Count me in the VP112 fan club!
This machine is pretty cool once you get the hang of it. The other reviews here on amazon are quite helpful and provide several useful tips. I'll summarize them for you here in one concise review to help you get the most of your machine, as I had a bit of trouble at first.
- the reviewer who suggested you buy some cheapo plastic cutting boards to help fill the bags was spot on. What a great suggestion to keep the seal area clean! This did the trick: MIU France Flexible Cutting Boards, Set of 8. Much better than rolling the bag down over itself and introducing creases.
- the unit comes with 40 bags in 4 sizes; i suggest playing around with the included sizes before making the investment in cases of 500 or 1000 bags. I bought 6x12 and 12x14 bags sight unseen. the 6" bags aren't quite wide enough for most things, and for many of the things they do work for, they are so small that they are...
Ideal once you have been bitten by sous vide
I have used many vacuum sealers over the years and this one is by far the best. Even with liquids present, you can safely go prep the next bag once you hit start rather than waiting to hit the seal button if liquid starts to ooze toward the seal region. Bought in bulk, the bags are very much cheaper. The plastic lid is nicely engineered with reinforcing ribs. As to the previous review complaining about bad seals, no heat sealer will tolerate liquid in the seal region as: 1) evaporation takes away the necessary heat to reach sealing temperature; and 2) the liquid almost certainly has "stuff" in it that will prevent the seal which is nothing but the two sides being melted into one. Buy some thin, flexible cutting boards that are slightly wider (say 20%) than the opening to your bags. Grab the two sides, squeeze and insert into your bag. The board will hold the bag open and with care you can add the food without contacting the area of the seal. If you seal lots at one time, it is nice...
A wonderful machine
I've been using this machine for over six months. It has worked very well without a glitch. I like that the chamber is deeper than the VP210 or VP215 so you can bag larger amounts of liquids without issue. The controls let you control the length of time the vacuum is pulled and then how long the sealing bar heats. I fussed with the controls when I first got it but now just use about 35 seconds of vacuum pump followed by a 5 second seal and it works like a charm, with both 3 and 4 mil bags. You can also trigger the the machine to seal on your command (I use this when I'm sealing something like thick-crust pizza... I want to get the air out, but if you pull too hard a vacuum, you'll flatten the crust). The only real secret to using this machine is to make certain that the bag is lying totally flat against the sealing bar. Any small kink will result in a mis-sealed bag. This usually only happens if I try to overfill bags. This machine also comes with several plastic boards (they...
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