I Used the Anova Handheld Vacuum Sealer for Over a Month—It Was Fast, Reliable, and Portable

A chef I worked for about 30 years ago did a stint at Thomas Keller’s Rakel in Manhattan and told me about “cooking food in Cryovac,” to which I made jokes about boil-in-bag meals, not understanding the concept. But over the next several years, sous vide gained wide acceptance, and vacuum sealers (previously niche products) rose in popularity. The most ubiquitous is the external sealer, which slowly sucks the air out of a bag, though there are also chamber sealers, which use pressure to evacuate air; both are large and take up a good amount of storage and countertop space.

I’ve had extensive experience with both types, using an external for prepared meal storage and a chamber when doing whole animal butchery. I appreciate them for what they are—benefits, limitations, and all. So, I was curious about a new, petite handheld sealer from Anova. What could this tiny sealer do? I put it through a battery of tests for over a month to find out how well it vacuum-sealed food.

The Tests

• Crush Test: Vacuum sealers often have variable settings, letting users adjust suction and seal strength. But the Anova Precision Port Handheld only has a single setting, so I was curious to see how it would fare when handling fragile foods. Would the vacuum be too strong and crush them? To find out, I vacuum-sealed one cup of cereal and opened and emptied the bag after to see how well it held up.
• Moist Food Test: One issue commonly found when vacuum-sealing food is moisture extracted from the food interfering with sealing the bag; the vacuum will work fine, but the bag won’t seal completely, allowing air to re-enter the bag. To see how well the Anova Precision Port Handheld dealt with this issue, I packed and vacuum-sealed pork chops, chicken thighs, and faux ground meat to see if water or actual or simulated myoglobin affected the bag’s sealing capabilities.
• Freezer Tests: I sealed a pound of faux ground meat and a considerable amount of leftovers before putting them in the freezer for approximately two weeks. At the end of the test period, I looked for loose-fitting bags and any evidence of freezer burn or frost on the food inside.
• Sous Vide Tests: To test the seal, I vacuum-sealed two bone-in pork chops (the bones tested the bags’ puncture resistance) with some butter and herbs, weighed them, and then sous vide cooked them for four hours. After cooking, I weighed the pork chops again to see if there was any weight loss via a poor seal or if the heat affected the seal.
• Usability Tests: Throughout the testing, I collected general observations that included ease of use, clarity of instructions, how easy the bags were to seal, and the state of the bags after cooking, storage, and cleaning.

What We Learned

The Vacuum Sealer Was Intuitive to Use

The sealer came with 10 reusable bags, a USB charger cord, and some mainly pictographic directions. Written instructions stuck mainly to safety issues, while those for operating relied on diagrams. Luckily, the basics of using this sealer consist of closing a zipper lock at the top of the bag, matching the round “mouth” of the sealer with a grommet near the top of the bag, and pressing a button, so it was easy to figure out. 

The instructions covered some basic troubleshooting topics, though there were only a few options for the vacuum not working: Either the zipper lock wasn’t completely sealed (a common issue), the sealer misaligned with the grommet, or the grommet was wet. The bags were stiff on first use, which made fully sealing the zipper lock challenging, an issue that often didn’t come to light until applying the sealer and seeing no air leaving the bag. But, once I got the hang of it, this was less likely to happen.

It Vacuum Sealed Well

Throughout the testing, as long as I checked all the operational boxes, meaning I’d fully sealed the bag, kept the grommet clean and dry, and aligned the sealer correctly, I experienced next to no leakage. During the sous vide test, the pork chops started at a weight of 680 grams and finished at 676 grams, which was within the margin of error to say it lost no liquid over four hours. 

The crush test wasn’t as promising at first, though, since cracking was audible when I vacuum-sealed the cereal. However, after opening the bag and pouring the contents out, I witnessed only a 2% crush loss, which was a more-than-satisfactory result and was honestly quite surprising.

I had no problems with the moist food tests—every item stayed sealed without a hitch. The faux ground meat spent 15 days in the freezer and emerged without frost or freezer burn, and with the bag still sealed tightly around the product. Leftovers fared similarly; I’d given the Anova instructions to protect leftover stuffing at all costs, and it complied. 

It Only Works With Proprietary, Reusable Bags

If there’s a gripe with the Anova Precision Port Handheld Vacuum Sealer, it's that it works only with its specific, proprietary bags. Many vacuum sealers aren’t married to a particular bag (provided you use bags of the prescribed thickness) and most also allow you to buy rolls of plastic and create custom-sized bags to suit your needs. 

While lots of sealers also have a heat bar for sealing the bags, the Anova uses a different method. Instead, it comes with a starter set of 10 resealable, reusable zipper lock bags with a special grommet to attach it to the device. This dependency means you’ll use the same size bag for all items, no matter the size, which was a bit irksome when fighting for freezer space. The zippers proved very stiff and demanding on first use, which led to some false confidence in fully closing the bag before applying the Anova sealer. After a few repetitions, it became evident that if the bag wouldn’t vacuum easily, the zipper didn’t fully seal. This is an excellent time to mention the sealer’s speed, which was quite fast after conquering the zipper. The pork chops took 13.5 seconds to seal with no bubbling on the bag’s surface, and the Chex Mix took only a little over six seconds.

The news on these bags isn’t all bad, we’re happy to say. Although the bags are fairly stiff and rigid on their first use, they lose that rigidity when exposed to heat. Heating the bags could be done via sous vide, hot tap water, or by running them through the dishwasher (there are some special considerations with the grommet system when machine washing; you have to remove the valve’s inner pieces, so follow the directions closely). The more relaxed bags made the game of freezer Tetris considerably more pleasant, and the zipper sealed much more easily. In the interest of sustainability, the reusability of the bags almost negates any of their foibles, and I’ll not let that detract from the sealer as a whole.

The Verdict

Anova Precision Port Handheld Vacuum Sealer

$24 at Amazon View on Anovaculinary.com

Pros

You don’t often encounter a palm-sized, handheld vacuum sealer; if you do, you might doubt its efficacy. But the Anova Precision Port Handheld Vacuum Sealer is tiny but mighty. It easily fits in a kitchen drawer, and the reusable bags roll up into a small bundle, so it’s great for the space–conscious user. It seals quickly, is significantly cheaper than many of its peers at $50, and, after a slight learning curve, seals wholly and effectively. This sealer is perfect for long-term food storage, sous vide cooking, or even meal prep.

Cons

I’d like to see some rearranging of the pictogram directions to illustrate the order of operations better. The one-size-fits-all proprietary bags were annoying in their stiffness and freezer space requirements, but the bags relaxed after first cleaning and became easier to seal and more flexible for storage.

Key Specs 

• Weight: 10 ounces
• Number of settings: 1
• Dimensions: 3 x 3 x 3.7 inches
• Included accessories: USB battery charging cable, resealable bags
• Highest actual pressure: N/A
• Built-in bag storage and cutter: No 
• Continuous seals: 150
• Time-out period between sealings: N/A
• Pulse setting: Manual
• Warranty: Two years

FAQs

What’s different about the Anova Handheld Vacuum Sealer?

A few things make the Anova Precision Port Handheld stand out from its contemporaries. The first and most obvious is its size. At three by three by nearly four inches, the Anova fits in the palm of your hand versus the more common countertop models on the market. The size makes it easily storeable and portable. The next is its bag compatibility. Because of its size, the Anova doesn’t have a heat-sealer bar like many models do and instead relies on a proprietary zipper-lock bag with a special port to attach the sealer to. That can be an annoyance, but the reusable bags make a big difference in the sustainability aspect of vacuum sealing.

What can you do with a vacuum sealer?

Although the popularity of residential vacuum sealers rose with consumer immersion circulators for sous vide cooking, vacuum sealers are far from limited to cooking food in plastic bags. Vacuum sealing increases the shelf life of many foods, whether in the refrigerator or freezer. Vacuum-sealed bags are also convenient for those who do weekly meal prep, eliminating the bulk and weight of storage containers. For the adventurous, and when armed with the proper knowledge and equipment, vacuum-sealed bags are a vital part of wet aging meats at home or aging certain homemade cheese, should you want to pursue those avenues.

Why We’re the Experts

• Greg Baker is a former James Beard nominated chef from Tampa Bay, Florida.
• He’s written about sous vide machines and pizza gear for Serious Eats. 
• For this review, Greg used the Anova Precision Port Handheld Vacuum Sealer for over a month, examining its ease of use and results.