Selecting a food vacuum sealer.
There are literally thousands of food vacuum sealers on the market today and it can be very daunting as to how or where to buy the best one from.
Here I will try and break it down for you and hopefully head you in the right direction. We have a bit to cover so grab a coffee and settle in for a good read.
What type of food vacuum sealer shall I buy?
There are 2 types of vacuum sealers available, an external bag vacuum sealer and a chamber vacuum sealer. The external bag vacuum sealer is the most common and the most popular, mainly because you can buy a good one for a lot less than a good chamber vacuum sealer. An external bag vacuum sealer is a vacuum sealer that you place the mouth of the bag inside the machine and the rest of the bag, with the food in it, is on the out side of the vacuum sealer. A chamber vacuum sealer is where you put all the bag and food on the inside of the vacuum sealer. So, lets look at those separately.
What is a Chamber Vacuum Sealer?
A chamber vacuum sealer is generally found in a commercial kitchen and a good model is bulky and rather expensive, around $3000 and up. The bags used in a chamber vacuum sealer are smooth both sides so they are about half the price of embossed vacuum sealer bags for external bag vacuum sealers. Some companies are now retailing chamber vacuum sealers at under a $1000 for the domestic market but please do your homework. Although they are still bulky on the bench top the chamber part is generally fairly small, the pumps are very slow, they are unreliable and almost impossible to get parts for. As for liquid, the chamber vacuum sealers are much more forgiving than external bag vacuum sealers because there is the same negative pressure on the inside and the outside of the bag so the liquid mostly stays still and is not rushing towards the positive pressure outside the bag. But, if liquid does get into the seal area of a chamber vacuum sealer it will not seal, the same as an external bag vacuum sealer.
What is an external bag vacuum sealer?
The external bag vacuum sealer is what most people think of when they think of vacuum sealing and they are by far the most popular type of vacuum sealer. They range in price from less than $100 up to $3000. They are available in Domestic, professional and commercial units. The domestic market is flooded with very cheap and nasty brands of vacuum sealers and we will go into that further down the article. Basically if you are after a domestic food vacuum sealer to use at home a few times a week you want a vacuum sealer that goes to at least -0.75mbar of 75Kpa, has a single 3 mm seal, easy to clean tray inside the vacuum chamber and auto and manual function and a minimum of 120w. If you are purchasing a food vacuum sealer and can not find these specifications then chances are that the fall well below this and the unit is not worth purchasing. In general, you need to be spending over $200 to get a reasonable food vacuum sealer. The cheaper models will not be going to a good enough vacuum and lower wattage will not be giving a reliable seal and if anything goes wrong you will not get parts for it. And that is the number one when buying a new food vacuum sealer, can you get simple parts for it like a seal kit and Teflon heat strip.
Where can I buy a good external bag food vacuum sealer?
You can buy an external bag food vacuum sealer from so many places now and they are readily available, unfortunately about 90% of the food vacuum sealers on the market should not be sold. Either they are just to weak or they are a throw away unit if anything goes wrong. You can buy them from any of the department stores or camping stores and if that is your choice that’s fine but try asking the store a few questions like what vacuum does it go to and what wattage is the seal bar. The big one is will it seal liquids and if they say yes then you will know that they have no idea what they are talking about, they just want to sell you a machine. If they get past that then ask to see their range of spare parts for the vacuum sealer, in particular a seal kit for the vacuum sealer you are about to purchase. I bet my last dollar they don’t have one and will probably tell you that you want need one, good luck!!! Then there is all the platforms such as eBay, wish, temu and the list goes on. Now there are heaps of vacuum sealers on these platforms for $100 or less and it is pretty much the same thing with information on the unit, parts availability and warranty. Most of the units on these platforms will not supply specifications or they don’t meet the minimum requirements. So don’t waste your money. Then there are a few companies that specialize in food vacuum sealing like Food Vacuum Sealers Australia That do have good quality vacuum sealers, they can answer al those hard questions, they have a supply of spare parts available and can service or fix there vacuum sealers. And I am not suggesting we are the only company like that but this is the type of company you should be purchasing your food vacuum sealer from.
How much should I spend on a vacuum sealer?
OK there are a couple of ways we can break this down and the first is, should I buy a Chinese vacuum sealer or a European vacuum sealer?
As a general comment on both these, the European vacuum sealers have bigger pumps and transformers, they are a higher wattage and they are a much heavier food vacuum sealer. If you compare a Chinese and European vacuum sealer on price, the European vacuum sealers are about half as much again. A Preservac PXR P2, $400 compared to a Status Solid 300, $600. At the higher end a Preservac i400, $900 compared to the Status Provac 360, $1200. The European vacuum sealers have a 2-year warranty and the Chinese vacuum sealers have a 1-year warranty. Once again you get what you pay for. If you are doing a lot of vacuum sealing then a European vacuum sealer will last longer than a Chinese vacuum sealer.
The second way to break it down is do I need a Domestic vacuum sealer, a professional vacuum sealer or a commercial vacuum sealer? These categories do lap over each other a fair bit and there is no one answer to each situation. As a guide this is what we recommend. For the person vacuum sealing there groceries once or twice a week for the family and maybe the odd bulk buy every couple of months we would recommend the Status HV100 domestic vacuum sealer or the Preservac PXR P1 domestic vacuum sealer. For the same reasons plus, you are going out fishing or hunting on the weekends and coming home and vacuum sealing your catch we would recommend stepping up to the Preservac PXR P2 professional vacuum sealer or the Status Solid 300 Professional vacuum sealer. A Double sealing professional vacuum sealer is always a lot better when there is a bit of blood or fish juice around. Then there is the small farmer that is doing a few killers during the year and the level of vacuum sealer you go to here will depend on how often you are doing a killer and how quickly you want to vacuum seal it. So, we could start at the Status Solid 300 Professional vacuum Sealer and the Preservac i400 which are both a good option if you are doing a couple a year and you can pace yourself a bit. If you are doing more than that I would go up to the Status Provac 360 commercial vacuum sealer. If you are buying a vacuum sealer for a commercial kitchen or any commercial environment requiring heavy use then you would be look at the Status Provac 360 commercial vacuum sealers or any of the Lava commercial vacuum sealers.
There we have it, a quick overview on selecting a good food vacuum sealer for the job you want to do. I think you should realize that there is no one answer and no 2 answers the same. If you do need help, please contact us and we can steer you in the right direction as it does depend on budget and individual needs.
In the mean time happy vacuum sealing from Bryce and Food Vacuum Sealers Australia