring of dried dip pieces around the Lock. That could be operator error, but I doubt it.
It also isn’t designed for anything that isn’t a dip or that can be molded into the shape of the container, likehalf of an avocado, because there will always be air pockets, at which point it functions no differently than any other airtight container. The product description also mentions that it can double as a serving dish. You can, in fact, eat right out of the container, as I did. Would I serve it to guests in the container? Probably not. I’m not fancy or anything, but I try not to serve things out of a tupperware when hosting, as a general rule.
The reality is, the Guac-Lock is just another tupperware to add to your collection, but it comes with a bit of extra work behind it. Its BPA-free plastic is dishwasher-safe and stain- and odor-resistant, so it’s a superior tupperware, but a tupperware nonetheless. It also has the capacity to hold about three times as much dip as I made (and I made full recipes), so if you find yourselfhosting a partythat requires making a lot of dip in advance, the Guac-Lock’s got your back.
When it comes to avocados, enzymes will always win, even when faced with every trick in the book to keep the flesh green. But that’s okay, because you’re not a monster and you’ll never not finish your guacamole.
