Freeze Drying Food

[grubworm]

well...its been 2 weeks and i am very satisfied with how freeze drying works and i just got an email that my XL freeze dryer will arrive next week, so with double the capacity of this one...i should be able to crank out a good bit of food.

meats have turned out way better than expected and even a few other items exceeded expectation...



left to right:
bell peppers. taste really good. taste good dry, like a chip and they quickly rehydrate for use in cooking. perfect to take camping and add to pretty much everything
pickled okra. yeah, i had to try it and i have to say they are delicious. they make a great snack and go very well eaten as chips to go with sandwiches, etc.
pickles. taste ok, but very salty. these are very popular, so maybe i needed to pre-soak in cold water to remove some of the salt before drying
avocados. these are AWESOME! taste really good just eaten freeze dried and they rehydrate very well and you cant even tell it from fresh. a winner for sure.

the meals turn out really good and when reconstituted, they actually taste like it just came off the stove. i am really amazed at how fresh freeze dried tastes.
my wife has family that moved to oregon that mountain climb a lot and they are wanting us to freeze dry some homecooked cajun meals they can take up the mountains with them. definitely wont find any REAL cajun meal MREs in stores or online. brother-in-law is a great cook and next time he makes a big jambalaya...i'll just get him to double it and i'll freeze dry it and we can have it on trips for the next few years. this is definitely going to be a total game changer for the way we eat on our trips.

well, i think i have covered this topic pretty well and i'm about bored posting about it now. so, for anyone interested and wondering if its worth the money...hopefully this will be of some help...

 

[freak4life]

its about to happen....

View attachment 270480

i am wondering though...freeze drying gives a 20-30 year shelf life, but since SPAM already has a shelf life of 100 years...will my freeze dried SPAM be good for 20 years or 120 years??

2000 years.

 

[grubworm]

the 2nd unit arrived and is up and running. (stainless steel one in the corner). its twice the capacity of the large, so if anyone is interested in getting into freeze drying...id skip the small, medium, and large and just go with the extra large unit. the extra money spent is well worth the time it will save doing just a single run in the xl versus two runs in the large and 5-6 runs in a small to get the same amount done. it weighs close to 300 pounds, so pack a lunch when its time to carry it in the house and set it up on a platform

 

[grubworm]

ok...this is post-worthy...
did a run with ice cream sandwiches, new york style cheese cake slices and small scoops of blue bell buttered pecan ice cream
they turned out AMAZING. the cheesecake is beyond expectation
so yes, you CAN take ice cream out boondocking in the desert without a freezer or ice chest.

 

[freak4life]

ok...this is post-worthy...
did a run with ice cream sandwiches, new york style cheese cake slices and small scoops of blue bell buttered pecan ice cream
they turned out AMAZING. the cheesecake is beyond expectation
so yes, you CAN take ice cream out boondocking in the desert without a freezer or ice chest.

View attachment 270864

Good choice in the Ice cream!

 

[PDXFred]

Cool thread, thanks. Lots to chew on, as it were. A freeze-dryer is now on my ever-expanding "want list".

FWIW, we've had good luck with simply dehydrating many foods, and bad luck with others. Dehydrators are cheap and easy to use. We vacuum seal the stuff and it seems to last at least a couple of years stored in the basement. Some of our successes include:

* Tomato sauce or salsa: spread on saran wrap, it turns into a kind of fruit leather. Add to your noodles or rice when cooking. Boom.
* Cooked ground beef. We add bread crumbs to soak up juice and flavor. Really tasty! Burritos, spaghetti, sloppy joes... all work well
* Vegetables: onions, green beans, tomatoes, corn, herbs,
* Cooked pasta. It seems weird, but this is amazing. Add to hot water. No boiling needed, which is great at altitude. (See sauce/salsa above for one pot, five minute meal)
* Stews and chilis: as long as everything is in small pieces or shredded, they come back fine.
* Beef jerky. Leaner beef is better, fat goes rancid after a few months.

Fails include:

* Chicken: it just turns to rubber, no matter how long you cook or pre-soak.
* Potatoes: they're always still crunchy, but not in a good way.

 

[grubworm]

Lots to chew on

i see what you did there...
ha!
yeah, dehydrating is great. all the dried fruits you buy in the grocery and in the trail mixes are dehydrated, not freeze dried, and personally...i like a lot of the dehydrated fruit better. i prefer the dehydrated banana chips over the freeze dried ones, but the wife really likes the freeze dried version better, so good to have both options.
i bought bulk garbanzo beans to dry as snacks. insta-pot a batch of the dried garbanzos and drain them and then put them in a big ziplok bag and pour in some terriyaki sauce and let marinade over night. those would dehydrate and taste good. i freeze dried these and they make an amazingly good snack and have a lot of nutrition packed in them.

a little off topic, but still interesting...the wife was doing an art project a while back and needed some dried flowers. we bough them online and they were very expensive, so i figured i would just try dehydrating some here at home since i had a dehydrator. well, the flowers turned to absolute crap in the dehydrator. wilted and lost most of the colors. come to find out, the dried flowers used in the art projects are freeze dried, so that really showed me how well the freeze drying preserves the original state of the item being dried.

like i had said earlier in the thread...people are making good money selling freeze dried candies and im sure there would be a market in portland for healthier snacks like freeze dried fruits and veggies. if you are wanting a freeze dryer but really dont see justifying the cost, it could earn its keep by cranking out some candies and snacks. there is a local person in the area that has been selling bags of freeze dried skittles and snicker bars in the local gas stations/convenience stores and apparently doing pretty well. just a thought...

the wife's niece moved to portland last year and does a lot of mountain climbing and her and her husband were the ones wanting us to make them some some freeze dried cajun MREs to take hiking. im sure there are a lot of hikers in your area and maybe there is a market for them. i saw on ETSY where a woman was buying the large frozen Stroffers lasagna in the grocery store and taking it home and freeze drying portions and selling it to people hiking/camping. i think she was around $7 per portion compared to $12 or so for a freeze dried lasagna meal sold in sporting good stores, etc.

 

[grubworm]

not to beat a dead horse...but if he's dead, might as well chop him up and freeze dry him!

but yeah...the freeze dried meals are insanely good. we're going to north georgia in a couple of weeks and i'm cranking out some meals. the wife made red beans and a delicious pastalaya (a cajun jumbalaya with noodles instead of rice) and they turned out great. it looks like we are going to be able to do a couple weeks of camping and will probably do all freeze dried. i made some chicken curry dishes and a lot of rice and vegetable meals, so it should be very healthy and very easy to store and use. most of my "cooking" will be boiling water. since im using the mylar MRE bags, i went and bought an extra long Spork so that i can reach down deep into the pouch. i'm pretty sure using the long handled Spork will also help the food taste better...

had to buy another rack of shelves to hold all the stuff. freeze dried close to 80 pounds of meat last week...

 

[Ragman]

Just back from an extended trip and saw this thread, great topic. I am very interested in the freeze drying and am curious how you view it vs. standard dehydrating for camp meals which we do frequently. I may have missed it in the stream above but what machine are you using?

 

[grubworm]

Just back from an extended trip and saw this thread, great topic. I am very interested in the freeze drying and am curious how you view it vs. standard dehydrating for camp meals which we do frequently. I may have missed it in the stream above but what machine are you using?

hey richard...
figured you were out and about. i started going back thru some of your posts and recipes and a good bit of them can be freeze dried easily. i really like the green chilie jambalaya you did in august of '21. using pork rib is easier to freeze dry than using a really fatty sausage like they normally do down here...

as i said earlier in the thread, i have tried dehydrating a few times and with different machines and never had that good of luck. the humidity is really high down here, so that might be a big part of my failure with that. after hearing about freeze drying units available for home use, i decided to try that...and glad i did!

im using the harvest right freeze dryers. i bought the one and as soon as it got here, the wife and step-daughter went nuts doing freeze dried candies and stuff and after seeing how long some runs can take, i just went on and gave the wife that unit (a large size) and i bought the XL size for me to do meals and regular foods.

 

[Ragman]

hey richard...
figured you were out and about. i started going back thru some of your posts and recipes and a good bit of them can be freeze dried easily. i really like the green chilie jambalaya you did in august of '21. using pork rib is easier to freeze dry than using a really fatty sausage like they normally do down here...

as i said earlier in the thread, i have tried dehydrating a few times and with different machines and never had that good of luck. the humidity is really high down here, so that might be a big part of my failure with that. after hearing about freeze drying units available for home use, i decided to try that...and glad i did!

im using the harvest right freeze dryers. i bought the one and as soon as it got here, the wife and step-daughter went nuts doing freeze dried candies and stuff and after seeing how long some runs can take, i just went on and gave the wife that unit (a large size) and i bought the XL size for me to do meals and regular foods.

I look forward to seeing the output and process, sounds like an awesome tool.

 

[PDXFred]

as i said earlier in the thread, i have tried dehydrating a few times and with different machines and never had that good of luck. the humidity is really high down here, so that might be a big part of my failure with that.
...

Yeah, successful dehydrating takes a little practice, but we're in Portland, OR which is epically "humid" so it can be done! Early issues we had were: overcrowding the trays, using foods that were too oily/greasy/fatty, and being impatient and using too high a temp.

 

[Ragman]

How do you estimate the amount of water required to rehydrate the meals? Weight loss?

 

[grubworm]

How do you estimate the amount of water required to rehydrate the meals? Weight loss?

some people weigh the food before drying and then after and write that on the package so they add that exact amount. i never measure anything, i just add hot water by feel and then after a few minutes, i can add more if needed. i do fine like that, but i guess the proper way is to weigh the difference and then add that amount.