Anyone using a freeze dryer?

[bwframe]

Oh good. Maybe when his vacation is over he'll pop in to tell me how stupid I am.

Can't wait.

If only you were just a little less triggered and a little more woke.

 

[bwframe]

This gent has a freeze dryer, dehydrator and chest freezer in the same room. Just wondering if the power draw might trip breakers to run all at the same time?

 

[phylodog]

I use our convection oven as a dehydrator, works great. I'm not sure where I'm going to put. mine yet but it may end up on the same circuit as our giant chest freezer.

 

[Dave A]

I have been using the 3 tray model for about 2 months. I run 2 or 3 cycles per week and haven't noticed any big increase in my electric bill but with A/C running the bill jumps around a lot during the summer months. My 31 year old daughter paid half of the cost for the FD, I paid the other half and get to buy the food, prepare the food, FD and package the food(Purple: a great deal for me). We got it mostly to have food for a SHTF condition. If I freeze dry 6 lbs of steak that cost $60 what would 6 lbs of steak cost in 20 years?

 

[2in1evtime]

My wife has been freeze drying meals and leftovers, chili mac, bell pepper casserole, cooked chicken. We have done a lot of produce from the garden, tomato slices are really good we eat as chips haven tried to rehydrate yet, as to fruit we have done pineapple, apples, pears,fresh bananas, raspberries, black berries, strawberries, mango, blueberries. Everything has turned out good except blueberries are a little bland these were refrozen so will do a batch from fresh fruit as we have seen a difference in pre frozen to fresh being better flavored. After i butcher this winter we plan to freeze dry a lot beef mainly for stew and soup recipes.

 

[phylodog]

If I freeze dry 6 lbs of steak that cost $60 what would 6 lbs of steak cost in 20 years?

At the rate we're going it'll cost $526,899.99/lb at your local grocery.

 

[phylodog]

Finally got ours up and running. My first batch was whole strawberries and they turned out great. I then did a batch of blueberries we froze over the summer. I went over them with a spring loaded spike meat tenderizer so they could dry easier but I still ended up taking them out too soon. Lesson learned, I need to test batches in numerous places before deciding they're dry.

I put a batch in this morning with pickles, olives, candy, raisins and orange slices, hopefully they'll be done by morning. I've got four more trays loaded in the chest freezer with cucumber slices, apple slices, banana slices and a red, orange and yellow bell pepper.

 

[phylodog]

Update: I haven't been using the freeze dryer as much as I thought I would which is a little disappointing. I haven't noticed any significant differences in my electric bills when I have used it.

Currently, I've decided that I'm going to use the dryer try to prepare some of my favorite ingredients I use in cooking ahead of time. Right now I'm working on red, yellow & orange bell, poblano & jalapeno peppers. I char them whole to black most of the skin, seal them in a ziplock or bowl with foil to allow them to steam through after they're charred. Once they're cooled I peel them, freeze them on the trays, freeze dry them then grind them into powder. I'm looking forward to tinkering with different flavor mixing to see if I can come up with anything interesting. I'll be doing a couple bags of onions next. Some I'll grind to powder and some I'll leave diced up to use while cooking.

 

[phylodog]

Freezing complete and vacuum drawn, they're a couple hours into the drying process. I was hoping to double layer them but they stuck to the parchment paper in the freezer. I kinda though parchment paper was supposed to prevent that but whatever.

 

[foszoe]

Freezing complete and vacuum drawn, they're a couple hours into the drying process. I was hoping to double layer them but they stuck to the parchment paper in the freezer. I kinda though parchment paper was supposed to prevent that but whatever.

Any further updates? I am thinking about pulling the trigger on one of these next week. I am thinking it would be a nice add on for my vacmaster 230.

 

[bwframe]

 

[bwframe]

How to use freeze dried eggs #backyardhomestead #freezedried

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