www.sausagemaking.org

Can anyone tell me if the Reber Vacuum Packer is a good buy and why !

Or perhaps you can tell me of a better one in the same price range would be great.

How much are replacement bags?

How long does the operation take to seal bags etc.

Good question on the bags - the Reber appears to use special bags, not the regular kind. I'm waiting on Franco to provide info on replacement bags.

Aris

Thank's for the reply, do you know what is special about them?

Or does special = awkward

Regards

Fatman

I use the Reber vacuum packer for all my spice mixes and casings, they are excellent value, I always wanted a vacuum packer but I could only find commercial ones at around �1000.

The one drawback with the reber and other home packers is that they use a different sort of bag to the commercial ones. The bags have ridges on one side of the sleeve which acts as a sort of drain for the air without sucking out the contents. the only thing that the reber struggles with is liquids (as I found out when I tried to pack some soup!!) For all other products it has become indispensable in my house.

The bags cost around 10p each which is around double the price of standard vacuum bags. I have tried it with standard bags and it jsut seals them and soesn't suck out.

On the whole it is a good piece of kit.

This is a table in Italian that compares the lenght of time products last with or without vacuum sealing..

http://www.reber-snc.it/tabella.htm


Franco

Ok, the question is though - where do we get the bags? Will you be selling them on your website?

I will put the bags on the site later today, they also come in a roll that you mcan cut yourself and make bags any length, these are ideal for long salami and full strips of biltong etc.

Franco

You say the vacuum packer isn't good with liquid - what if you pack some sausages, and there is a little bit of resudual liquid in there, or you pack some meat which has some liquid (a marinade for instance - does it handle this OK?

When are you going to put the bags online? I would like to see what is available and the cost before i consider buying one.