There are two sizes of the FS canning jar attachments. One is meant for regular mouth canning jars, and the other is for the larger mouth canning jars. Yes, they use the exact same lids used in home canning. The lids are placed on top of the jar, and the attachment is pushed down over it to make a seal between a rubber ring and the glass bead just below the threads of the jars. Once air is pulled out, and you pull off the vacuum hose from the attachment, a tiny 'slug' of air, blasts into the small vacuum hole and the lid is forced down onto the jar and seals it. You remove the attachement then and rinse off the jar if its wet. The seal is very strong and is usually far better than a regular canning process would do. As mentoned, The FS vacuum pump is NOT powerful enough to be safely used as an alternative to regular canning processing. Besides that, if the very small vacuum pump inside the FS gets any trace of moisture in it, it can cause damage to the FS machine. I use a much higher powered piston type vacuum pump and also have a water/moisture trap on the vacuum line. The pump I have quickly goes down to 30 inches, which is sufficient for a decent vacuum. I also vacuum seal dried herbs like dill weed. It remains very fragrent and bright green color, even after 2 years of storage.

One 3rd yard sale food saver. ALL worked just fine! First one... sealing gasket was a bit shot. Washing/drying well and turning over gave it a little longer life. Second on is a real bare bones model and I have NO complaints about it. BUT last weekend hit the mother lode at 2 years sales. At LEAST $60 worth of bags, including a package of maybe 30-40 8" bags and a box of 4 rolls, both UNOPENED! AND a food saver that is a serious upgrade from what I had... tho seems to be discontinued. Spent a whopping $10 for everything. FS has an attachment that vac seals lids onto wide mouth mason jars. NOT for canning, but great for things like rice, beans & small pasta. Have found a messa their cannisters, but more often than not, they lose their seal?? I'm cooking for one & always lookiing for bargains in the meat/chicken area. A regular sized package of ground beef or boneless chicken breasts is just TOO much for me to cook for just me. I repackage, vac seal and freeze. A portion for 1-2 servings only takes about 20-30 minutes in room temp water to go from rock hard to ready to cook. A few times a year, my freezer get to avalanche stage & needs a reorganization. I NEVER find freezer burned stuff buried at the bottom any more.

So much for promising I would post an evaluation after I used my new sealer. I totally forgot to do so. I splurged on the Ary VacmasterPro 305, buying it from their website. It was by far the best price I could find at the time. I preferred it to the 350 because I store it in a vertical position on my countertop where it takes up only 3 or 4" of space horizontally. I do have to store it carefully because the lift-up sealing section falls upon when it is stood upright on the back. Not a problem--that side goes to the wall which holds it together. I do not think they still sell this model. The 350 is significantly thicker and would require as much as 7 or so inches of horizontal storage when stood on end. The 305 is not available on Amazon either so it may no longer be available. I have used mine with the old FoodSaver and Sous Vide Supreme bags, with some bags I bought on line, and with the provided bags from Ary. No problems with any of them--although I did have to shorten the sealing (not vacuuming) time because it was melting all the way through the bags. I cut bags from a roll to the length I want (or select a pre-used one) and seal one end, then vacuum and seal the second end. I waste far less this way than if I was using a machine with stored roll dispenser. I can seal the first end with about 1/2 of waste. (I leave less waste than the 305 video on the VacMaster website shows.) Then I cut the bag 6 or so inches longer than I need and use Dcarch's system of wrapping the food in an unused produce bag from the grocery produce department before inserting it into the vacuum bag. Finally I vacuum seal the second end of the bag, again losing about 1/2" of bag, wrap the excess bag over the food, and stick it in the freezer. Because this vacuum sealer seals a double line instead of a single one, I usually do not bother to seal twice, as I used to with the FoodSaver and SousVide sealers. No problems with losing vacuum while frozen. Hasn't happened yet, anyway. And no problems with re-using the bags when the current food is removed. A quick wash and dry and I store the used bags until needed. I often get three or four uses from a single length, each time losing an inch or so to the sealing process. Makes my stingy heart happy. These suckers are expensive. Occasionally the inner bag leaks when I sous vide meat. Doesn't affect the vacuum at all, of course. These used bags are usually pitched unless the leakage was very slight because it is hard to be certain all of the gunk is washed out. Overall I am very pleased with the sealer and would buy the same again. Hope this info is useful, although I think it has all been said by others before.

The 300 doesn't have the jar port so it cannot seal jars or canisters. You can go to QVC and get the Compact II that comes with bags (both the 11" and 8"), rolls (same), canister, universal lid and bottle stopper for about $125 plus s&h. I found it to be a better deal than Sam's and BJ's that is $129 (canister is smaller and I don't think you get the bottle stopper). Ubid still has them occassionally, but they are refurbished. If you go that route, make sure it is MANUFACTURER refurbished. That means it is to the standard of a new model, by the manufacturer, not just by a repair shop (you can read the details on the Ubid site). Love it, except for uneven items, like chicken nuggets, have trouble getting a seal. Any ideas on that, by the way?