need advice on a affordable home vacuum packaging machine for sous vide

[Timbo54]

I've got a Foodsaver from Costco. We bought it about 10 years ago and love it. The one thing I do is double seal the welds. It works great when reheating mash potatoes, vegetables. Just drop into the Sous Vide bath. I haven't really taken it over 131 degrees when working with beef. I see Costco is selling a newer model for 139.99. The go on sale a couple of times a year at Costco. I suppose if you don't like it for any reason you could return it back to Costco. Good Luck on any model you choose, I think you'll find it very useful.

[Bighorn Dave]

Here is a short video that does a good job of explaining the advantages for both chamber and suction sealers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaP9REQR4T4
IMHO if you use the machine a lot your ROI will be well worth the upfront cost. I've had plenty of FS machines but unlike what others here have stated, I experienced way to many failures. Then again I am a pretty heavy sealer user so maybe I over worked the FS machines. I now have a Vacmaster VP215 that I've had for a couple years now. It has been flawless and gets used every week for one thing or another. I had two justifications for spending the extra at the time I bought. First I wanted something I could rely on and secondly wouldn't get taken to the cleaners each time I bought bagging material. The FS bagging material are like printers. The machine is cheap but they get you on the ink, or in the case of FS, the bagging materials and there are no options for heavier mil materials. As the video demonstrates the chamber material is roughly 25% that of the FS. I use mainly 4 mil material and it being a little more $ than the 3 mil is better suited for most of my needs. In the two or so years I've had this I've gone through well over 2,000 bags and not one failure. Would I recommend a chamber sealer if you only use it on occasion, probably not, but once you have a chamber sealer you tend to find more and more uses and reasons to use it. Bottom line it really is a personal choice and if just getting into sealing perhaps the FS is the better choice for you. Just remember that in the future if you find you can justify the chamber style then it's not a bad option either.

[EdF]

Agree with Dave's assessment here. I never did the FS thing because of the bag prices. But I destroyed three toggle style vac sealers over about 8 years before switching to a VacMaster chamber sealer. Have had that since at least 2010, perhaps longer, with no issues.