Maxkon Vacuum Food Saver Preservation Heat Sealer – Review

 

RRP $89.95. Currently on sale at crazysales.com.au for $69.95 plus postage (at time of publication)

This is a new instalment that you’ll be seeing on a regular basis. Any new products I buy or receive, I will share with you my opinions, whether good, bad or indifferent.

I was so happy when I received my food sealer. I have always wanted one, to see if food does last longer vacuum sealing than just wrapping in paper towel in the fridge. I received my new kitchen appliance in perfect condition last week but because of school I hadn’t had a chance to use it until over the weekend. I took the vacuum sealer out of the box and read the instructions, which have step by step photo instructions on how to use your new machine. I notice that not a lot of appliances have step by step photo tutorials in their manuals. So far so good – knowing how to use a new appliance is very important to me.

The Maxkon vacuum food sealer is clean and white with grey buttons, the power cord is stored in the bottom of the machine in a secret little compartment, which is great as the cord is out of the way when stored. The size of the machine is roughly 44cm(L) x 23cm(W) x 11.5cm(H). Being made a of a hard, durable plastic, it’s light enough to carry from bench to tabletop quite easily (weighing about 2kg).

There are four grey buttons and one switch on the front panel. The buttons (from left to right) consist of:
Cancel button – push the button to stop the sealing or vacuuming straight away. This lights up once pushed.
Seal only button – push this button to seal in the freshness of any condiment or food item. This lights up when pushed. The light turns off once sealed.
Vacuum/seal button – push this if you want to vacuum seal your bag. This lights up when pushed. Once finished, the light goes off and you know your food items have been vacuum sealed.
Cannister button (not applicable to this machine, but can be purchased from crazysales.com.au as well) is to be pushed if wanting to vacuum seal jars.
The Extended/Normal switch is the time you’d like to vacuum seal the bag. I’ve only used the normal setting, which seems to vacuum the correct amount of air out of the bag.

The machine is sturdy but should always be placed on a flat, working surface. Never use this machine on an uneven surface or on top of your stovetop. It has little non-slip feet so it won’t move around while you’re trying to use the slicer.

The machine comes with two 3m rolls of small (22 cm) and large (28 cm) sized bags (free with every machine). The bags are extremely durable & thick while being see-through and they’re top-shelf dishwasher safe for re-use! I’ve never know vacuum sealer bags to be re-useable before! BIG TICK! This makes it great to not only see your food but to allow you to seal the ‘heavier’ items like meats or whole fish and vegetables. The vacuum food sealer has the bag slicer compartment to give you precision and desired bag sizes. Rolls of bags can also be purchased.

The warranty on the Maxkon food vacuum sealer has a 90 day warranty, bags excluded, which you can contact crazysales.com.au for all advice. The whole unit, buttons and panels seem very sturdy. Obviously, as with any kitchen appliance, proper caring and treatment of this machine – no slamming down of panels or roughly sliding the cutter – is a must.

Take the power cord from underneath, allowing as much of the 120cm cord out as needed. It won’t get in your way as it has a track the runs along the bottom of the machine so it’s completely out of the way! Plug the machine in and it’s ready to use within one minute! It heats up that quickly!

To cut your bag, gently lift the rear panel, the bag storage compartment, ensuring the front seal panel is closed. Measure the desired bag size and place the roll of bags in, leaving the desired amount of plastic out, close the lid until it clicks and slide the slicer from left to right or right to left. Your bag is now cut.

The front panel has two grey buttons either side, which need to be pushed to lift the sealing compartment. This is where you put your bag to seal/vacuum. Close the compartment and press the seal only button to seal the bottom of the bag.  A red light will come on, letting you know the machine is in operation. Do not remove the bag or open the sealing compartment while any lights are on. The great thing about this machine is that it shuts off automatically! There’s no guessing when you think the bag has sealed, it does it all for you, just brilliant! Add your ingredients into the bag – ensuring you don’t over fill it or otherwise it won’t seal properly – and place the bag in the sealer section. Press the vacuum/seal button, a red light will come on, letting you know the machine is operating. Once the light switches off, your food products are ready to be stored in the fridge, freezer or pantry.

This is a welcome addition to any kitchen. Storing fresh fruit and vegetables in the fridge in paper towel in the fridge extends the life marginally. I decided to try mushrooms, fresh coriander and homemade empanadas (please do not try this at home – freeze them first!) as my first sealed and vacuumed sealed food. I look forward to sharing my results with you in the coming weeks.

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All in all I love how easy this machine is to use and how well it seals the food perfectly. It’s a great space saver too – fit more in your fridge or freezer. I’m looking forward to using this a little more, especially to use for such food items as poached ginger & soy chicken, flavoured sweet corn, trying some smoked trout, freezing my dumplings and even keeping any excess herbs or spices that may not fit in my jars, to just name a few things I’d like to try. What do you use your food vacuum sealer for? I would love to hear some of your ideas.

Crazy Sales send me products to review. By no means is this in any way a paid review. These are my own words/opinions and no one has told me what I should write.