Hold on to your socks! My newest toy!

[Rob Babcock]

WOOT! After researching and taking notes for six months I finally pulled the trigger on a new vacuum sealer. And NOOOOOO, it ain't no foodsaver! As you all probably know I'm a chef by trade and an all-around kitchen geek. Clamp style sealers are very inexpensive and do a good job on many things but don't work so well to seal liquids. And since I do a lot of sous vide cooking I like to be able to cook in a liquid. This requires a chamber vacuum sealer.

Enter the VacMaster VP215! It's a chamber vac with a rotary oil pump. It pulls almost 30" of vacuum! Here's a few pics!





Here's one of the main reasons I bought it over other similar machines: The ability to seal retort pouches!





You may think you don't know what a "retort pouch" is, but you may have on in your pantry right now. They're the pouches you buy your tuna in. They were developed for the military for MREs.

With this machine I can now easily seal liquids like chili, marinara sauce, gravy, soup, etc. And the retort pouches will let me can stuff in "flexible cans" that are just like a Ball Jar but not breakable.

Very cool!

 

[tinlizzie]

Thank you for explaining about the pouches. Up to that point in your post a huge "HUH?" was forming in my mind. What a dandy new toy for you! And I learned a new meaning for some old words. Plus yesterday I learned what a poolish is. Wonders never cease.

 

[Rob Babcock]

Hahaha! I bet you thought my pouches were adept at making witty comments! I get what you're saying- there's a lot of jargon that can be hard to follow.

One cool factoid- water will boil in this thing at room temp! As you probably know from reading recipes, elevation affects cooking. This is basically because as the pressure of the blanket of atmosphere decreases water boils at a lower temp. Interestingly, when you apply 29.5" of vacuum the boiling point of water lowers drastically!

Pretty cool to see water boiling at 70 F!

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Hahaha! I bet you thought my pouches were adept at making witty comments! I get what you're saying- there's a lot of jargon that can be hard to follow.

One cool factoid- water will boil in this thing at room temp! As you probably know from reading recipes, elevation affects cooking. This is basically because as the pressure of the blanket of atmosphere decreases water boils at a lower temp. Interestingly, when you apply 29.5" of vacuum the boiling point of water lowers drastically!

Pretty cool to see water boiling at 70 F!

Now that is cool! Thanks for the factoid!

 

[Andy M.]

So you could impress your friends by plunging your hand into a vat of boiling water!

 

[GB]

One cool factoid- water will boil in this thing at room temp!

I have noticed something similar with my Foodsaver, although not quite room temp. When I package up soup to put in the fridge I will put it in a Foodsaver canister and seal it. I left the soup cool a while before packaging it, but if there is still enough heat (but well below 212) as soon as I start vacuuming the air out the boil starts again. The first time it happened it freaked me out a bit because it lasted a good 20 minutes or so. After I realized what was happening I calmed down a bit.

So I am scared to ask, because your shopping trips somehow always seem to affect MY wallet, but how much does this thing go for?

 

[FrankZ]

We did the boiling water at room temperature in high school with a vacuum jar.

The boiling point of water is 212F (100C) at 1 ATM (29.9in-Hg) of pressure.

Neat unit, likely more than I would need, but twould be a cool thing to add to the kitchen.

 

[Bigjim68]

Rob, if the man with the most toys win, you are going to be head chef in heaven.

 

[Rob Babcock]

So I am scared to ask, because your shopping trips somehow always seem to affect MY wallet, but how much does this thing go for?

You shouldn't ask when you don't wanna know! A tad shy of a grand, but well worth it for what I need it to do.

 

[GB]

If used right, you can end up saving that money in the long run with use of this machine. Yeah I don't think that argument will fly with my wife

 

[Andy M.]

...They're the pouches you buy your tuna in. They were developed for the military for MREs.

With this machine I can now easily seal liquids like chili, marinara sauce, gravy, soup, etc. And the retort pouches will let me can stuff in "flexible cans" that are just like a Ball Jar but not breakable.

Very cool!

Does this mean your chili, marinara sauce, gravy, soup, etc. can be stored at room temperature?

 

[LPBeier]

Does this mean your chili, marinara sauce, gravy, soup, etc. can be stored at room temperature?

I was going to ask the same question but Andy always gets his hand up first!

I was also going to ask, can you show some pictures of a filled pouch? I am interested to see if it is flat and how it the inside of the machine looks/functions. I am a kitchen geek too!

 

[GB]

I am guessing it does not Andy and Laurie. This really is no different than the Foodsaver in that respect. You would need to do additional processing to make foods that are not normally safe at room temp safe.

 

[Andy M.]

That's what I suspected, GB. Just wanted to understand since Rob mentioned tuna pouches and MREs.

 

[GB]

The pouches are the same, but the process is different.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

I wonder if I could convince Shrek it's something I need that pertains to nursing....

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

You may think you don't know what a "retort pouch" is, but you may have on in your pantry right now. They're the pouches you buy your tuna in. They were developed for the military for MREs.

The picture in your OP shows 4 oz. pouches. Are the pouches available in larger sizes, and if so what is the maximum size your machine is capable of sealing?

I'm just curious because I think it would be handy to be able to seal a meal sized portion, and 4 oz. is a bit smallish for that.

 

[Rob Babcock]

You can get them in 2, 4, 8 & 16 oz sizes. I know my machine can fit an 8 oz (the size of most MRE entrees), but I'll have to look it up to see if the 16 oz ones will fit. To make use them to make shelf-stable meals they must be processed in a pressure canner, just as you would a Kerr or Ball jar.

One nice thing about chamber vac sealers is that the bags are super cheap, between $.01 and $.07 each. I've been paying $.25-.$35 each for the Foodsaver-type bags.

I think it will seal mylar bags, too. I'll have to do some reading...

 

[Rob Babcock]

Looks like the 16 oz are a bit too big unless I cut 'em down. Not advisable for retorts...

 

[PolishedTopaz]

Looks like the 16 oz are a bit too big unless I cut 'em down. Not advisable for retorts...

Gotta say that toy looks like the vac-seal on ICA Should we be calling you

"IRON CHEF.........BABCOCK"!!