Bill W: 5.0 out of 5 stars Works well, easy to use!
This is my first foray into vacuum sealing. It took me a minute to figure out how to work it, ven reading the instructions. Now, its just plain fun. We like to shop at Costco so often times we have extra meat or whatever, and now I am vacuum sealing it. It comes with a roll of self measurable bag, and about 10 pre made bags good for steaks or burgers. It can apparently take any standard vacuum seal bag refills, as mentioned this is my first time using one of these so I am not sure on pricing of those. I believe this will stay on the countertop because we seem to be using it more than we thought we would. I went camping and we used it to seal dry goods and even vacuum sealed some undies (yes, I said it) to take on the raft with us. Overall, I like using it, and I think its a good investment to keep your food good for long periods of time. The controls on the sealer are very easy to use and figure out.
Sindy: 5.0 out of 5 stars Easy to place bags and seals good!
The sealer itself is pretty straightforward. It can store a roll of plastic tubing that you then cut to size (with the slicer incorporated in the machine), seal one end, stuff your food into, and vacuum and seal the other end. Takes about 15 seconds to complete a seal. This gizmo comes with one small roll, and a small quantity of bags (already sealed on the one end), so you can start using it the moment it arrives. The bags and rolls they supply are only 8 inches across, and the machine can take up to 11 inches across. The machine has a small trough that can catch any small "sips" of liquid that might seep out of the bag during the vacuum process, and that trough is easy to remove and to clean. The instructions are very careful to tell you to NOT use vacuum on bags with lots of juices or liquids, as if you get liquid into the suction motor, it could kill the vacuum pump, so you have to be careful to line up the bag to let any liquids drain into the trough, but with a little bit of practice, I found I could get it just right. It also comes with a vacuum hose to use to vacuum other containers, but I have not tried this yet, and since I have a Ball Jar Evacuator, I probably will not be using this feature any time soon. The one issue that is never addressed anywhere on the website or in the package is the question of supply of bags or tube rolls. I still don't know what mils thickness this thing can handle, but my guess is that the supplied items are about 2 or 3 mils thick (and it's just a guess!), and there's lots of suppliers out there in that thickness range. The instructions do state that you need to place the "textured side down", so I am making sure that any supplies I get have at least one textured side (and most do). So far, this is a good machine, with some practical applications like automatic sealing, sealing with or without vacuum, and "manual" sealing (they call it pulse control) so you can stop the vacuum before it pulls the meat juices into the machine. I am looking forward to packaging chicken thighs or breasts with marinade in the vacuum bags, and letting the marinade soak in while the chicken is in the freezer!