Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Vacuum Sealer

I'm in the market for a vacuum sealer.

3 or 4 deer a year tops

What does the fire recomend?

I went with a chamber vacuum and don’t regret it one bit. Big improvement over the food saver types. I ended up with a JVR vac 110.

Been using one of these for the last 6-8 years. No complaints.

https://www.amazon.com/FoodSaver-Ma...f_=fplfs&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&th=1

We have a vacuum sealer. We do use it occasionally, but for meat, I'm a cellophane, butcher paper sorta guy.
Had a calf slaughtered, it was all vacuum packed with one of those chamber vacuums.
When I went to pick it up, the packer drug in a big cardboard box and just tossed the frozen meat in like he was gathering rocks.
Until the meat was gone, we would occasionally stumble into a package that was no longer "vacuum sealed" and freezer burned (dried out) along the edges
Also noticed it with the fish I brought back from Alaska.
That rock hard meat/fish, when banged together, can cause small punctures in the wrapping. That let's air in and moisture out resulting in freezer burn.

My venison, I cut and wrap in cellophane (Glad Wrap), then wrap in butcher paper.
Was helping the wife defrost our freezer. Found a 2 year old package of loin stuffed into a back corner.
Thinking it was probably ruined, I thawed it out.
Looked and smelled ok, so I cooked it!
Tasted just fine!

I'd go with the chamber vac.

Ive got a Cabelas branded vac. IIRC its a weston brand.

Does ok for what i use it for.

Doesnt do moist foods ( fish , etc) well..

Subscribed

Chamber vac. No issues with lost seal and can do liquids up to two cups.

A chamber vac machine will pay for itself in the long run, due to cheaper bag costs. A chamber vac machine also handles wet food products much better than the Food-Saver style machines. That feature, alone, was enough reason for me to spend $900 on a VacMaster VP210. I sold the 210 to a friend, last year, and it's still going strong after a decade of serious use and the many 1000-count cases of bags we put through it. It was one of the best investments I ever made.


Why did I get rid of it? I upgraded to a bigger, four-bag machine to speed up our processing time.

Here's the upgraded version of the machine I had:
https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ar...e-with-10-1-4-seal-bar/120VMASVP215.html

The VP215 has an oil pump and cycles faster than the VP210, and it's quieter as well. Webstraunt Store has a better price on the VP215 than what I paid for the VP210 I bought at Sam's Club all those years ago, free shipping to boot!

I have burned up several vacu.sealers over the years

I picked up an Avid Armor Chamber Vac. Sealer and absolutely love it.

As posted about you can seal liquids and I can also seal jars with an attachment that I purchased with it.

I get my bags from these guys www.webstaurantstore.com

Burned up to many Food Savers to ever get another one.

TAG

I too have a Cabela's brand made by Weston. I works great for me.

If anyone had a clue how many thousands of pounds of fish DanInAlaska was responsible for killing and packaging... they would be praying to Buddah for his soul!

Or at least listening to his advice on Vacuum packers...

Meat your Maker puts out great products at a great price I have their chamber vac which has been amazing, I also have their largest meat grinder its a beast. And they frequently have amazing sales like 20 percent off site wide. Being close to black Friday is when I would start looking

Right now you are only vacuum sealing 3-4 deer a year because you are limited by what you can seal with a "suck" sealer. We switched to a chamber sealer, Vacmaster VP210 ten years ago and have found all kinds of things we vacuum seal. Wife makes a big pot of soup, we eat a couple of meals then vacuum seal and freeze the rest. Wife makes her own bone broth, seals and freezes it. Buy bulk at the grocery store, vacuum seal and freeze. Storing ammo, vacuum seal it. I vacuum seal hand towels and keep them on my boat. You can vacuum seal bags of water to make ice packs then drink the water. The bags are so much cheaper that you will pay for the machine very shortly.

The VacMaster VP215 or VP230. Either one are great machines. Both are oil pump machines. The VP230 has a little bigger sealing bar for sealing wider bags but the overall size of the machine isn’t much different than the VP215

I'm sure those $800+ units are nice but I wasn't aware a decent 3 deer a year unit cost that

Was in Academy earlier today.

They now carry the Meat! your maker brand of vac sealers. Cheapest was $99.

You can really get confused looking at all the options at say a Cabelas. Or at least, I did. Rather than throw money at it and hope for the best, I grabbed a FoodSaver GameSaver on sale for under a bill on the theory that by the time I wore it out, I’d know what to spend bigger $$ on. It’s still going strong after 6-8 deer, 40+ salmon, twice that of ling cod/rockfish, and lots of regular leftovers or “extras” (like cooking a dozen chicken thighs on the grill then vacuum sealing half of them and freezing them).

I’m liking the bang/buck provided by this unit so far. Got a deer hanging in the barn right now that I’ll be processing in a few days.

The bags get expensive. I recommend buying rolls of “tube” on Amazon or wherever and making your own bags. Takes a little longer but is way cheaper.

Based on my limited experience when this one goes tits-up I’ll probably upgrade a level into $200-class machines but I don’t see a reason to go any higher up the food chain than that.

I thought this way for a long time, fought and burned up half-a-dozen Food Saver machines before finally investing in a chamber vac machine....then felt incredibly dumb for not doing it sooner.

I bought a $900 machine and used it for a decade. I put several thousand commercial-quality bags through the chamber vac machine, saving 30 cents a bag (or more) versus buying the corrugated Food Saver-style bags. I sold the used machine for $500, and my friend is absolutely thrilled with it. He is saving time, saving money on bags, and avoiding the aggravation of fighting with his old Food Saver machine.

Justifying a Food Saver machine, because you probably won't use it very much, is a lot like putting a cheap scope on your rifle, because you only hunt a couple days every year. Yes, there are a lot of people that do that, but there are others that just appreciate better quality optics. There is no wrong answer, just a matter of where you put your priorities.