In the past five years I’ve gone through 3 vacuum sealers, all due to pump failure. In those 5 years I’ve lost a fair amount of fish to broken seals and the freezer burned fish that results. It a pain in the butt to go to pull out a piece of Chinook for dinner only to find out that that piece of fish hasn’t been good for weeks!

The frustration with the standard plastic vacuum sealer led me to Cor Hoffman of Kodiak Health . I found Kodiak Health while searching for a better vacuum sealer. Kodiak carries the line of VacMaster vacuum packagers and before I knew it I had the VacMaster 150 in my kitchen to demo on some fresh Salmon!

Before I get into the review, here is a quick intro to the different types of vacuum sealers on the market. The VacMaster 150 is an external vacuum sealer. The product is placed in the bag and the air is sucked out the end of the bag and then the heat seals it shut. The second kind of vacuum sealer is a chamber vacuum sealer. The product is placed inside a chamber where the air is removed. A chamber vacuum sealer is for heavy use and can cost 5-10 times what an external vacuum sealer will sell for.

VacMaster 150 Review

Appearance/Build: The VacMaster 150 is an impressive piece of machinery. The VacMaster 150 is 100% stainless steel and has a nice weight and feel to it – the

Stainless Construction

Large Catch Tray

Digital Display

machine definitely looks and feels like a commercial unit. The control panel is sharp; no wonky plastic knobs, the machine is controlled by a digital interface and the settings are intuitive.

Features: The VacMaster 150 has a manual and an automatic setting. In sealing the piece of fish that is pictured with this review, I used the manual setting as fish can  take a while longer to seal. For hard products I found the automatic setting to be perfect – the machine has an automatic vacuum sensor that will automatically seal when all the air is out of your product.  One of the most notable features of this vacuum sealer is the large catch tray. It is significantly larger than the Foodsavers, which makes for easer collection of juices and results in less monkey-ing around to get the bag to line up properly.

Test: I tested the VacMaster 150 on a few products including a piece of salmon, some cheese and some salami. The machine did a great job on the salmon, which is a tough task for an external vacuum sealer. On the cheese and meat the product was pulled tight with all the air removed. The machine performed very well.

Final Thoughts: The VacMaster 150 is a very nice step up from the plastic sealers I’ve used in the past. It truly looks feels and performs like a commercial vacuum sealer. If you aren’t ready to spend the $1500 that a chamber vacuum sealer will run you, I encourage you to check out the VacMaster 150 at Kodiak Health. Oh, and if you are ready for a chamber sealer, Kodiak has a full line for sale as well!

More Information: VacMaster 150 at Kodiak Health