horseflesh

The 300 looks like a good contender at that price point.

Congratulations! You're going to love it. I hope you also saved a bundle by deleting the printer.

By far, I use pint (6"x10") bags the most. Quart sized are next, I use them about half as often. I also have gallon sized bags but I might use 20 pint bags for every gallon bag. So far I haven't sealed anything too huge, but I do use the gallon bags when I want to reseal a bag over and over. For example if I have a giant Costco block of cheddar, I cut the bag open and reseal it after each use. This adds about eleven cents to the cost of the cheese, but also keeps it really fresh. The cheapest place I have found, when you include shipping, is VacuumSealersUnlimited.com. I looked at a dozen or more shops, pretty much every place I could find that sold chamber sealer bags. Another user upthread was really irritated that they delayed processing his order for a couple of days... that happened to me as well, so if you are in a hurry, I guess go somewhere else. But if you want decent bags at the best price, I could not find anyplace cheaper--and I looked hard. (If anyone does find a better deal, or a good price on small quantities, please post!) I'm using the 3 mil bags and have only very rarely wished I had anything thicker. When I have had a problem with puncturing the bag--and that only happened once, with biscotti--I was able to get around it by slowing the repressurization time on my machine. http://shop.vacuumsealersunlimited.com/3-MIL-Chamber-Bags_c67.htm Note that they do sell boilable bags as well. I decided to get my quart bags as boilable, which adds a cent or two per bag. However, if you are doing SV, all the bags are fine for lower temperatures. I wish I could buy some of the bags in smaller quantities. The neat gold-backed bags, for example... I'd like 100 of those, I just don't need 1000.

Chris & Poet, if you have any links to "vroom" techniques you enjoy, please post. I've yet to try pickles, and while I marinade I wonder if my procedure is the best.

Competition will surely help, but Paul is right--they can only get down to a certain price point while retaining features. If you want a Busch pump, that's just going to cost you more... though as far as I can tell, there is a heck of a nice margin built into the price of a chamber sealer.

Well, I'm not happy with the delay, but I am going to stick it out. I like the design of the Sansaire better than the Anova... I don't care for the touch screen, plus the Sansaire guy is a friend of a friend. Fortunately I didn't promise anyone SV for Thanksgiving!

The 10% off code won't work on chamber bags. I asked them about it, it's by design... Claimed they didn't have margin to spare, which could be true since that are already the cheapest bags I could find. Even if they always shipped a week late, I'd order again without hesitation. I probably saved $75 over making the same big order elsewhere.

It took them about a week to send my shipment of bags too. When I got the bags they were shipped from another state, so I think that the vendor is arranging for shipping from the manufacturer. I was so happy to have thousands of bags I forgot to mention the shipping delay, which was a bummer. I did see that other vendor in my price research and their bags are a cent or two more per bag, which adds up fast when you are buying in thousands. Their shipping is not any cheaper either. I'd still order from vacuumsealersunlimited.com again unless I that extra week really mattered.

I can help with this. I recently spent hours looking at every single source I could find for chamber vacuum bags. There is a massive difference in prices across different vendors! The cheapest source I found was http://www.vacuumsealersunlimited.com/. I bought their 3mm bags and have been happy with the quality. (Also, the owner is quick to reply to email if you have questions.) 3 mil 6x10 (pint) 1000 $.033/bag3 mil 8x12 (quart) 1000 $.052/bag3 mil 12x15 (gal) 500 $.098/bagShipping costs were still not trivial, adding about 1 cent to the final cost of each bag. As to bag size... I got pint, quart, and gallon bags, plus some 2.5x10 bags. I find that I use the pint bags the most, by far. I also find that the 6" width (5.5" opening) is just a little narrower than I would like. If I was doing this again, I would consider ordering a 7x9 bag as my smallest size. Then again, I can put 2 6" bags down at a time in my 35XP, which is really nice sometimes. It's hard to know what will work for you until you try it, and unfortunately you can't order these bags in small quantities. I really wanted to get some of the shrink bags and gold-backed bags, but I just don't need hundreds or thousands of them. (Maybe some Seattle folks would like to go in on an order of the exotic bags, and split them up.) I'll be happy to paste my notes in this thread or send them via PM if you want to see the other places I evaluated. Edit: I forgot to mention, I made my quart sized bags the boilable style. At that size, the extra cost for boilable was small. You can use all these bags for sous vide, but if you want to BOIL the food, the special bag is advised.

Dan, if you are waiting for an email reply I would definitely call Minipack. I have called a couple of times and they were great. Last time I had a technical question I spoke to Jamal. I'll be calling soon myself. My 35XP seems to have a faulty display.

After reading the Magnum love around here, I bought one... It's great. Very happy so far.

Here are a couple more developments in my 35XP story... I called Minipack this morning with a couple of questions. I talked to Jamal, who was very helpful. Again, this stuff might help future users so I thought I would share it. Behavior of the Vacuum Time parameter When setting up a program you will notice there is an extra "vacuum time" setting. When you hit 100% vacuum, you can have the pump remain on for longer, if you wish. Vacuum Time defaults to 0. But when you run a program with 100% vacuum, you'll notice that when the pump hits 100%, a 10 second countdown starts even if Vacuum Time is 0. What gives? Well, it looks like a counter, but truth the machine is counting down the last tenths of a percent of vacuum. It's a confusing display and I wasn't the first to call. Mystery solved, though. Blank Screen Problem I've noticed that after running a few cycles, my display might become garbled. The right half of the display may go blank. Sometimes, the entire display goes blank! When the machine is in this state, the computer still seems to be running, because I can keep closing the lid and running cycles. The machine still responds to key presses, you just can't always SEE the results. If you turn the machine off and on again, the problem goes away, though it may return again after a few cycles. Jamal at Minipack had encountered this before. His first question was, was I using an extension cord? (Nope.) He asked me to monitor the problem, and if it continued, they'd take care of it. It sounds like the cure might be replacing the display module, which may even be something the end user can do. I don't mind swapping components if the alternative is shipping the beast somewhere. I'll let the forum know what happens. It is inconvenient to reboot, but the machine is not unusable and I feel like Minipack will take care of me.

It looks like it is 15.25" wide, and 22" deep measuring the bottom of the cabinet. The center of the feet are set back about 1" from the edge of the cabinet. Remember it does have a "belly" that pokes out over the front feet, for a total depth of about 24".

I finally got the 35XP set up tonight. It was not hard with 2 people. Sadly my bag order isn't in yet so I can't do much yet. I'll try torturing some Ziplocks. Here's a tip for future owners--this screwed me up and I thought I had a defective unit for a while! When you do the calibration routine, read the instructions carefully, unlike me. During calibration, you see the pressure in mbar counting down. When it hits 0, YOU hit the Stop button. The machine won't stop itself, and if you let it keep going, it will keep pumping for 90 seconds and throw the "VACUUM TIME" error. After you hit stop, open the lid and WAIT until the screen shows "SAVING DATA." This will take over 5 seconds... it takes longer than you'd think... it feels like a long time... but keep waiting. When the machine does not have good calibration, it will misbehave. You MUST have a good calibration for the programs to work. You will also see reference to the "conditioning program" in the manual. This is how you heat up the oil to drive off dissolved water. You are also supposed to do it upon first use. Actually finding the conditioning program is a little tricky though, it isn't under any of the utility menus. Look at page 32 of the manual. The conditioning routine is actually on the second page of program setup. Say you are on P01, the machine's default state. Keep pressing the down arrow until you get to the bottom of page 2, where you see program options: VE SA CP AS SI IC LT The CP here is the conditioning program. To activate it, use the down arrow to highlight it, then press the right arrow to toggle it on. Then, I think you hit Start or close the lid. Now, you might think this means that you have set P01 to always be the conditioning program, but that's not how it works. It runs once and clears itself. IMHO conditioning should be an option in the same menu as Calibrate, but... whatever. The black and white manual says to condition first; the glossy printed quick start says to calibrate first. I reckon that conditioning first isn't going to hurt, and might help, so that was how I did it.

There's probably someone else out there thinking about buying this beast... I know I would have liked to see photos before I got mine. Enjoy. http://imgur.com/a/qgmwN Note that this is a special order that came without the printer. That shaved a good bit off the price, I was pleased. Send me a PM if you are interested in learning more about that.

One last update on my sealer saga... Big Tray is able to custom order the 35XP without the printer. I was pleased at the price, too. If that's interesting to you, contact help@bigtray.com for a quote.

Impurities would provide nucleation sites for tiny air bubbles, perhaps--but you didn't have any better luck with DI water. Interesting. Good luck with your quest!

Hi Soup, When I had a RO/DI water filter I found that my generic fridge made clear ice. It was not 100% clear, but it was vastly better than what I saw before I installed it. You can get a filter setup for something like $200 off Ebay, and put it inline with your existing icemaker water line. You may find that this does the job; if not at least you will have tasty ice and drinking water. I had originally installed the filter for the benefit of my reef aquarium, but the good ice and water was a nice side benefit.

After doing a lot of SV gear research, I decided to back this on Kickstarter instead of buying an existing solution, or making something myself. Like others I do not see the touchscreen of the Anova as a good feature. I want my SV appliance to be as simple as possible. I also don't want a rat's nest of wires, which is one of the reasons I decided to get an all-in-one immersion device like the Sainsaire instead of something like the SV Magic or Auber where you have several components to deal with. I am looking forward to getting the Sainsaire and I hope things stay on schedule.

I got the quote from Minipack for the 35XP minus the printer. It is a hefty discount, but direct sales don't begin with any discount off the MSRP, and there are shipping costs too, so the overall savings is not huge. I am not surprised, the manufacturer doesn't want to work against their resellers... This could still be a good option for some people though. I have permission to pass the sales agent's contact information on--please send me a PM if you would like that, or more details on the pricing.

Darn, I can't edit my above post. I ended up talking to Joe at Minipack. The differences between the 31X and 31XP are mirrored on the 35X and 35XP, which is what I expected. Joe was very helpful, and even mentioned that the 35XP is available without the printer as a custom order. I have an email out to another Minipacker and when I find out what the price is on that I will post a followup.

Hey Burke--can you tell me more about your 35X? It isn't I just exchanged some email with Big Tray. They told me that the manufacturer told them that the 35X and 35XP differ *only* in the printer. This would be UNLIKE the 31X to 31XP, where the XP adds more memories, the liquid instant stop, hot food program, infusion cycle, and some other changes. If the 35X does indeed have the liquid quick stop etc then I could get it instead of the 35XP, as I don't care about the printer. I suspect that the 35 models follow the 31 models' pattern, though.

I'm on the verge of deciding that I need the 35 instead of the 31 as well--same concerns, I want to buy it once and minimize compromise. What's another 10% cost at this point? However, I am definitely getting the XP model due to the hot foods program and other upgrades. You're right, that is a very good price on the 35x, especially when you factor in free shipping. I wonder if they can get the XP...

The gauge on front of the 215 seems to be marked in inches of mercury. Here's a table that lets you convert that unit to percent vacuum. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/vacuum-converter-d_460.html If you find that blog post, please follow up.

Hi, I joined the forum for this thread. I'm seriously considering getting the MVS-31XP and this thread, though old now, is one of the best discussions I have seen on sealers of that class. If anyone has more to share on the 31XP or other chamber sealers in that price range I'd love to hear it. I want to be sure I make the right decision.