Choosing a vacuum machine: chamber, double chamber or thermoformer
Liquid decides the type, throughput decides the format, and gas flushing is decided at purchase. With manufacturer specifications and real cycle times.
Three questions settle 90 % of the choice of a vacuum packaging machine: does your product contain liquid, what throughput must you hold at peak, and will you need to flush gas. Everything else — brand, options, screen — comes after.
External suction or chamber: liquid decides it
An external suction sealer draws air out through the neck of the bag. That creates a pressure imbalance between inside and outside, and the imbalance siphons liquid toward the seal bar. On marinated, brined or cooked meat — which is to say almost everything a delicatessen produces — the seal is made on a soiled joint and does not hold.
In a chamber machine the bag sits inside the enclosure: pressure falls simultaneously inside and outside the bag, there is no gradient, and so no siphoning. That is the technical reason the chamber machine is the food-industry standard, and it is not a question of price bracket.
The second difference is consumables. External sealers require embossed channel bags; chamber machines take smooth pouches, which are markedly cheaper. At a few hundred packs a day, the consumable gap overtakes the purchase-price gap quickly.
On achievable vacuum, manufacturers state roughly 80 % for external suction, around 90 % for a chamber machine with a dry pump, and up to 99.8 % for a chamber machine with an oil-bath pump. The 99.8 % figure is published by Henkelman, whose control system also lets the setpoint be entered as a percentage, in mbar or in hPa, with sensor detection of the level reached.
The format ladder
Multivac classifies its chamber machines by batch size: tabletop for small batches, free-standing for small to medium, double chamber for large batches, belt machines for very large production. It is a throughput ladder, not a vacuum-quality ladder.
The case for the double chamber is one sentence, in the manufacturer's own words: while vacuuming takes place in one chamber, the second is already being unloaded and reloaded. The operator's handling time disappears behind machine time instead of adding to it. It is the only format that raises throughput without raising pump speed.
Read the pump together with the chamber volume, never alone
A pump capacity in m³/h means nothing apart from the volume it has to evacuate. What you compare is the published cycle time. The figures below are the manufacturers'.
| Machine | Format | Pump | Chamber (mm) | Cycle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Henkelman Mini Jumbo | tabletop | 4 m³/h | 310 × 280 × 85 | 18 – 67 s |
| Multivac C70 | tabletop | 8 m³/h | 305 × 310 × 120 | n/a |
| Henkelman Polar 2-40 | double chamber | 63 m³/h | 400 × 620 × 240 | 13 – 33 s |
| Henkelman Polar 2-50 | double chamber | 100 m³/h | 500 × 620 × 240 | 13 – 28 s |
| Henkelman Polar 2-75 | double chamber | 160 m³/h | 750 × 620 × 250 | 13 – 25 s |
| Henkelman Polar 2-85 | double chamber | 300 m³/h | 830 × 840 × 255 | 13 – 26 s |
| Henkelman Polar 2-95 | double chamber | 300 m³/h | 730 × 1100 × 280 | 14 – 31 s |
Manufacturer specifications (Henkelman, Multivac). Machines cited as sizing reference points.
Read the table top to bottom. Chamber volume multiplies roughly fourfold from the Polar 2-40 to the Polar 2-95, the pump goes from 63 to 300 m³/h — and cycle time stays inside a narrow band of 13 to 33 seconds. That is the whole sizing logic: the pump grows so the cycle does not move. A pump undersized for its chamber does not spoil the final vacuum, it lengthens the cycle — visible in the small tabletop machine's worst case of 67 seconds against 25 on a properly matched double chamber.
How many packs per hour?
No manufacturer publishes this figure, and you should be wary of anyone who quotes one. You can, however, derive it yourself from published cycle times: at 13–25 s, a Polar 2-75 runs on the order of 144 to 277 cycles per hour, then multiplied by the number of bags placed per cycle and by the overlap the double chamber gives you. A Mini Jumbo at 18–67 s runs between 54 and 200 cycles per hour. These are calculations from published data, not manufacturer promises — but they are enough to rule out an undersized machine before the sales demonstration.
Gas flushing is decided at purchase
Modified-atmosphere gas flushing is offered as an option across the double-chamber range, never as standard. If part of your production is poultry or sliced product, it is a capability you will want: on poultry fillets, an atmosphere at 40 % CO2 outperformed vacuum over ten days at 2 °C in a trial published in 2022. Adding the option to the order costs a line on the quotation; adding it two years later costs a machine.
When to move to a thermoformer
Beyond the chamber machine, the next step is rollstock thermoforming, which forms the cavity, loads, draws the vacuum and seals continuously. Multivac states around 10 cycles per minute on its R515, running PA/PE multilayer films for fresh meat, register-mark control for printed webs, and both vacuum and modified atmosphere.
The switch is not only about throughput: a thermoformer imposes a cavity format, a stock of film reels and a trained operator. It earns its place when the range is settled and the runs are long. While formats change every week, the double chamber stays more flexible.
Questions to put to the supplier
- The quoted cycle time is for which product and which vacuum level? A cycle measured empty and a cycle measured on a bag full of brine are not comparable.
- What bag size actually lies flat? The usable chamber dimension matters more than the overall one.
- Dry pump or oil-bath pump? This sets both the achievable final vacuum and the maintenance plan.
- Is the setpoint by time, by percentage, by mbar, or by sensor? A time setpoint drifts as the pump fouls; a sensor setpoint does not.
- Can gas flushing be retrofitted to this exact model? Often not.
- What is in the documentation pack? Declaration of conformity, instructions in the language of use, and a food-contact declaration of compliance for the contact parts.
What we bring
We size from your figures, not from a catalogue: peak-hour throughput, real bag formats, liquid content, and how the range is expected to change over three years. Boss Vacuum machines are sold by Marnoor; transport, installation, commissioning, operator training and original parts stay with us.
See the vacuum packaging page for the ranges, or send us your specification — technical reply within 24 hours.
