Fish vacuum sealer suggestions

Haven't seen a discussion on this, What is the best meat vacuum sealer, or which ones do you guys use. Been looking around and am not sure if it is worth it to go and buy an expensive one or just to get a cheaper one. What's your guys thoughts?

Im using the foodsaver from Costco for years now. No complaint except you need to replace the rubber when it's not vacuuming. I buy my bags from Amazon.

Paging pmmpete...

I'll say the first one I had which was all manual pales in comparison to the automatic one I have now from Costco.  It doesn't matter until you have a bunch of fish, like 3 WSB, to package up    But then it helps a LOT.  Also like the pre-cut bags for that situation.  +1 on Costco

+1 Costco, always assured you get your money worth on any purchase there.

I bought a cheap $50 Ziploc Vacuum Sealer with the thought that if I use it a lot, I'd kill it and then buy an expensive one.  3 years later, 3 water fowl seasons, a lot of fish and now buying meat in bulk, I've not been able to break this thing.  I purchase rolls of bags from Amazon. 

The downside is that it is a lot of plastic waste.  The up side is frozen meat lasts.  I'm currently defrosting a goose breast from 10 months ago for tomorrow's dinner.

Sand

One thing about waste... I get a roll of bag material from Amazon, it weighs 3-4 lbs?  All that after use is in a landfill.  And it will be around for thousands of years.  I got some butcher paper to try and see how it works. 

Paging pmmpete...

My first vacuum sealer is a Foodsaver, which is a suction type of vacuum sealer.  It does a decent job of sealing fish, meat, and produce, and it's still working fine after many years, although like Darius I had to replace the gaskets which press on the vacuum bag.  After several years and a lot of use, the heat from the element which seals the bag deteriorated the gaskets.  Replacing the gaskets is easy, if you can find the right gaskets.  I buy my bags for this sealer in rolls, which is more efficient than buying pre-cut bags, because you can cut off exactly as much of the roll as you need to vacuum seal an item,whether it be big or small.  There's no waste. The Foodsaver sealer is quite compact, so I can bring is with me on road trips.

My second vacuum sealer is a biggish Cabelas brand sealer, which I got for our cabin.  It's also a suction type of vacuum sealer.  While bigger than my Foodsaver sealer, it doesn't do any better of a job of getting air out of the vacuum bags. I also use rolls of bag material in the Cabelas sealer.

Because I do a lot of vacuum sealing, I bought a Vacmaster chamber style vacuum sealer.  Chamber style sealers tend to be big, heavy, and expensive, but they do an outstanding job of getting the air out of vacuum bags, a lot better than any suction style vacuum sealer which I've seen.  I love my Vacmaster.  Because it's real heavy, I store it on a wheeled cart, with all of my vacuum sealing supplies on the shelves below the sealer, so I can wheel it into our kitchen when I need to do some sealing.  See the first picture below.  The vacuum sealer is so heavy it made the top shelf of the plastic cart sag, so I cut a piece of plastic laminate covered kitchen counter material which was removed to install a sink, and used it to reinforce the top shelf of my cart.  I suggest that you not buy a chamber style vacuum sealer unless you have some disposable income, and have a place to install it permanently on a counter in your kitchen, or you have a plan for where to store it and how to get it in and out of your kitchen, like my cart. You could blow your back out humping around a chamber vacuum sealer.  Chamber vacuum sealers don't need to use the textured bags made for suction vacuum sealers; they use smooth bags.  I haven't found any rolls for a chamber vacuum sealer, and if you did, you'd need a way to seal one end of each piece which you cut off the roll.  I buy oversized bags, save the pieces I cut off the bags, seal one end of each cut off piece in my Foodsaver sealer, and use the stubs for smaller items, so I have very little waste.  The bags I use the most are 8" x 15", and I typically cut 4" to 6" off each bag and use those stubs. See the second picture below.  I'll use most of those stubs the next time I smoke a batch of fish.

Im using the foodsaver from Costco for years now. No complaint except you need to replace the rubber when it's not vacuuming. I buy my bags from Amazon.

Same here fish, deer, elk, and when we butcher a big slab of beef at home.

Does anyone else have a problem with their foodsaver melting the seal too much and allowing air to penetrate the bag? It seems to me that mine gets too hot after sealing a couple bags. I can actually see the bag slightly inflate after I release the lock mechanism. Sometimes I grab a fillet from the freezer and there is a noticeable pocket of air. 
I've got the costco model and buy my bags there or amazon as well.

Not sure this helps but if I intuit a poor seal from liquid or simply not a good vacuum but it looks good at the time, I will pull the bag down another inch and seal it again, not vacuum obviously, but just seal...double seal so to speak...or I will even seal the initial seal twice right on the line...not sure this helps either but I’ve been pushing the bag with fish ready to go towards the unit and as it’s vacuuming, slightly pull back to attempt to find air pockets, kinda helping the unit do it’s work.  Not sure how successful but it seems like it helps...

Does anyone else have a problem with their foodsaver melting the seal too much and allowing air to penetrate the bag? It seems to me that mine gets too hot after sealing a couple bags. I can actually see the bag slightly inflate after I release the lock mechanism. Sometimes I grab a fillet from the freezer and there is a noticeable pocket of air. 
I've got the costco model and buy my bags there or amazon as well.

Try buying some bags with thicker plastic and see if that prevents the problem.

Does anyone else have a problem with their foodsaver melting the seal too much and allowing air to penetrate the bag? It seems to me that mine gets too hot after sealing a couple bags. I can actually see the bag slightly inflate after I release the lock mechanism. Sometimes I grab a fillet from the freezer and there is a noticeable pocket of air. 
I've got the costco model and buy my bags there or amazon as well.

Try buying some bags with thicker plastic and see if that prevents the problem.

Thicker bags are quite impressive.  Gonna look for rolls a touch thicker than generic food saver rolls.  Any leads?

Does anyone else have a problem with their foodsaver melting the seal too much and allowing air to penetrate the bag? It seems to me that mine gets too hot after sealing a couple bags. I can actually see the bag slightly inflate after I release the lock mechanism. Sometimes I grab a fillet from the freezer and there is a noticeable pocket of air. 
I've got the costco model and buy my bags there or amazon as well.

Try buying some bags with thicker plastic and see if that prevents the problem.

Thicker bags are quite impressive.  Gonna look for rolls a touch thicker than generic food saver rolls.  Any leads?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CQ8IXIK/ are the ones I use.  I often give up on the vacuum cstage and press seal to start sealing despite liquid being present in the textured channels.  I have yet to need to double seal the way I did with the FoodSaver brand.  They're also less than half the price of FoodSaver brand bags.

Does anyone else have a problem with their foodsaver melting the seal too much and allowing air to penetrate the bag? It seems to me that mine gets too hot after sealing a couple bags. I can actually see the bag slightly inflate after I release the lock mechanism. Sometimes I grab a fillet from the freezer and there is a noticeable pocket of air. 
I've got the costco model and buy my bags there or amazon as well.

Try buying some bags with thicker plastic and see if that prevents the problem.

Mine has the opposite issue. Sometimes I have to seal 3+ times to get it to really close up..   After about a year the vacuum pump fails, then I take it to Costco and get a replacement.  on my 3rd. buying a chamber sealer next but will have to start steaking fish out as a fillet cant be done in a small chamber..

for nearly 200 bucks i really was hoping it would work decently but theyre pretty finicky and die fast.

I probably go through 6 to 8 rolls of bag a year

Paging pmmpete...

My first vacuum sealer is a Foodsaver, which is a suction type of vacuum sealer.  It does a decent job of sealing fish, meat, and produce, and it's still working fine after many years, although like Darius I had to replace the gaskets which press on the vacuum bag.  After several years and a lot of use, the heat from the element which seals the bag deteriorated the gaskets.  Replacing the gaskets is easy, if you can find the right gaskets.  I buy my bags for this sealer in rolls, which is more efficient than buying pre-cut bags, because you can cut off exactly as much of the roll as you need to vacuum seal an item,whether it be big or small.  There's no waste. The Foodsaver sealer is quite compact, so I can bring is with me on road trips.

My second vacuum sealer is a biggish Cabelas brand sealer, which I got for our cabin.  It's also a suction type of vacuum sealer.  While bigger than my Foodsaver sealer, it doesn't do any better of a job of getting air out of the vacuum bags. I also use rolls of bag material in the Cabelas sealer.

Because I do a lot of vacuum sealing, I bought a Vacmaster chamber style vacuum sealer.  Chamber style sealers tend to be big, heavy, and expensive, but they do an outstanding job of getting the air out of vacuum bags, a lot better than any suction style vacuum sealer which I've seen.  I love my Vacmaster.  Because it's real heavy, I store it on a wheeled cart, with all of my vacuum sealing supplies on the shelves below the sealer, so I can wheel it into our kitchen when I need to do some sealing.  See the first picture below.  The vacuum sealer is so heavy it made the top shelf of the plastic cart sag, so I cut a piece of plastic laminate covered kitchen counter material which was removed to install a sink, and used it to reinforce the top shelf of my cart.  I suggest that you not buy a chamber style vacuum sealer unless you have some disposable income, and have a place to install it permanently on a counter in your kitchen, or you have a plan for where to store it and how to get it in and out of your kitchen, like my cart. You could blow your back out humping around a chamber vacuum sealer.  Chamber vacuum sealers don't need to use the textured bags made for suction vacuum sealers; they use smooth bags.  I haven't found any rolls for a chamber vacuum sealer, and if you did, you'd need a way to seal one end of each piece which you cut off the roll.  I buy oversized bags, save the pieces I cut off the bags, seal one end of each cut off piece in my Foodsaver sealer, and use the stubs for smaller items, so I have very little waste.  The bags I use the most are 8" x 15", and I typically cut 4" to 6" off each bag and use those stubs. See the second picture below.  I'll use most of those stubs the next time I smoke a batch of fish.

I bought my Vacmaster a few years ago.   I still absolutely love the thing.   The only thing I didn’t enjoy was carrying it up the stairs to my kitchen.  Other than that, zero regrets on the purchase.