Best value and is truly portable
I have waited a while to write this review, wanting to test the machine thoroughly. Having done so, I come down to assigning a five star rating.I have used this machine for packing for the freezer, for pouching liquid, and for sealing up dry goods. It has performed well in all applications.It presents two very important advantages, its weight and its price point.It would be false to say this unit is lightweight. At the same time, it is not so heavy that it can’t be called portable. Even my wife can pick it up and move it around, and that’s an important qualification. The lowest VacMaster model, for example, weighs more than three times as much and is only portable in the sense it can be put on a cart and moved in that way.Other capable and reliable chamber machinescost about a thousand dollars, at the bottom of the scale. At six hundred dollars, this machine gets quite adequate performance per dollar. Is it perhaps not best suited to the home butcher who is bringing home five deer every hunting season and is perhaps packing his buddies’ kills as well, and may be packing feral hogs, too. For such users, a thousand dollars is a worthwhile investment in a heavier, sturdier machine. For someone like me, who is merely buying his ground beef in bulk from Sam’s, vacuum packing homemade chorizo from an occasional pork shoulder, and cooking sous vide every month or so, this machine works, works well, and is much more economical. There’s no need to buy a trip hammer to crack a walnut.A very handy feature of this machine is the marinade cycle, which enables you to get an hour’s worth of marinating done in two minutes.I have one caution to offer, which applies to all chamber vacuum machines, without exception. Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, try to vacuum seal a liquid that is not right out of the refrigerator. Even very cold liquids will “boil” as the pressure is reduced. This will stay within reasonable bounds if the liquid is cold. If it’s not, you will have a nasty mess on your hands.The one reservation I have is with the owner’s manual, which says that when the seal button is pressed to abort the vacuum and seal the pouch, the vacuuming will stop “immediately.” In fact, it doesn’t stop for 13-15 seconds. As the manufacturer explains in answer to a question asked on this site, the sealing bar depends on a certain drop in pressure to raise it into position to seal.Not wanting to run the vacuum cycle merely to seal a pouch, I decided to invest forty bucks in a sealing bar which seals quickly, easily, and securely. I think it’s the better way, particularly if you use, instead of pre-made pouches, rolls of pouch material. If you do a lot of sealng, that’s how to make the price per pouch descend to the point of being dirt cheap. However, if you are doing that much, this may not be the machine to do it with. It’s a great appliance, but not for a high rate of production.The owner’s manual also says to hold the cover down until the vacuum takes hold. I’ve never found that necessary. It pulls a vacuum perfectly every time.Highly recommended.