Avid Armor Ultra Series USV32: Premium Chamber Vacuum Sealer Machine High-Performance Vacuum Chamber Sealer for Professional and Home Use, Ideal Commercial Vacuum Sealer Machine for Food Preservation

After using a FoodSaver for years, I debated for a long time about whether spending more on a chamber sealer like this would be wise investment. If you cook a lot - it's one of the absolute best investments you can make. As mentioned, I started my foray into vacuum sealing with a pretty basic model foodsaver. It did what it's advertised to do, but the bags were expensive, the quality of the seal and strength of the vacuum varied a lot based on multiple factors, and due to the effort involved - it spent more time in my pantry than being used. Enter the chamber vacuum sealer. Now I can not only buy super cheap pre-made plastic bags in various sizes, I can seal soups, chicken stock, and other items that would have been impossible with the FoodSaver style of sealers. (You really need a chamber-style-sealer to effectively seal foods with any modest amount of liquid) Chamber-style sealers do a far better job of removing the air - once you try it you'll understand what I mean. This thing has *MORE* than paid for itself in food savings. I can buy things like ground beef in bulk, portion it out into bags, freeze it, and I never have to worry about it getting freezer burnt. Gone are the days of opening the fridge to find mold on cheese - I have a block of cheddar I sealed months ago that's every bit as good today as the day I bought it. One area that I never thought of before buying this is how it helps with leftovers. Seal them up in a vacuum bag and they'll last in the fridge for months instead of days. And if you do sous vide, this device is the perfect complement. (Typically I'll reheat leftovers by putting them in a sous vide bath at 155 - preserves flavor and texture) I keep this on my countertop right next to the fridge - and hardly a day goes by that I don't use it multiple times. The only things that get used more in my kitchen are the stove and the fridge. The build quality is solid - I've never had to do any maintenance (other than simply cleaning) and have never had any issues with it. Yes: this is a big investment....but it's one that will save you a lot of money in the long run. If you're at all on the fence like I was - trust me when I say - for serious/passionate cooks - this is a must-have. You'll use it a lot more than you think. Pros: Build quality, excellent vacuum, ease of use, super cheap bags, Cons: Initial price, a little more counter space than a foodsaver

I have waited a while to write this review, wanting to test the machine thoroughly. Having done so, I come down to assigning a five star rating. I have used this machine for packing for the freezer, for pouching liquid, and for sealing up dry goods. It has performed well in all applications. It presents two very important advantages, its weight and its price point. It would be false to say this unit is lightweight. At the same time, it is not so heavy that it can’t be called portable. Even my wife can pick it up and move it around, and that’s an important qualification. The lowest VacMaster model, for example, weighs more than three times as much and is only portable in the sense it can be put on a cart and moved in that way. Other capable and reliable chamber machinescost about a thousand dollars, at the bottom of the scale. At six hundred dollars, this machine gets quite adequate performance per dollar. Is it perhaps not best suited to the home butcher who is bringing home five deer every hunting season and is perhaps packing his buddies’ kills as well, and may be packing feral hogs, too. For such users, a thousand dollars is a worthwhile investment in a heavier, sturdier machine. For someone like me, who is merely buying his ground beef in bulk from Sam’s, vacuum packing homemade chorizo from an occasional pork shoulder, and cooking sous vide every month or so, this machine works, works well, and is much more economical. There’s no need to buy a trip hammer to crack a walnut. A very handy feature of this machine is the marinade cycle, which enables you to get an hour’s worth of marinating done in two minutes. I have one caution to offer, which applies to all chamber vacuum machines, without exception. Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, try to vacuum seal a liquid that is not right out of the refrigerator. Even very cold liquids will “boil” as the pressure is reduced. This will stay within reasonable bounds if the liquid is cold. If it’s not, you will have a nasty mess on your hands. The one reservation I have is with the owner’s manual, which says that when the seal button is pressed to abort the vacuum and seal the pouch, the vacuuming will stop “immediately.” In fact, it doesn’t stop for 13-15 seconds. As the manufacturer explains in answer to a question asked on this site, the sealing bar depends on a certain drop in pressure to raise it into position to seal. Not wanting to run the vacuum cycle merely to seal a pouch, I decided to invest forty bucks in a sealing bar which seals quickly, easily, and securely. I think it’s the better way, particularly if you use, instead of pre-made pouches, rolls of pouch material. If you do a lot of sealng, that’s how to make the price per pouch descend to the point of being dirt cheap. However, if you are doing that much, this may not be the machine to do it with. It’s a great appliance, but not for a high rate of production. The owner’s manual also says to hold the cover down until the vacuum takes hold. I’ve never found that necessary. It pulls a vacuum perfectly every time. Highly recommended.

For all those who can afford the price of entry, you should get this vacuum sealer. At 5 to 10 cents per bag for bags for any chamber vacuum sealer, compared to 50 to 75 cents per bag for your ribbed-bag sealer such as a Food Saver, you will more than make up for the price in very short order. One maker of a sealer that uses ribbed bags suggests you can save $2700 per year using their sealer. My own experience was that I saved far, far, less because, more often than not, the value of the thing I might seal was approaching or even more than the value of the bag. For example, I buy 1/4 pound hotdogs from a local big-box club store for $3 per pound but they come in 3 pound packages, or 12 hotdogs at 75 cents per hotdog. We eat two for a meal so when we open them, it's eat hotdogs every day for a week or package some to go in the freezer. So if I take two hotdogs at 75 cents and put them in a bag that costs 50 cents, that adds a dollar per pound to the cost of those hotdogs. If I seal them in bags that cost 7 cents, that's 14 cents additional cost. Or what if I have leftover broccoli from dinner that's worth about a dollar. If I have to spend 50 cents to vacuum seal them, I'm more likely to just toss them. But if I can save them for lunch next week at a cost of 5 cents for a 6x8 bag, it's a great deal for a quick vegetable to go with lunch. With the price of chamber pouches, I never consider whether the item I might freeze is worth the price of the bag; the only question is whether I would eat it after I freeze it. So, if a ribbed-bag vacuum sealer saves you 2700 per year (it sure didn't save me that much), consider how much more a chamber vacuum will save you. When I bought my Avid Armor sealer, I started a spreadsheet to track my real savings - savings on food I was able to buy in bulk and divide, or food I would have otherwise tossed but kept - and inside of the first month (it's not been quite a month yet) I have saved $127.03. Will you save that much every month? Probably not, but it's certainly possible. But when it costs 5 cents instead of 50 cents to take advantage of vacuum sealing, you're much more likely to do it and the cost of a chamber vacuum will return beyond what any ribbed-bag sealer could ever dream of saving you. So hopefully I've made a good case for the chamber vacuum sealer. The next question is why Avid Armor? Well, it's all about quality and cost. There are other companies, companies that used to have good sealers in the price range of the Avid Armor, but all of those other companies, in my opinion and experience, are companies that have been around for very short periods or who put their brand on sealers made cheaply overseas and don't really have anything to do with the design, yet they charge far higher prices than does Avid Armor. The Avid Armor sealer provides a quality vacuum and seal at a price that let's far more cooks afford a chamber vacuum sealer. The USV32 has some great features like very easy and clear settings for vacuum time and seal time. It's not perfect, though; some things for Avid Armor to consider in their next design would be a larger chamber for up to 12 inch wide bags. It would also be better if it had a wider seal but I haven't had any issues with the sealer as it is. One good thing is that with standard 18 inch height between base and upper cabinets in most kitchens, the USV32 fits perfectly when you open the lid; using all available space without being so big you have to pull it out. My coffee maker is 20 inches high with the water compartment lid open so I know the frustration that would be. Avid Armor did it right. The bag retention set up, that bit of the mechanism that holds the bag in place for the heat seal bar, leaves something to be desired. It doesn't hold as easily as my last chamber sealer from another company. It holds ok but it's trickier to get it right. Over all, though, I'm very happy with the Avid Armor UVS32 sealer and I'm glad that, when I needed to replace an older model from another supplier, a model no longer made and nothing in the sub $1000 space from that supplier, I'm glad I chose the Avid Armor.

This is hands down the BEST vacuum sealer I’ve ever used. I am enthusiastic about cooking and do a lot of sous vide and grilling/smoking. I tend to meal prep by making large amounts of proteins and sealing them into individual portions for quick and easy home dinners. Due to the volume and frequency in which I cook, I’ve used a lot of vacuum sealers. I would burn through a “home grade” food saver in less than a year. I got sick of buying disposable sealers and started looking for something more commercial quality, without the commercial price tag. I’ve used all 3 of Avid Armors vacuum sealers. The a3100 model (least expensive) is perfect for the average home cook. It’s got all the bells and whistles you need, and a great price. The a100 model was probably my favorite sealer I’ve ever had the pleasure to use (until they released this chamber sealer). It was high quality, had a nice wide seal, and could perform consecutive seals time after time (I’ve done as many as 75 bags in a row without ever waiting for it to cool). That brings me to this bad boy, the USV32 Chamber Vacuum Sealer: Differences between chamber sealers (USV32) and traditional sealers (a100)- Traditional vacuum sealers work by sucking the air out of the bag, and then sealing it to prevent air from getting back in. Chamber sealers create a vacuum inside the bag, but also the chamber around it so there is no suction created in the bag itself (the pressure inside the bag, and in the surrounding chamber is the same), it then seals the bag and allows the chamber to re-pressurize. Since the pressure inside the bag was lower, and it’s sealed now it collapses around the food inside creating a perfectly sealed package. There are pros and cons of each type. The biggest pro of a traditional sealer is they are usually smaller, and the size of the item being sealed is only limited by the bag. This means it’s great for roasts or long items like tomohawk ribeyes. Traditional sealers struggle with things like liquid, because they pull air out of the bag, they tend to pull juices along with it. This makes it hard to do wet foods such as fish, but also hard to get all the air out of liquids like soups etc. The chamber sealer surpasses traditional sealers in almost every other way. They excel at wet foods and liquids because the air is removed from the bag and the chamber, liquids stay put. They also create a much tighter vacuum on odd shaped items. The bags are significant less expensive (they don’t have to use a textured side to slow down liquids, so are less costly to produce). They also allow for a marinate cycle, which infused meat or whatever else you’re marinating by cycling through vacuum stages without sealing. This drives the marinade into your food without having to let it sit for hours in the fridge. This also allows you to infuse things like fruit, cold pickle items, or infuse liquors like lemoncello (so good). This USV32 chamber sealer was extremely high quality. It has to weigh close to, or more than 25 pounds. The lid is a very nice thick glass and the sides are full stainless steel. The front has very nice soft touch buttons and the entire thing just FEELS premium. It’s a nice change of pace after handling food saver sealers... I’ve run almost 100 bags through this machine in the time I’ve had it, and haven’t had a single bad seal, or failed vacuum. The seal bar creates a DOUBLE seal, so even if one fails or you have a piece of food stuck in it you’ve got backup. They also go the extra mile and send a spare seal bar- yes you can actually REPLACE parts without having to buy a new machine, unlike many popular brands. I’ve had questions over the time that I’ve had my avid armor products and contacted customer service via email. They are always very prompt, polite and super knowledgeable. In addition to the extremely high quality of their products, their CS team is another big plus. Bottom Line: if you use a lot of bags, and seal liquids or wet foods often... this is the machine for you. If you like science (if you’ve never seen water “boil” at room temp go watch a video of someone sealing water in a chamber sealer) and impressing your friends at a dinner party... this is the machine for you! You likely will make up the difference in cost between a traditional sealer in the cost of bags, and gain all the additional features like marinade mode and ability to seal wet and liquid items. If you’re a more casual user, or don’t seal liquids then take a look at the Avid Armor a100, it’s the best traditional style vacuum sealer out there. Either way you’re going to end up with a vacuum sealer that will last longer and perform better than anything else you’ve used.

We've become freeze-dryer superfreaks over the past six months, and having turned to freeze-drying items like dog food, dog treats, soups, pasta dishes, fruits, snacks, etc., it became clear a vacuum sealer was going to make life much easier. While this was considered the preferred chamber vacuum of serious freeze-dryer superfreaks, I was super freaked out to spend $600, so I found the Beelicious DualCore CVS101 for about $350. I used it a few times before I started to realize that it had limitations for bag size. If I used a quart-sized mylar, depending on what was in it, it was difficult to close the cover, and often times it would not seal properly. No fault of the DualCore. It was just being asked to do something it wasn't built to do. So I made the leap of faith to the Avid Armor USV32, and it is 100% worth every penny. In addition to being able to handle larger bags, it just feels better when you open and close the lid, and it has yet to not successfully vacuum seal a bag. It came with an accessory hose, but also an extra chamber gasket AND seal bar. It has all but made my FoodSaver irrelevant, and is so much faster and easier to get working that I just leave it on the counter. Plus, we're using it for things I didn't even consider: I buy a bag of spring mix salad, and only use half the bag, I just give a clean cut to the top of the bag, put it in the chamber like any other bag, and in a matter of seconds, it's sealed and extends the life of that bag of salad. If you think you are up for a chamber vacuum sealer, don't cheap out. Investing in this will be well worth the investment.

I like it and lot! It seals the food saver bags (with the perforations) but won't hold them. Get the smooth bags for proper sealing...does a great job for marinating. It's really cool....and the seal only works great for breads. But ya have to put it in so.ething or bread crushes. I love the thing tho

I'm sure many of you have used some sort of vacuum sealer over the years, and they're great tools. This, however, is a Chamber Vacuum Sealer. It uses pouches. I also have a FoodSaver sealer that uses pouches, or roll stock. It was my third sealer. The difference is that the pouches lie mostly flat in the chamber (horizontally) while being vacuumed and sealed in the USV32. The main reasons I bought this unit, was the ability to seal "liquids" like soups, sauces and such. When I do Jambalaya for example, I make about 10 quarts, so I can freeze the leftovers for future use. I was using 32 Oz plastic containers for that, with snap on lids that I'm certain don't provide the same seal, nor were they "Vacuum sealed." Soups, stews and chili that I will cook and seal with the Avid, will be better shaped for optimum freezer organization. I can also "repack" things like bulk chicken pieces, to a smaller quantity more suited to "cooking for one." Individual "meals," like a quart of chili, can become boil-in-bag conveniences. If you Sous Vide cook, this can be a big help. You can package your protein, aromatics and marinade together, Vacuum, seal and freeze for future cooking. Things like lasagña leftovers, etc., can be well sealed for future use. I'm excited to put this machine to work. When I got it setup, I sealed three one-pound portions of ground beef. I left the default setting of 50 for Vacuum and 5 for seal intensity. I pressed the Auto Vac/Seal button and watched the countdown timer. Noise level seemed less than my FoodSaver. When it got to zero, I could hear a little hissing, but it appeared nothing was happening. All of a sudden, it went FFFOOOOOMP, all the air was vacated from the pouch, which then tightly surrounded the little brick of ground beef. When I examined the seal, it was professional looking and tight. It's built like a tank, and has a glass lid that allows viewing of the sealing process. It's adjustable in the length of both Vacuum time (0-99 seconds) and sealing intensity, depending on pouch material thickness. It can be used to seal one end of roll stock to create a pouch. It can be used to quick marinate proteins. It comes with an extension hose used to seal plastic canisters of dry ingredients, or connect to marination "tubs." I got the bundle, which included packs of two sizes of mylar pouches. The machine itself comes with a sample pack of a small quantity of 3 different sizes of pouches. It's finished in stainless steel and black, has a heavy glass lid, and a heavy duty 6' 3 prong power cord. It's also furnished with a replacement chamber gasket and sealing bar. It's not small, at 14" W X 15" D X 9" H (with lid closed), and weighs 25 pounds. It could be left on a counter, under upper cabinets, but would have to used in the clear, to get the lid all the way open. The specification "height" shown in the listing of 3-½" is the height of inside the chamber. It has convenient grab handles on both sides. Also comes with a filler plate of foam rubber to use with smaller amounts of foods being sealed. A professional piece of gear!

Tonight I bagged up the leftovers from a Carnitas dinner. We are not going to be home for dinner for the next two days, so I vacuum sealed the meat, grilled peppers and onions, olives, cilantro and rice and beans. We will finish them off in two days. The vacuum sealer is awesome. Works exactly as described. It is easy to use, seals nicely, is easy to clean, and is very well built. I was looking at the Chinese vacuum sealers for about $100 less, and though I think they may be more repairable than this unit (made of common parts), the extra $100 seemed well spent for a US supported product (still made in China) that should be less prone to breaking. It is also about 10 pounds lighter than the Chinese units (but still quite heavy). I have a few concerns: 1. I fear the glass lid 2. There are no replacement parts listed on the website should it ever need anything. This is a very expensive item not to have replacement parts available 3. The Oil-less vacuum pump is a nice idea from the reduced maintenance standpoint, but these pumps are basically designed to self destruct. The bronze walls of the cylinder are embedded with silicone. As the pump wears, the silicone is released to lubricate the pump. One day, the walls will wear enough that it will quit working. I would prefer the oil type pump which in theory should last longer. The reason for choosing a $600 chamber vacuum sealer instead of a $100-200 foodsaver style sealer are based on the cost of the bags. Bags for this unit run $0.04 to $0.08 each depending on the size. On a good day FoodSaver bags cost $0.50 to $0.76 each. At a savings of $.42 per bag, I need to run around 1200 bags through the unit to break even compared to buying a $100 FoodSaver. That assumes that a FoodSaver will last for that many bags (not likely). I have faith that this will easily seal that many bags and many more! As a single father of one, I seriously doubt that I will ever use this enough to break even. I did buy 2000 bags with it though! Please note that I am being compensated for this review. By posting this review, my warranty is being doubled to 2 years.