We used the best vacuum sealers a lot when testing sous-vide machines, so we can confidently recommend the SousVide VS3000 as the best choice for sous-vide cooking. We’ve even used generic bags during our tests for both comparisons, and this vacuum food sealer does a good job working with them.
SousVide VS3000: How it performed
During our tests, the SousVide VS3000 proved to be good at sucking out enough air for the sealing bags to form close around the foods we were preserving. And after several days in the freezer, meats didn’t discolor and ice didn’t form inside the bags. We were able to pull chicken and hamburgers from the freezer and cook them up like they were bought that day. And the steaks we cooked using the sous-vide machines tasted wonderful.
There are guides or nodes inside this vacuum sealer machine to help keep your bags straight and in place during the sealing process. The SousVide does require a lot more lead on the bags for a good seal compared to other vacuum food sealers, which means there isn’t as much room inside your bags. This becomes a problem when you want to seal multiple items in one bag. This unit comes with 12 pre-made bags.
The SousVide VS3000 has a delicate mode and two vacuum speeds. However, you must choose your settings before closing the lid because this machine starts the sealing process once the lid is closed, even before the lid is locked into place. The lid locks easily and only has a single lock release button that is located just below the setting controls. This setup is much easier to manage than most vacuum sealer machines that have double locks on each side of the lid and require a lot of strength to close.
The indicator lights glow red while the machine is working and green when it stops and you can open the lid. This is the opposite of every other vacuum food sealer we tested, so it took us a minute to get used to this change.
While using the delicate cycle, this unit extracted the same amount of air and created as good a seal as its normal setting. It just did it at a slower speed that helped keep the form of the bread we saved. It did extract a lot of juice when we sealed the pineapple rings, but it properly sealed the bag without a problem. However, after settling for a bit, we noticed that the bag pulled away from the pineapple rings some, so the rings shifted a little. We don’t recommend the SousVide VS3000 as a long-term solution for sealing wet or juicy foods because of this.
Should you buy the SousVide VS3000?
The SousVide VS3000 vacuum food sealer is our top pick for sous-vide machine cooking. It seals all foods well, though we noticed the bags came away from wet foods after sitting for a few minutes. Though this sealer is easy to use, it does take a few minutes to get used to some of its quirks, like indicator light colors that are opposite from other vacuum sealers, plus the machine starts as soon as the lid is closed.
