Freeze Drying Food

[grubworm]

guys do you know if I can freez dry some burgers from mcdonalds? my kids are in love with it whatever is the occasion.

pretty sure my colon would advise against that...
i guess you could. bread will freeze dry, but kind of difficult to hydrate it back to a decent consistency. the meat would freeze dry ok i guess, but condiments and such would not do well. french fries would be too greasy to freeze dry.
mcdonalds has so many perservatives that there is no need to freeze any of it...people report leaving a burger in the back seat of a car and finding it months later with no mold or visible damage one would expect from normal food

 

[grubworm]

2 year update:

I have a LOT of tools and gadgets and that has carried over into the kitchen where we have everything from sous vide cooker, grain mill, instapot, flat top grill, several kitchenaid mixers with every attachment, 900 degree pizza oven, pressure cookers, etc...BUT, my freeze dryers are still my favorite.

I was doing a good bit of dehydrating and vacuum sealing 15 yrs ago and saw the freeze dryers, but figured they were a gimmick when sold for home use. I was wrong big time. Im still blown away by how freeze drying has changed our way of travel/camping. Im a pretty good cook and have even taken classes at the John Folse culinary school which is less than 10 miles from me. Trying to cook the same way out in the field that I do at home is a bit of a challenge and would normally take a lot of space, time and energy to do. The freeze dryers are perfect for this because I can go buy a ton of groceries and spend days cooking all the dishes and after freeze drying, all I have is a small lightweight mylar bag to take on trips...no refrigeration and no need to carry all that fresh food and cooking appliances. I wake up out in the boonies and its cold and I'm ready for coffee and a nice hearty breakfast before going hiking all day. Instead of firing up stoves and busting out the ice chest of food and pulling out numerous pots and pans...all I do now is simply boil a pot of water. Hot water for french press coffee and hot water to rehydrate my freeze dried breakfast pouch of sausage, egg, potatoes, bell pepper and onion. Boil water and in five minutes Im eating and enjoying coffee and no fussing from the wife about the mess she has to clean up. Pretty hard to put a price on any of that, but if I had to...it would still be more than the actual cost of the machines. And speaking of cost, one morning the wife and I decided to go get breakfast from a local diner and with coffee and tip, it was over $40. I have less than $5 in my freeze dried breakfast and it tasted better and was definitely healthier. Years ago, I used to travel for a week or two at a time and we'd eat every meal in a restaurant. An easy $100 a day, if not more...so a few trips and I have already recouped most of my cost in a freeze dryer. As Ive posted on here before, the quality of the food is amazing. The wife is Cajun and makes amazing red beans and sausage and is pretty picky about food. I rehydrated a serving of her beans I freeze dried and she thought it tasted just as good as fresh out of the pot.

Not a lot of things I'm still excited about after 2 years, but this is definitely one of them...

 

[Ragman]

So you rank freeze drying miles ahead of standard dehydration and the machines worth the price vs sticking with dehydration?

 

[grubworm]

So you rank freeze drying miles ahead of standard dehydration and the machines worth the price vs sticking with dehydration?

definitely. dehydrating uses heat to dry out the product and usually leaves some moisture behind which is not good at all for any kind of long term storage. look at dehydrated fruit...usually still gummy and has additives to help it last longer. there are commercial dehydrators that do well, but generally speaking, every dehydrator I've had always left the product gummy at best. freeze drying also uses heat, but heat is applied to the product after its been frozen to -10 degrees or colder and then its put under a vacuum which causes sublimation ( the water inside the product going directly from solid to vapor) resulting in zero water left behind versus dehydrating where the water is slowly evaporated out with some left behind.

I have both machines and only use the dehydrator for herbs now. my step-daughter just had a baby and my wife is using the freeze dryer to make baby food...one is dehydrated yogurt drops and then adding freeze dried blueberries to the mix. lots of healthy snacks to make with the freeze dryer as well as meals.

with all the cooking you do, I'd think you would really appreciate a freeze dryer. also, as I've posted several times...I really like it for long term storage especially when we get hit with a hurricane like Ida a few years ago and went without power for over a month. people lost thousands of dollars of food in their big chest freezers...
I just bought several pork loins and cut them into medallions and sous vide them and then freeze dried them. now I have pork loin ready to eat, all I have to is heat some water and let it rehydrate a few minutes. same goes for chicken breasts.

 

[highboy4x4]

My brother dived into the “Harvest Right” bandwagon and he loves it. Lots of work but when he told me he did burritos, I was like… send me some! But the cost for little ol’ me is too much! He has over 8k in stuff and a huge electric pump!

 

[grubworm]

My brother dived into the “Harvest Right” bandwagon and he loves it. Lots of work but when he told me he did burritos, I was like… send me some! But the cost for little ol’ me is too much! He has over 8k in stuff and a huge electric pump!

I ended up with two of them and went with the big VacMaster chamber sealer that is hands down the best vacuum sealer I've ever used.
the burritos sound good. not sure how he does the tortilla...or does he freeze dry the inside stuff and just rehydrate it and add to a fresh tortilla? I could see that.
that's how I do breakfast burritos. we had freeze dried eggs on the sub and I really liked them, so the breakfast stuff is great for me. I just mix up egg, bacon, onion, bell pepper, potato cubes and freeze dry that and then on trips, I just rehydrate that and use fresh tortillas since they are easy to carry and don't need to be refrigerated.

if your brother is a ways away from you, maybe get him to do some eggs for you. they end up being really light and would be cheap to mail. the Mountain House eggs are $10 a pouch on Amazon and weigh 2 oz. a couple years ago, I did a whole run of eggs...144 eggs that cost under $20 (before the price went so high) so even if you went 3 eggs for a serving, that's 48 servings for $20 of eggs. not sure what the 12 dozen box of eggs are now at Sams, but whatever they are, still a lot cheaper than Mountain House.

 

[highboy4x4]

My brother dived into the “Harvest Right” bandwagon and he loves it. Lots of work but when he told me he did burritos, I was like… send me some! But the cost for little ol’ me is too much! He has over 8k in stuff and a huge electric pump!

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I ended up with two of them and went with the big VacMaster chamber sealer that is hands down the best vacuum sealer I've ever used.
the burritos sound good. not sure how he does the tortilla...or does he freeze dry the inside stuff and just rehydrate it and add to a fresh tortilla? I could see that.
that's how I do breakfast burritos. we had freeze dried eggs on the sub and I really liked them, so the breakfast stuff is great for me. I just mix up egg, bacon, onion, bell pepper, potato cubes and freeze dry that and then on trips, I just rehydrate that and use fresh tortillas since they are easy to carry and don't need to be refrigerated.

if your brother is a ways away from you, maybe get him to do some eggs for you. they end up being really light and would be cheap to mail. the Mountain House eggs are $10 a pouch on Amazon and weigh 2 oz. a couple years ago, I did a whole run of eggs...144 eggs that cost under $20 (before the price went so high) so even if you went 3 eggs for a serving, that's 48 servings for $20 of eggs. not sure what the 12 dozen box of eggs are now at Sams, but whatever they are, still a lot cheaper than Mountain House.

View attachment 296744

Man look at you!! You have to be committed to the task for sure!He says he spends a lot time prepping g the food. I’ll ask about the burrito. I looked thru his shelf and he had one labeled soup… I just shook my head and walked in. The strawberry/mango bag was the best!!

 

[grubworm]

Man look at you!! You have to be committed to the task for sure!He says he spends a lot time prepping g the food. I’ll ask about the burrito. I looked thru his shelf and he had one labeled soup… I just shook my head and walked in. The strawberry/mango bag was the best!!

strawberry/mango is the wife's favorites. when mangoes and strawberries are in season, I get them by the box full and freeze dry them and seal them in 64 oz mason jars. we also do a lot of freeze dried bananas. I find there are two ways to do freeze drying...make large batches specifically to freeze dry right now, OR make regular meals and freeze the left overs. when there are enough left overs to fill a freeze dryer, do a run and now I have a variety of meals for later. I've thrown away a lot of food prior to the freeze dryer because it wasn't enough to mess with or I did freeze it and let it go long enough to get freezer burn and then tossed it.
I got the dryers just because I wanted them, but after having them, I do see a lot of benefits and savings by getting food on sale and freeze drying it for later. good example is celery. the wife is Cajun and uses a lot of celery in making a roux. celery is usually kind of high, but in season it drops to half price or less so that is when I buy 30-40 bunches and freeze dry them. later when she needs celery, she can go get a freeze dried pack and use what she needs. when using fresh, we usually end up not using it all and having it go bad. with freeze drying, there is zero waste...vacuum seal in mason jars and use as needed with none of it going to waste.

I don't know...its just something that I ended up enjoying and getting a lot of good use out of.

 

[highboy4x4]

Man look at you!! You have to be committed to the task for sure!He says he spends a lot time prepping g the food. I’ll ask about the burrito. I looked thru his shelf and he had one labeled soup… I just shook my head and walked in. The strawberry/mango bag was the best!!

strawberry/mango is the wife's favorites. when mangoes and strawberries are in season, I get them by the box full and freeze dry them and seal them in 64 oz mason jars. we also do a lot of freeze dried bananas. I find there are two ways to do freeze drying...make large batches specifically to freeze dry right now, OR make regular meals and freeze the left overs. when there are enough left overs to fill a freeze dryer, do a run and now I have a variety of meals for later. I've thrown away a lot of food prior to the freeze dryer because it wasn't enough to mess with or I did freeze it and let it go long enough to get freezer burn and then tossed it.
I got the dryers just because I wanted them, but after having them, I do see a lot of benefits and savings by getting food on sale and freeze drying it for later. good example is celery. the wife is Cajun and uses a lot of celery in making a roux. celery is usually kind of high, but in season it drops to half price or less so that is when I buy 30-40 bunches and freeze dry them. later when she needs celery, she can go get a freeze dried pack and use what she needs. when using fresh, we usually end up not using it all and having it go bad. with freeze drying, there is zero waste...vacuum seal in mason jars and use as needed with none of it going to waste.

I don't know...its just something that I ended up enjoying and getting a lot of good use out of.

If only I could bite that $$ bullet. Ya know, we spend $$ on what we like! Me, tools, weapons, ammo! In that order! Can never have enough!!
I will just have to live my life vicariously thru watching you and my brother as I am a loner surrounded by a bunch of picky eaters!