Vacuum packer

We have the Foodsaver & couldn't be happier, I believe the narrower model is marketed as a Sunbeam.

We bought ours from Master Butchers (?Churchill Rd). Its an Orved brand, Italian Made and Master Butchers stock spare parts and bags. Cost about $300, 2 years ago. And 100bags cost about $30 for the good ones in a reasonable size.

We decided against the Sunbeam because the sales person said we were locked into their bags (?right or wrong).

You can also get Chinese made ones on Ebay, and I know nothing about them.

Hey Lyndon

There is 35 responses on thread 44446 and 16 responses on tread 44626.

Cheers Steve.

Mrs Pesty bought one at a shop closing down sale a coupla years ago, a sunbeam foodsaver 550, about $100 cheaper than normal she said, as we had talked about getting one, but havent been far in the last coupla years, so have never used it LOL
So this post prompted me to go get it out and read the instuctions, and it comes with a roll , and a few bags.
Looks simple enough to use, will have to get something out and go use it.
My luck it will be crook and so being outa warranty, it will become bin fodder, but alas yes, someone has to rid the market of all the crook stuff!

Cheers pesty

Have a look at Magicvac from Queensland,we bought one at Sandown Caravan show 3 years ago and they work great. You can also use different brands of bags. They are Italian made. www.vacuseal.com.au
Jeff

We've had one for several years now and find it works a treat. We usually freeze our meat and then pack it and then store it in the bottom of the Engel where it lasts well. For sausages you need to freeze them otherwise the preure reductions 'sucks' the meat out of the skins. The bags are readily available. We've bought ours from Target and David Jones. Our vacuum packer is a FoodSaver.
Bruce

I ended up buying the Food Saver (from ebay seller "sealandpack") over the Vacuseal brand.

I contacted vacuseal and was told that you need the ribbed bags - basically ones that they sell which are twice the price of normal vacuum bags such as ones you can get off ebay. Not to mention the vacuuseal was going to cost at least $270 for the base model, I got the ebay one for $134 inc postage.

I guess now only time will tell. It should arrive next week. The only potential downside of the ebay ones (you can use supermarket bags no worries) is the suction seems like it will be half the power compared to vacuseal but we'll see.

Apparently the food saver is for small business and home use. Most commercial grade machines seem to be the big chamber type ones or the retractable nozzle type and of course cost upwards of $2000. The Food Saver is of course made in china so perhaps one reason why it's cheaper. It sells in the US for Au$155, so the ebay price here of buy it now for $159 isn't far off. In china they sell for about Au $65 though so prices seem to be marked up a bit.

Can't wait to have a play with it.

Thanks for the tip, I may not have thought of trying the ribbed bags to get better performance if need be.

You may well be right in saying that any bag can be used, I guess ultimately the ribbed are recommended more so due to better performance with the certain sealers.