paulpegg

I just ran a few tests with a bag about 1/3 full of water. (10" x 13" bag.. 1. Lid open, time set at 5 sec, seal at 5 sec. Pump ran, seal bar did not raise but it got very hot at 3 seconds. 2: time at 5 seconds seal at 5 sec. Vac ran to about -15, seal bar raised at 3 seconds. Result, bag half full of air, crummy seal. It was puckered like in the photos above. 3: time at 5 sec, seal at 8 sec. Vac ran to -15, seal bar raised at 3 sec. Result bag half full of air seal still sort of crummy and puckered. 4: time at 35 sec, seal at 8 sec. Vac ran to -28, seal bar raised at 3 sec. Result, water "boiled" bag had no air and seal was perfect. (Even better than the 5 second seals I have been doing all along.) Conclusion: You need to pull a good vacuum for this thing to work correctly. The seal bar is not vacuum operated. There are brass rods at either end of the seal bar that push the bar up at the end of the vacuum cycle. You can pull them up by hand if you get a good grip on them. They have a rubber seal and an E clip that serves as a stop for the rod. Air in the bag when the vacuum is released seems to cause the seal to be imperfect since it is pushing against the soft plastic that is quite hot.

I think the seal bar is pushed up from below by an actuator when power is applied to the bar to seal the bag. If the bar was pulled up by the vacuum it could stop complete evacuation of the bag prematurely. You can hear it engage just before the pump stops.

I don't think it would hurt at all. The power to the pump is shut off at the end of the cycle anyway. The vacuum releases at the same time so there is no opportunity to suck air back through the pump. I have only done it a few time on my VP112 just because I could see that the seal was not going to be good anyway. Generally it was because I saw the bag pull away from the sealing bar. I have seen this happen when the inside mouth of the bag was wet with whatever liquid was in the bag. This can prevent the air from being completely pulled out of the bag and you will end up with a floater or a pulled out corner of the bag under the seal bar. That is when I abort, take out the bag, clean and dry the opening and reseal. You will be able to pull much stronger vacuums on the VM-215, which is nice if you want to crush watermelon.

I have never used less than 30 seconds vacuum and sometime go as high as 50 seconds, especially with items that have bones in them like short ribs and lamb racks. I also use a seal time of 5 seconds and have had maybe a half dozen bad seals out of hundreds. Perhaps the long seal time is overheating the plastic and it is deforming when the vacuum is released. Watch the vacuum gauge and be sure you get to -28 during the vacuum pull. If not, abort and increase the time until you do. I abort by turning the unit off in the last 5 seconds. It will stop the pump and not seal the bag giving you the opportunity to make adjustments.

I agree. You need to ensure that the bag is flat across the entire length of the bar before you push down the clip in the center. Also be sure that the bag is under the clip properly.

How do you know you pulled 29.5 hg? I'm told that's as high as any machine can go and it truly does this, then the VP-112 may be the machine for me. I'm hesitating because I want to make sure that whichever machine I buy gives me the option to not only seal but compress fruits, do brine infusions, etc I have never gotten better than 28" Hg on my 6 month old VP112. I ran up to 60 second pulls and the gauge never went over 28". It gets to 28" in 30 seconds and that's it. I guess it will compress citrus but it sure doesn't compress watermelon! It still does everything you need for sous vide which is my primary application. You need an oil filled vacuum pump to pull 29.5" Hg.

Well, I have searched and searched and cannot find a single place where PS states the actual vacuum level the can achieve in this box. At least the VP112 has a gauge that shows where you are. I think their marketing material leaves much to be desired. A 60 pound box with a dry pump? This is equivalent to the VP112. I doubt they can do to even 98% but of course, they aren't telling. Are they? For twice the money I would beware.

The simple answer is that a dry pump is not capable of pulling a 99.9% vacuum. At best, you can expect to achieve 93-95% vacuum. This is still good, unless you want to compress watermelon. A dry pump is also prone to wear due to contamination from water vapor that comes from the food at low pressure. This is the reason you should never vacuum seal warm or hot foods. The oil pump will not have this wear because the oil absorbs the moisture and the pump continues to be well lubricated. Changing the oil is not a big deal but should be done at least once a year or more, depending upon usage. I have a VP112 and it is fine for home use. I don't really need to crush watermelon so the lower vacuum level works fine for me. I doubt that there are many home users with oil type chamber sealers.

I paid $540 for my VP112 and am very happy with it. It won't be easy to make a cheaper chamber that can withstand -.95 atmospheres without using very expensive materials or making it spherical, which would make it huge! The choices used now are standard steel and are fairly thick to prevent the flat sides of a cube from collapsing under the pressure. Pressure vessel design standards cannot be ignored. The pump and electronics are a minor cost in comparison. I looked into building my own and could not beat the price of the VP112. The VP112 also cannot pull as full a vacuum as the higher priced units. Want it lighter? Give up on the spec's. BTW, all other household appliances are being redesigned with lighter and cheaper materials. They also are not expected to last as long as the old iron that they replace. I bought a new refrigerator and washer this year to replace two 30 year old units. The new refrigerator weights roughly half the old one and has been serviced already. It also has very poor distribution of temperature in the refrigerator side. The tech advised me to take out a contract if i plan on keeping it for more than 5 years! The washer also had to be serviced and I got the same info from that tech. I helped him take the thing apart and it is all plastic and PC boards. I doubt that it will last 15 years much less 30! I bought the VP112 because I got tired of the foodsaver type bags leaking over time in the freezer. I have not had a single failure with the heavy bags from vacuumsealersunlimited.

I recently bought 1000 of the 8"x12" bags which will last well beyond my expected lifetime! If you want to buy an order of 7"x9" bags. I will be happy to share half of mine for half of yours, or split smaller quantities for different sizes. Whatever works. Best, Paul

Wow, at that price I would want to do the best job possible. You would probably want to add some marinade to them (or at least salt and pepper) so take them out of the bags and start fresh. I usually do Momofuku 48 hour ribs which have a really great marinade in the bag.

What model of PID controller did you buy? Maybe you can select 1° resolution or 0.1° resolution in a parameter menu? If not, you might change to Fahrenheit so you can set in 0.5°C intervals. The type of thermocouple is also important. Most PID's will only control to .1 degrees if you use a platinum probe PT100 type. You have to set the thermocouple type in the PID setup.

I have sous vide cooked asparagus for 150 people well ahead of time. I usually allow 6 - 8 spears per person, depending upon the menu. Bag a pound of asparagus (after you snapped off the tough end) with some salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons of butter. Cook them at 83C for 30 minutes then quick chill in a large ice bath. Reheat the next day at 52C for at least 30 minutes. Serve straight from the bag with a squeeze of lemon juice. Can't be beat.

I would sous vide overnight and then go directly into the rotis as hot as you can get it for whatever time it takes to get the crust you want. 15-20 minutes should do the trick. Have the torch handy to touch up any areas that don't get as crusty as you want. When I do momofuku short ribs I sous vide them for 48 hours and then dry them off and deep fry them for 2 or 3 minutes. They get a fantastic dark brown crust and are perfectly medium rare all the way through.

Your heat was much too high if the butter turned black which occurs at about 300F. Using clarified butter or ghee will work a little higher but rice bran oil will smoke at 415F (213C). If you put butter in that hot a pan it will burn almost instantly..I generally sear steaks, that have been patted dry, in a smoking hot dry pan for about 45 seconds on each side.. Soybean oil has the highest smoke point at 495F (257C).

I have been looking into getting a VP215 and found it several places for around $900. There are a bunch of them called "ARY" "Fleetwood", Elite" "Alfa" etc. Does anyone know if all of these are manufactured by ARY or are they knockoffs for lord knows where? Some of them have the Vacmaster logo across the top of the control panel and some don't, including one that claims to made by ARY. Is the 215 worth the few $ extra plus the extra weight? it sure wouldn't be easy to move around.

I use 52C for almost all cuts of steak. Tender cuts get 3 hours and tougher cuts like flank steak up to 8 hours. I found that 55C on strip or flatiron steaks was too done for my taste. I always post sear on a smoking hot cast iron skillet for 1 minute on each side. This is all personal preference stuff. The best way to find your ideal temperature is to experiment until you find it. All of Jason Logsdon's books have time/temperature suggestions that are great places to start from as is Douglas' paper..

Sorry, it took a bit longer to activate than I expected. All is well. I am cutting up a 15 pound beef strip loin today and will create about 24 individual servings in 24 bags. It would be nice to be able to specify the number of bags to be entered and have the system create the listings automatically. Duplicating the first bag 23 more times is a bit tedious. There will be lots of requests like this as we start to use it. Thanks for getting it going.

I have a problem. I registered but my login is not recognized. I get the OOPS message.

Yes it does. Here is my version that I did for Valentine's dinner. i used a New Zealand rack from Restaurant Depot. The rack was given a dose of salt, pepper and garlic powder, bagged, SV at 53C for 3 hours, then seared, coated with honey and mustard and herbed bread crumbs per Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home and finished for 10 minutes in a 220C (425F) oven. The sweet potato was cut in half, coated with EVO and roasted cut side down for 30 minutes in the same oven. The bok choy was cut in half, seared cut cut side down with some garlic slivers in some canola oil and then covered and steamed in the same pan with a half cup of chicken stock. I like my meats rare and have found that 53C is just right for red meats.

Sorry, the link was misspelled. Try it now.

I have posted this a number of times but here it is again. http://lesmarmitonsnj.com/sous-vide-cook.pdf i built this setup in 2010 and have been using it constantly ever since. Read the addendum a the end for info on pumps. Best, Paul

I have cooked venison loin for 30 people with salt & pepper in the bag and sv at 54C for 4 hours then seared for about a minute until nicely browned. It did not turn mushy at all. You can treat it the same as beef loin. I have seen recipes with time from 1 hour up to 12 hours in the bath with no apparent problems. For a non-sous vide method try the thrird course here http://www.lesmarmitonsnj.com/recipes/1012recipes.pdf This was a real hit with our members. Paul

You could always use a ziploc with the water displacement method and then seal that bag in a regular bag for long cooking times. If the ziploc leaks you are still protected and you are in no danger of pulling liquid into your Foodsaver. Put some weight in the second bag to keep it deep in the bath.

Keep doing it and in a year or two you will be serving up great sous vide dinners without breaking a sweat. Example; On Tuesday i decided to have some Momofuku short ribs. I have a number of two serving bags in the freezer at all times. I portion and salt and pepper the meat and seal it in a bag with 1/2 cup of the marinade and put them in the freezer. Late Tuesday I set the sous vide system to 55C and put in one bag after it got to temperature. This evening i took it out, seared it in hot oil and served it with some mashed potatoes and blanched/seared brussels sprouts and cranberries. It's sort of like walking around the block. No big deal but delicious.