CulinaryPrep / Lyco PMP-230C vacuum marinator mini-review (boring mechanical details included)

horseflesh · August 2013

So, I got the "PMP 230C" Lyco vacuum tumbler on Ebay. It was billed as "only used twice for a product demo" and from what I saw, that could be accurate.

I have only used it a few times but wanted to post my findings so far. I have seen references online to these machines back into 2008 so they aren't exactly new, but it has also been really hard to find information about them.

My unit is the smaller version on the right side of this page.

http://www.marinator.com/

They show the 20 lb drum, but I have the 10 lb drum. One of the reasons I decided to try this thing is the 10 lb drum it comes with... that's big enough for a substantial piece of meat. And if I like how it works, I can add the 20 lb drum if I ever need it.

The PMP-230C appears to be the exact same thing as shown here:

http://culinaryprep.com/index.html

Both web sites are horrible and broken, which makes me think that the companies could be related.

So, does it work? In short, yes. Marinading under vacuum definitely makes things go much faster. I've only used the gadget a couple of times so far but the results were really good. I tumbled a pair of big Costco New York sirloin steaks in a half cup of marinade for 20 minutes, and at the end of that time I measured the remaining marinade and found that each steak had absorbed about 1 oz. When I let air back into the drum, you could see the steaks slump--they had swelled up during the process, quite noticeably.

After cooking on the BGE, the marinade flavor was readily apparent in every bite, much more so than if I had simply soaked them for the same amount of time. Between the marinade and the tumble the meat seemed to be more tender, too. Not by a huge amount, but somewhat.

Later I will try some experiments, like marinading with a staining agent to see how far it really penetrates, and how that compares to marinading at atmospheric pressure. I am sure I'll learn how to better exploit this technique in time.

While the technique is sound, what about the hardware? Is this thing rugged and reliable or is it junk? Well, it's a mixed bag.

The drum itself is made of very thick plastic. You can hear it creak as it evacuates, but it's sturdy and as far as I can tell holds vacuum well. The vacuum port is poorly designed though, because you have to rotate a fitting to seal the lid before removing the vacuum hose, and when you do this you can hear a brief hiss--you lose some amount of vacuum in the process of disconnecting it. I think it is a small amount but it seems like there had to be a better way to do this.

The drum is dishwasher safe as long as you don't use the heated dry cycle. I find it really convenient to put the drum in the washer and run a Light cycle without drying. It only takes about 20 minutes, and it's a lot easier than washing the big drum by hand in the sink.

The tumbler portion of the unit has 2 driven wheels and 2 idle wheels. There is a timer with a maximum setting of 20 minutes. This part of the machine seems to work flawlessly. The drum doesn't wander off and the motor doesn't feel like it's straining. Note that I have not tumbled a big load yet, though.

The vacuum pump... this is where things get a little less awesome.

The specs that I found said it should pump down to -26 inches. In practice I can't get below -25 according to the built in gauge. OK, not so bad... the vacuum could be stronger but you also don't want to boil the marinade. Maybe -25 is all you need. There's a green range on the vacuum gauge that goes from -20 to -30, but I have no idea if you'd want to stop at -20 for some applications--the manual is very, very light on details.

The pump almost certainly has a heat-sensitive shutoff. On a hot day in my kitchen I couldn't get the vacuum below -15, because the pump kept quitting.

The pump has a hard time re-starting if the vacuum level is too high. If it stops for some reason halfway through--heat override, or you pause it for a phone call--you may not be able to start it again unless you let some air back in to the drum.

The vacuum hose from the pump to the drum is kind of crummy. There is a small jar in the line, designed to catch fluid before the pump sucks it up. But since you pump down the drum when it is upright, and everything is on the bottom far away from the vacuum port, you shouldn't be at risk of aspirating liquid anyway. This catch jar just adds t more failure points to the vacuum line. In fact, I had leaks from this apparatus. To fix them I disassembled it and used food-safe silicone on all the seals. To REALLY fix the leaks, I just removed the catch jar and plugged the line from the drum directly to the vacuum port.

Speaking of crummy hoses, let's talk about the internals. The 3rd time I used the pump, it crapped out and would not pump below -10. If I stopped the pump I could head a hissing noise inside the case, and the vacuum gauge showed we were losing vacuum too.

Obviously, I decided to take it apart. It disassembles easily with a handful of screws on the bottom. When you separate the top housing you need to unplug a computer cable. There is also a cutout by the power cable so you can feed it through the housing as you lift it off. It's all easy stuff, not too delicate.

The problem was simple: the 8x6mm polyurethane hose from the pump itself to the external vacuum line fitting had failed. It was cracked around the hose barbs at each end. So, I cut the bad ends off and pushed them back on the barbs. And they cracked again. The hose was brittle, just completely shot. I flexed it in my fingers and it broke in half Either the manufacturer just had really crummy hoses, or this thing sat around a long time before it got sold on Ebay. It's also possible that ozone from the pump and tumbler motor degraded the original hose.

Anyway, a bad hose is good news--I can fix a hose, but if the pump itself had problems, the machine is a doorstop. I made a hardware store run and returned with a few kinds of hose to try out. A 5/16 x 3/16 vinyl hose did the trick--it's a much tighter fit than the stock hose, but it is close enough. After installing the new vinyl hose inside the case the machine pumps down quickly and the vacuum holds.

It's obvious that the "medical grade" vacuum pump is the weak point of the whole system. Everything that can be made of plastic, like hose barbs, is. The pump can be fussy and you may well have hose quality problems. If the pump ever dies the machine is almost useless. HOWEVER, since the drum itself and the tumbler both seem to be trouble-free, you could buy a separate vacuum pump and keep using the system. I would definitely investigate that before I replaced the stock pump.

Bottom line, I am glad I got it, but I can't recommend this exact unit to anyone until I have used it more. If the vacuum pump continues to work well, I would give it a thumbs up depending on price.

Hope this helps someone!

The Cen-Tex Smoker · August 2013

Ive read about this in several places and the general consensus says that marinating under vacuum provides no additional benefit to marinating under atmospheric pressure. There is a study out there where they did the food coloring and measured penetration etc.

I think the proof is in the pudding though. If it tasted better to you, by all means do it.

Here is a study done by the USDA. I'll see if I can find the one with all the food color added and the cross section photos.

http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/9763/PDF

Again, not saying don't do it, just passing along some of the stuff I've read about it.

Eggcelsior · August 2013

Reminds me of the bariatric chamber at work. We use it for CO poisoning patients and soft tissue infections. It forces oxygen into tissue in the opposite manner.

Botch · August 2013

I wonder if its the tumbling that helps saturate the meat. I would think, to force marinade into meat, you'd use pressure, not vacuum...

horseflesh · August 2013

It could be the tumbling, not the vacuum. I have read some discussion of pressure marinading elsewhere and people said it worked pretty well too. That actually makes even less sense to me, though. Fluid is incompressible. If I go scuba diving and put myself under 4 atmospheres of pressure, I don't get marinaded and I am made of meat.

That paper specifically discusses the penetration of salt water. Adding an acid to the mixture, as common in marinades, may change things, I dunno.

Since they sell commercial-grade vacuum systems that process hundreds of pounds of meat at a time, it seems like there must be something to it. If it was completely ineffective would a commercial operation spend a ton of money and add time to their workflow? But, sometimes dumb things that don't work get a lot of traction.

One thing I didn't mention in my review--I tried processing sliced strawberries in Frangelico in the tumbler. I also soaked some at atmospheric pressure for the same amount of time. We had 3 tasters and each agreed the vacuum strawberries had more liqueur flavor... but it was NOT a double blind study and bias could have been a factor.

There's a lot of hoodoo around this stuff. My taste-test tells me it works to some degree but I'll admit it might be wishful thinking and I also haven't isolated all the variables yet.

The Cen-Tex Smoker · August 2013

My very non-scientific theory on this is that it is the tumbling that "scuffs" the surface of meat making for more surface area for the marinade to adhere. According to eggcelsior's admitted love interest (Adam Perry Lang) this is the secret to adding flavor to meat. I'm going to get my baseball bat to "season" my ribeyes.

The prevailing thought is that pressure (not vacuum) allows for a very small additional amount of marinade to penetrate the meat (and it is very small).

CulinaryPrep / Lyco PMP-230C vacuum marinator mini-review (boring mechanical details included)

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