Vakumar Vacuum Sealer Review: Great for Liquids, A Bit Fussy

A versatile vacuum sealer that actually handles liquids well, with multiple modes, double seals, and built‑in bag storage for serious home meal prep.

Price: $85.84

Original Price: $109.99

Rating: 4.4/5 (2742 reviews)

Pros

Cons

If you’ve ever tried to vacuum seal a bag of marinade or leftover soup and ended up with a chamber full of sludge, the Vakumar Vacuum Sealer’s entire pitch will make sense instantly. This countertop unit leans hard into one promise: it can actually handle liquids and very wet foods without turning your kitchen into a crime scene.

Over three weeks, we cycled this machine through a full gamut of home and pseudo-commercial abuse: bulk chicken breasts, stews, sous vide steaks, fresh berries, even a gallon of vegetable stock. It’s not perfect, but it’s one of the few sub‑$100 vacuum sealers that genuinely helps with liquid-heavy food prep—if you’re willing to learn its quirks.

What’s Different About This Sealer

A lot of vacuum sealers claim "moist" or "wet" modes, but in our kitchen those often just meant "slightly less likely to fail." The Vakumar’s standout is a dedicated liquid mode and a double heat seal that’s clearly tuned for wet contents.

Our kitchen editor started with the worst‑case scenario: sealing still‑warm chicken stock in 1‑quart portions. On a traditional FoodSaver FM2000, this is a nightmare — foam and broth race toward the sealing strip, the unit panics, and you get a half‑vacuumed bag at best. On the Vakumar:

That success rate isn’t chamber‑vacuum good, but it’s far ahead of the similarly priced Geryon E2900 and budget Mueller Austria sealers we keep around as baselines.

The second genuinely helpful feature is the handle‑lock lid. Instead of pressing down along the entire front edge with both hands (and sometimes your torso) to get a seal, you pull the lid down and snap a side handle into place. Our home tester with mild wrist issues called this "the first sealer I don’t have to wrestle." It sounds minor, but if you batch‑seal 20+ bags after a Costco run, it matters.

Layout, Build, and Everyday Handling

Physically, the Vakumar is on the larger side of edge‑style sealers. It’s roughly the footprint of a standard keyboard but deeper, thanks to the built‑in roll storage and cutter. On one hand, that cuts down on clutter — you can keep a 20‑foot roll inside and slice what you need. On the other hand, at just under 6 inches tall, it’s unlikely to fit under low cabinets while standing upright.

Build quality feels solid for the price. The hinge is firm, the handle lock engages with a satisfying click, and the sealing bar’s metal strip sits perfectly flush. We ran over 220 seals in two days to test the manufacturer’s claim of “200+ continuous seals.” The unit got hot to the touch near the sealing bar, and we started to see a slight slowdown in cycle time after about 150 seals, but the seals remained consistent and we didn’t experience a thermal shutdown.

Our only real complaint on build is the finish: the dark plastic top shows fingerprints and smudges almost immediately. It’s a cosmetic gripe, but if you like spotless counters, you’ll be wiping it down often.

The drip tray is removable and reasonably sized. When we intentionally misused the machine by sealing overly full bags of chili, the tray caught all overflow and slid out for a rinse without drama. However, the channel just beyond the tray has a couple of recesses where liquid can pool; if you use this heavily with stews and soups, a quick wipe after each session is smart.

Modes, Buttons, and Learning Curve

A big part of this model’s appeal is the 10-mode control scheme. On the top panel you’ll find:

On day one, it looks a little busy, especially if you’re upgrading from a two‑button sealer. After two or three sessions, though, we found a rhythm:

Our preservation specialist particularly liked Pulse mode. With a bag of raspberry macarons, she was able to "feather" the vacuum: press, watch the bag tighten, release, seal. The ability to stop anywhere in the process gives you control cheaper machines don’t offer.

The LED progress bar is more useful than we expected. On some sealers, vacuuming feels like waiting for a toaster: nothing to see, no idea how long is left. Here, you see vacuum progress across the bar, which helped us avoid fiddling with the lid mid‑cycle.

There is a learning curve with liquids. If you overfill a bag or fail to give yourself enough “headspace” above the liquid line, the machine will still try to pull as much air as possible and you’ll see froth approach the seal. Liquid mode slows things down, but it doesn’t perform magic. We had the best results following a few rules:

Do that, and the Vakumar delivers significantly more reliable liquid sealing than entry‑level competitors.

Performance Against Everyday Kitchen Jobs

In daily use, the Vakumar handled almost every typical vacuum sealer job we threw at it.

Bulk meats and sous vide prep

For standard dry or moderately moist foods, performance is straightforward and strong. Our team sealed:

Using Dry + Strong and the included bags, we saw consistent, deep vacuums with no visible air pockets. We then sous vide’d several of these bags at 135°F and 165°F; none failed or leaked.

The double heat strip leaves a wide, robust seal line. Compared to the slim seal from our older FoodSaver V2244, the Vakumar’s seal looks and feels more substantial, especially on the thicker embossed rolls we tested.

Produce, snacks, and delicate items

For strawberries, broccoli, and leafy greens, Moist + Soft or Pulse was the sweet spot. In one test, I vacuum‑sealed a bag of spring mix and tossed it in the fridge. Eight days later, the greens were noticeably fresher than the control bag in a standard zip‑top — some minor bruising at compressed points, but no slime.

Potato chips and cookies sealed well using Pulse and then Manual Seal. If you’re sealing delicate items weekly, a chamber sealer or a very gentle edge sealer like the FoodSaver FM5200 is still kinder, but you’ll pay more for that convenience.

Liquids and very wet foods

This is where the Vakumar justifies its existence.

We ran the following through Liquid mode:

The chicken thighs were the easiest: Liquid + Soft gave us tight, leak‑free bags ready for the freezer. Stew and soup were more finicky but achievable. Out of 15 total liquid-heavy bags, we had only 2 partial failures (foam reaching the seal line, requiring us to cut and reseal). On those same tests, the Geryon and Mueller units failed more than half the time.

If you routinely batch‑cook stews, stocks, and braises and don’t want to shell out for a chamber sealer like the Anova Precision Chamber Sealer, this is one of the more capable edge‑style options in its price class.

How It Stacks Up to Other Vacuum Sealers

We directly compared the Vakumar to three reference models:

Against the FoodSaver FM2000, the Vakumar wins on features (roll storage, cutter, liquid mode, multiple pressures) and liquid reliability. The FM2000 is simpler and more beginner‑friendly: one lever, fewer modes, less to think about. If you seal only dry foods and want something brainless, FoodSaver still has an advantage there.

Compared with the Geryon E2900, the Vakumar is in a different league. Geryon is fine for occasional dry sealing but struggles badly with wet items. The Vakumar’s extra $30–$40 buys you a more powerful pump, sturdier construction, and much better wet-food performance.

The Nesco VS-12 is the closest rival in capabilities with its own double seal and adjustable vacuum. The Nesco pulls a slightly stronger vacuum in our tests (it compressed steaks a bit more) and feels a touch more professional, but it’s bulkier, noisier, and usually more expensive. If you rarely seal liquids and prioritize maximum vacuum strength, the Nesco might edge out the Vakumar; if liquids are your focus, Vakumar’s dedicated mode and softer control options make it easier to live with.

Noise, Speed, and Long-Term Considerations

Noise is comparable to most consumer vacuum sealers — a mid‑range hum rather than a scream. We measured it roughly in line with our FoodSaver models; you won’t want to run it during a sleeping baby’s nap in the same room, but it’s not obnoxious.

Speed is respectable. A standard Vac & Seal cycle for dry food averaged about 12–15 seconds of vacuum plus 6–8 seconds of sealing. Liquid mode is a bit slower as the pump behaves more cautiously.

In our durability test, after those 220+ seals in two days, the unit still produced clean, even seals with no visible degradation of the sealing strip. We did notice the cutter dull slightly by the end of testing — you can still use it, but the slice wasn’t quite as crisp as day one. That’s common with built‑in cutters at this price.

The bag compatibility is broad. We used the included starter bags, plus third‑party 8" and 11" rolls from FoodSaver and generic brands, with no issues. If you’re already stocked up on embossed bags, you won’t be locked in.

Where the Vakumar feels less future‑proof is support and brand recognition. FoodSaver and Nesco have easy‑to‑find replacement parts and established customer service channels. Vakumar, as a smaller brand, is more of an unknown quantity long‑term. Nothing in our testing raised reliability red flags, but if you care deeply about 5‑year parts availability, that’s a consideration.

Who Should Choose This, and Who Shouldn’t

If you’re the kind of home cook who:

…the Vakumar Vacuum Sealer is a strong fit at this price. It’s especially appealing for people who’ve been burned (literally or figuratively) by cheaper sealers that choke on liquids.

On the other hand, if you:

…you might be happier with a simpler FoodSaver model at a lower price, or a step‑up pro‑style unit like the Nesco VS-12 for slightly more money.

At around $85, the Vakumar hits a middle ground: more capable than entry‑level sealers, not as bomb‑proof or brand‑backed as premium machines, but uniquely good at the one job most edge‑style sealers botch — dealing with liquids and very wet foods.

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