4 Year Review Vacmaster 320 Chamber Sealer

[rexster314]

Yes, it's been 4 years since I got the Vacmaster 320 sealer. My wife wasn't so wild about it until the first time she used it. Thought I paid too much for it. (It was on sale at webstrauntstore.com) It was on sale for slightly less than 1200$ at the time.
It came in on a truck, took a friend and me about 20 minutes just to take the shipping crate apart, then the 2 of us and a dolly to get it inside my house. Yes, it's a heavy beast.
It came with a sample supply of bags, an extra seal bar tape, pump oil.
We have a small business on the side, smoking bacon for friends and family, and do roughly 250 pounds of bellies from curing to slicing and sealing each month. Prior to getting the V320, I was using a Foodsaver Pro, the 15" model. It gave good service, but even a premium sealer could only do about 3 bags at a time before having to cool off. Haven't had that problem since the V320.
The chamber can accomodate bags up to 16x20".
After the first year, I had to call the service dept for a problem. They figured it out in no time, as the digital readout had a problem code displayed. Turns out it was a proximity sensor for the lid. They shipped me one at no cost, I installed per directions, and have not had one problem with the sealer since. I changed the pump oil out last summer.
I keep the sealer on a custom cut down cart that I can roll around where it's needed.
I have had no problems with this sealer and highly recommend it. I see that it has a price of over 1700$ now.

 

[Marquez]

Thanks for the review. Very informative!

Out of curiosity, do you have any posts or threads on your bacon process?

I like to cure and smoke my bacon, however doing more than 4 - 6 at a time is my limit as I do not have the room in my coolers or in my cookers!

I am impressed by how operations plan and execute projects at scale.

Thank you!

 

[rexster314]

Thanks for the review. Very informative!

Out of curiosity, do you have any posts or threads on your bacon process?
I like to cure and smoke my bacon, however doing more than 4 - 6 at a time is my limit as I do not have the room in my coolers or in my cookers!
I am impressed by how operations plan and execute projects at scale.
Thank you!

Nothing exotic. I use the digging dog bacon calculator using 2% salt and 1.5% sugar. Bellies rubbed down, put in food safe bags, into a dedicated refrigerator and cured for 9 days. Taken out, dried to get a pellicle, then smoked using AMAZEN tube smokers in 2 Masterbuilt electric smokers. 250 lbs takes 3 days of smoking. The smoked bellies go in to the freezer then taken out the next day for slicing. 3 days of smoking and 3 days of slicing. On 2 of those days I'm smoking and slicing. All vacuum packaged