Vacuum

The downside to non chamber machines is that you can't vacuum seal liquids. I get around this by freezing them prior to vacuuming. I have the Swiss manufacturer easyVAC by Vac-Star from sousvidetools.com

I am hoping to by their miniVAC soon, but costs £1100. But think will be worth it to vacuum seal liquids.

Hope this helps! Vickie

Many thanks Vickie but the cost is outside my range. I am 85 & ......
Soli.

I used a cheap vac sealer for awhile before moving to a chamber vac sealer. You don't need an expensive vac sealer for domestic sous vide, it certainly helps with bagging food + liquids but I don't find I do this much for sous vide and as Vickie says there are ways round this. To be honest, vac packing liquids in a domestic chamber machine is not always straight forward. You also don't need to pull a 'perfect vacuum for sous vide as the packets do puff up a little due to water vapour during cooking.

You will see that you can pay anything from around £30 to £300 for a vac sealer, I'd personally go for a cheap model or borrow one and see how you get on.

Thank you Tony. My question was how reliable are the £300 vac sealers ? If they break down easily as I have read on some blogs it wont be much fun sending them back on line etc.

Mini-pack makes two smaller mathines, the MVS-20 and 30. You are looking at $1,500 plus for this kind of chamber machine. If you do a lot of SV or vacuum paking for storage, they are worth every penny.

Here is where I got mine
http://vacupack.com/