Freeze Drying

For the last few years I've been hearing about freeze drying. It must've been at least 25 years ago when I tasted a freeze-dried strawberry at a homesteading fair.

Greg loved it, but I didn't understand what I was eating. It had a strawberry taste, but it was like eating air. (I learned years later you could rehydrate the strawberries and you would get back the mouth feel I was looking for.)

I did try the freeze-dried corn and soybeans and loved those. They were delicious.

Back then freeze drying was only for people who had a business selling that sort of stuff. Fast forward to the 2020s, and now I'm seeing them for everyday consumers.

Costco and Lowes sell them, but only online. If you're considering a freeze dryer, I recommend examining one in the flesh. For the size of the machine, the cavity where the food goes in is small. The trays, though narrow, are deep.

I would say it's the size of two microwave ovens stacked. It's also very heavy. It will take two strong people to lift it into place. We bought a cart from Harvest Right that fits it perfectly.

I looked at the Harvest Right Freeze Dryer at Atwoods Ranch and Home. I was very impressed with the quality of the machine--which explains the high dollar price. Because it's a brick and mortar store, Atwoods was more expensive than buying direct from Harvest Right, plus Harvest Right ships free.

A freeze dryer freezes the food and then pulls a vacuum to draw out every bit of moisture. The vacuum pump allows the food to continue freezing to beyond minus 30 degrees.

Greg has worked with vacuum pumps before so he understands the technology. Me, not so much.

All I wanted to know is how well will it preserve my food.

It turns out it will keep food fresh and safe for up to 25 years. I should live so long.

I dehydrate a lot of food, but I've found it tedious to constantly rotate whatever I dehydrated because it simply won't keep that long on a shelf. I recently lost a beautiful jar of dehydrated shitake mushrooms to mold.

To save my brain cells, I've opted to store my dehydrated foods in the freezer. This way I don't have to worry about how much longer they'll be safe. 

Ironically, it defeats the purpose of dehydrating because it takes up valuable freezer space. I'm down to one freezer so storage space is at a premium.

That's what pushed me over the edge to purchase a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer.

First caveat: This thing is expensive! I thought about it for well over a year before I decided to go for it.

Second caveat: There's a little bit of a learning curve, but as long as you follow the instructions you should be okay. Plus, there are dozens of YouTube videos where people are demonstrating each step.

My machine arrived only a couple of days ago, so I'm still learning. It came with the machine itself, a vacuum pump, pump oil, mylar bags, some of the nicest heavy duty food trays Ive ever seen, an oil filter, and a vacuum sealer specifically for sealing mylar bags.

One thing I'm hoping to use this machine for is the cooked food I make for the dogs. It takes up a LOT of room in my freezer. I make big batches of cooked liver and chicken every week. If I catch a sale, I cook and store even more. 

Pet food can take up an entire shelf in my freezer. 

But if I can freeze-dry these items, I can store them in the pantry and simply rehydrate them as I need them.

The bonus is that I don't have to worry about losing food during a power failure, which happens way too often out here.

Case in point: After Hurricane Rita, we lost both our freezers due to a 3 week power outage. Our insurance paid for the loss but it's still heartbreaking to see all that food go to waste. I cleaned out the freezers and the fridge with a flashlight and bleach. You don't know how strong your stomach can be until you clean out a freezer full of rotten meat.

Freeze Dryer Cost:  I won't kid you, the price is ridiculously high, but it's because of the technology involved. Right now it's the cheapest it will be all year. This sale is good through the month of November.

Now, if you don't cook for giant monster dogs, harvest a lot from your garden, or store food for emergencies, you probably won't need this machine. But if you're like me and do a lot of gardening and cooking, it might solve a lot of needs.

I crunched the numbers roughly. One package of Mountain House Beef Stroganoff is selling for $10. That's an average price for one of these pouches. If you eat three meals a day multiply a ten dollar pouch by three. That's thirty bucks for one day's emergency consumption. You can do the math from there.

The Harvest Right Medium Freeze Dryer is currently $2500. That's a big investment, but if you break down what it will cost you to buy these meals already freeze dried, you can start to see why it's a good buy in the long run. I've been reading about other people's experiences and it looks like most people recoup their costs within nine months.

My main use for this machine will be primarily for the harvest. Right now, even though I had a terrible harvest, okra and tomatoes were coming out of my ears, and I still have hundreds of different types of peppers still on the plants. And this was a bad year. You can imagine my harvests on good years.

I'm excited. We started freeze drying a few things just to get a feel for the machine, and so far I'm very pleased. I'll use the winter months to practice on pet food and what's left of my tomatoes and peppers. I also have a lot herbs to freeze dry too. The big push will be next June after the harvest.

I'll do one more post next week to give you an update on some of the food we freeze dried and how I'm packaging it.

If you're interested, click on this link and check out the Harvest Right products.

 

 

 

Amazon is also having it's Black Friday Sale starting this week. Check it out.