Home Freeze Drying

[Maddy]

Has anyone else bought a home freeze drier? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNqSpuExyhQ

After seeing more and more of my homesteady friends get them, I finally did it! Normally, I'd view something like this as way too extravagant, but considering last year's dress rehearsal with supply chain issues, it made all the sense in the world.

Over the last few months, I've been freeze drying all kinds of things. Raw eggs, pre-cooked breakfast scrambles with vegies, shredded chicken and turkey, ground beef, shredded cheese, sour cream, chili, taco filling, meatloaf, apples, melon, blueberries, rice pudding (!), and veggies of all kinds. This year, all the excess from the garden will get freeze dried, which will be SO much less time consuming than canning. My goal is to put up at least a year's worth of food, and at the rate I'm going, it shouldn't take long.

Freeze dried foods, properly sealed, generally have a 25-year shelf life. This makes for an elegant solution to the endless problem of rotating a freezer full of stuff and worrying about what happens when the electricity goes out. Also, according to a number of sources, freeze-dried food (unlike regular dehydrated food) retains 95 percent of its nutrients. And best of all, I can vouch for the fact that in most cases the reconstituted product comes darned close to fresh.

Anyway, I'm having great fun and am eager to try a bunch of new things.

[Mark Leavy]

Super fun! Thanks for the report. I had toyed with building one at one time and it's great to know that the real ones actually work.

[sophie]

Yes Maddy, tell us more! How is your freeze drying experiment coming along?

Interested to hear if you think it's worth it to reduce your freezer space needs. Have you considered fermenting vegetables? Those also can store indefinitely and don't require refrigeration if you do it right.

[dualstow]

Has anyone else bought a home freeze drier? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNqSpuExyhQ

I should try that. I bought a food dehydrator once, but wasn’t using it often and gave it away.

Have you considered fermenting vegetables? Those also can store indefinitely and don't require refrigeration if you do it right.

I make the best kimchi in town, or so says my wife. The way to an Asian-born woman’s heart is through her microbiome.

[vnatale]

Has anyone else bought a home freeze drier? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNqSpuExyhQ

I should try that. I bought a food dehydrator once, but wasn’t using it often and gave it away.

I also bought dyhydrator. I think it cost about $80?

I was shocked to see that the home freeze driers sell in the $3,000 to $4,000 range!

[Maddy]

It seems to be a pretty efficient way of putting away lots of food in a short period of time. It's food that doesn't have to be rotated or otherwise fussed over. If the electricity goes out, I won't have the worry of trying to save it.

With the medium-sized model, I can do four dozen eggs at a time, or 6 pounds of cheese, or a whole cooked turkey. The end product, in the case of the turkey, is six mylar bags (8"x10") that can be easily packed away anywhere because they are so lightweight.

Each run takes between 24 and 40 hours, so you can process and store a fair bit of food in just a few months. Then sell the darned thing if you want-- I notice that people are advertising used Harvest Right food dryers on Craigslist for only a few hundred dollars less than they're selling new. Not a bad way of investing those dollars that re losing purchasing power at record speed.

I often think about what I'd do in a barter economy. At age 65, it's not feasible for me to learn brick-laying. This gives me something to bring to the table.

[Maddy]

Yes Maddy, tell us more! How is your freeze drying experiment coming along?

Interested to hear if you think it's worth it to reduce your freezer space needs. Have you considered fermenting vegetables? Those also can store indefinitely and don't require refrigeration if you do it right.

It's definitely freeing up freezer space and making me feel less vulnerable in the event of a power outage. For years I have struggled with the question of what to do in the event of a sustained power outage that shut down gasoline pumps. Even with a generator, you might be able to keep a freezer full of meat going for a couple of weeks. Then what? I was giving way too much mental energy to thinking about back-up plans: outdoor canning, salting, etc. The freeze dryer is a way more elegant solution, but it does require advance planning. Once the electricity goes out, what you have is what you have.

I haven't done much in the way of fermenting. I love fresh saurkraut and would like to try it this year. I know very little about the safety aspects of keeping fermented foods without refrigeration, but the old timers did it, for sure. Is this something you know about, Sophie?

Speaking of food safety, I'm also wanting to research the question of whether botulism ever becomes a problem in freeze-dried food. There's a bit of judgment involved in whether freeze-dried food requires more drying time, and even a small bit of moisture in the batch can ruin an entire mylar bag or mason jar of food despite the use of oxygen absorbers. C. Botulinum apparently thrives in an anaerobic environment, so wouldn't this make insufficiently dried freeze-dried food especially vulnerable? I have never heard of this being a problem, but I have yet to understand why it would NOT be.

[Maddy]

The negatives:

(1) The Harvest Right freezer dryer (which appears to have cornered the market for home freeze dryers) is large and heavy. It is about the size of an apartment-sized refrigerator, and it weighs 112 pounds. It can be placed on a rolling stainless steel cart if it is sufficiently sturdy, but due to the resultingly high center of gravity it is definitely NOT something you want to be moving around. The separate vacuum pump (35 pounds) also needs a space to sit on (either an adjacent space or a shelf below), and because it generates considerable heat, it needs plenty of air flow.

(2) The machine generates some noise, so a permanent location in a garage, shop, or spare bedroom is ideal. It's not terribly loud--about the volume of a clothes dryer--but you probably wouldn't want to listen to it 24 hours a day.

(3) The large-sized model requires a dedicated 20-amp circuit. A dedicated 20-amp circuit is "recommended" for the medium. Power use is pretty high--enough so that you do notice a slight increase on your electricity bill. There are YouTube videos where people have actually done the calculations.

(4) The Premier vacuum pump currently sold with the unit requires that the oil be changed every 25 batches or so. This sounded daunting at first but has turned out to be no big deal. It can be done in about 3 minutes, and without any mess.

(5) The machine is software driven, so transient power interruptions sometimes glitches that require it to be rebooted. The good news is that the company has EXCELLENT customer support and will send you the necessary files to download onto a thumb drive. You then plug the thumb drive into a USB port on the machine, turn the machine on, and off you go.

(6) If something went wrong with the machine that could not be fixed with a software reboot, I'm not sure how you would find someone locally with the expertise to fix it. The machine is way too heavy to be sent anywhere for servicing. The warranty is a little vague in that respect.

[vnatale]

The negatives:

(3) The large-sized model requires a dedicated 20-amp circuit. A dedicated 20-amp circuit is "recommended" for the medium. Power use is pretty high--enough so that you do notice a slight increase on your electricity bill. There are YouTube videos where people have actually done the calculations.

For various reasons I've been keeping detailed tracked of electricity on every one of my house's circuits. In my part of Massachusetts, we are paying 36.6 cents per kWh.

I went to the Harvest Right web site and they are completely bare about all the specifications of their product. Regarding electricity all I could see that the unit requires a 20 amp circuit with 110 volts. I sent them a message asking if they could provide any more detailed specifications.

In a worst case of needing all that electricity it'd be consuming 2.2 kW. That would be 2.2 kWh if it was running for a full hour. If running for 10 hours that would be 22 kWh. At a cost of $.366 per hWk that would be a cost of about $8 to run it for those 10 hours.

Don't know for how many hours a month you'd be running this, what your cost is per kWh. You'd have to do your own calculations to decide if that if its usage results in a slight increase in your electricity bill.

I can tell you this. Last year I started using an old dehumidifier in my basement. While it was running only about 17 hours a day ... during that time period it was using more electricity than all else in my house were using for the entire day. Definitely was far more than a slight increased in my electricity. Basically, more than doubled it.

I am now using a newer more efficient dehumidifier. However, I was quite surprised that it's starting to run a lot and it using about 50% as much electricity as all else in my house uses.

[sophie]

Wonder how much food you would have to freeze dry in order to make it work dropping a couple thousand on one of these machines vs. buying the freeze dried food directly?

I imagine not freeze drying enough could indeed ruin a batch. I don't know about botulism in particular but there's no shortage of bacteria that could thrive in too-moist food.

Not sure how long you can leave fermented food out, but...if you did it correctly (everything in liquid etc) it should last a long time. A few years ago, I made a jar of garlic cloves fermented in honey, after reading that a jar of honey-fermented garlic was found in an Egyptian tomb and it was still good - after four thousand years!! Sure enough, the garlic cloves and the honey are now black, but they smell and taste just fine. If you do that, make sure that you allow a lot of extra space in the container, because the honey boils up and will spill all over the place if you don't.

[Maddy]

My back-of-the-napkin calculations say that a single run costs about $4.00 in electricity. Add $1.00 for mylar and O2 absorbers, and you're looking at about $5.00 a batch. This is a REALLY rough comparison, but Provident Pantry #10 cans of chicken (24 servings, they say; roughly 1 gallon?) are running about $80. https://www.ebay.com/p/1100499764. I can easily do that in a single batch. A $12 jumbo pack of deboned chicken breasts will give me about a gallon of freeze-dried food, so, roughly speaking, I'm spending $17.00 to get the equivalent of what I would otherwise pay $80 for.

For what it's worth, I cannot imagine getting 24 servings out of a #10 can that rattles as if it's only half-full. So I'm probably coming out somewhat better than the above calculation would suggest.

[Mark Leavy]

With freeze dried meat, (whole pieces or strips, not ground) do you just open the package and eat it like jerky? Or throw it in stews? Or what?

[vnatale]

My back-of-the-napkin calculations say that a single run costs about $4.00 in electricity. Add $1.00 for mylar and O2 absorbers, and you're looking at about $5.00 a batch. This is a REALLY rough comparison, but Provident Pantry #10 cans of chicken (24 servings, they say; roughly 1 gallon?) are running about $80. https://www.ebay.com/p/1100499764. I can easily do that in a single batch. A $12 jumbo pack of deboned chicken breasts will give me about a gallon of freeze-dried food, so, roughly speaking, I'm spending $17.00 to get the equivalent of what I would otherwise pay $80 for.

For what it's worth, I cannot imagine getting 24 servings out of a #10 can that rattles as if it's only half-full. So I'm probably coming out somewhat better than the above calculation would suggest.

At 20 amps / 110 volts and at my cost of electricity a total cost of $4.00 in electricity would be running it only 5 hours for that batch.

[dualstow]

With freeze dried meat, (whole pieces or strips, not ground) do you just open the package and eat it like jerky? Or throw it in stews? Or what?

Eat? She doesn’t actually eat the food, Mark.
I’m kidding, she said “reconstituted” above.

[Mountaineer]

Vinny, you need to move!

https://www.electricchoice.com/electric ... -by-state/

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly ... epmt_5_6_a

[Maddy]

At 20 amps / 110 volts and at my cost of electricity a total cost of $4.00 in electricity would be running it only 5 hours for that batch.

Mine doesn't run at 20 amps. It is on a dedicated 20 amp circuit, but it maxes out at 16.1 amps. Moreover, the amperage is not constant. During the freeze cycle, which runs for about 9 hours, it runs between 8.3 and 6.4 amps, for an average of 330 watts. During the first dry cycle, which runs for about 10 hours, it runs at between 13 amps to 16.1 amps for an average of 725 watts. During the final drying cycle, which takes about 7 hours, it runs at 16.3 amps for an average of 726 watts.

That ought to keep you busy for a while.

[Maddy]

With freeze dried meat, (whole pieces or strips, not ground) do you just open the package and eat it like jerky? Or throw it in stews? Or what?

So far I've dried ground beef and chicken/turkey shreds, but never strips or whole pieces of meat. However, there are plenty of YouTubers who are doing it.

I'm pretty sure it would NOT end up like jerky. It should reconstitute to the texture and consistency of what you started with. (That could be either raw or cooked). Reconstituting is a bit of an art, and there are a number of ways to do it depending on the nature of the item. Ground beef reconstitutes well if you just add water and stir. Bread-y things (cookies, cakes, quick bread slices) need to be steamed, spritzed, or left in a ziploc bag between moist paper towels. I don't know what would be best for whole pieces of meat, but again I'm sure that there's a video addressing it.

The wierd thing is that freeze dried stuff does not turn out shrunken and tough like dehydrated does (your image of jerky). My ground beef reconstituted in just a few minutes and came out just like freshly cooked ground beef. Most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference.

Another example: Apple slices. We all know what dehydrated apples are like: tough and chewy if only partially dehydrated and chip-like if completely dry. In contrast, if you freeze-dry apples, they turn out with a very airy consistency, kind of like styrofoam (but packed with flavor unlike anything you could get with a dehydrator). Ditto for freeze dried bananas. They do not become hard and flat banana chips. They stay exactly the same size and thickness but become very airy in texture. Both are wonderful right out of the bag, as snacks.

[Maddy]

At 20 amps / 110 volts and at my cost of electricity a total cost of $4.00 in electricity would be running it only 5 hours for that batch.

But why should we care? California has just decreed that everyone gets unlimited electricity for $20 a month.

Under the new plan, you’ll pay just $20 / month if you earn less than $69,000 a year. That’s the monthly fee for those served by Edison, with slightly higher fees for PG&E and SDG&E.

If you earn up to $180,000 per year, you’ll pay $51 a month as a flat fee, no matter how much electricity you use.

Above $180,000 in annual income will get you an $85 / month flat fee for unlimited electricity usage.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-04-18- ... rates.html

Gee, I wonder why the globalist types are pushing electricity so hard?

[vnatale]

Vinny, you need to move!

https://www.electricchoice.com/electric ... -by-state/

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly ... epmt_5_6_a

Looks like Massachusetts / New Hampshire highest in country.

Also, it has 31 cents for Massachusetts residential while I am nearly 37 cents.

[vnatale]

At 20 amps / 110 volts and at my cost of electricity a total cost of $4.00 in electricity would be running it only 5 hours for that batch.

But why should we care? California has just decreed that everyone gets unlimited electricity for $20 a month.

Under the new plan, you’ll pay just $20 / month if you earn less than $69,000 a year. That’s the monthly fee for those served by Edison, with slightly higher fees for PG&E and SDG&E.

If you earn up to $180,000 per year, you’ll pay $51 a month as a flat fee, no matter how much electricity you use.

Above $180,000 in annual income will get you an $85 / month flat fee for unlimited electricity usage.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-04-18- ... rates.html

Gee, I wonder why the globalist types are pushing electricity so hard?

That is incredible after all that went on there in 2001 with Enron and the incredible prices for electricity people were paying during that time period. I don't understand how this is going to be paid for.

[vnatale]

At 20 amps / 110 volts and at my cost of electricity a total cost of $4.00 in electricity would be running it only 5 hours for that batch.

Mine doesn't run at 20 amps. It is on a dedicated 20 amp circuit, but it maxes out at 16.1 amps. Moreover, the amperage is not constant. During the freeze cycle, which runs for about 9 hours, it runs between 8.3 and 6.4 amps, for an average of 330 watts. During the first dry cycle, which runs for about 10 hours, it runs at between 13 amps to 16.1 amps for an average of 725 watts. During the final drying cycle, which takes about 7 hours, it runs at 16.3 amps for an average of 726 watts.

That ought to keep you busy for a while.

This is what I get.

If doing the same at my house it would cost $13.

Anyone else proportion that total cost to the proportion of your cost per kWh to mine (which seems to all be lower than what I pay).

Capture.JPG (23.45 KiB) Viewed 42284 times

[D1984]

At 20 amps / 110 volts and at my cost of electricity a total cost of $4.00 in electricity would be running it only 5 hours for that batch.

But why should we care? California has just decreed that everyone gets unlimited electricity for $20 a month.

Under the new plan, you’ll pay just $20 / month if you earn less than $69,000 a year. That’s the monthly fee for those served by Edison, with slightly higher fees for PG&E and SDG&E.

If you earn up to $180,000 per year, you’ll pay $51 a month as a flat fee, no matter how much electricity you use.

Above $180,000 in annual income will get you an $85 / month flat fee for unlimited electricity usage.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-04-18- ... rates.html

Gee, I wonder why the globalist types are pushing electricity so hard?

Maddy,

It takes about 30 seconds of Google (or DuckDuckGo) searching to find out that NaturalNews.com is not a useful and reliable source of...well, anything (except maybe for nonsense conspiracy theories on everything from vaccines causing disease, water fluoridation being a sinister plot, GMOs being deadly toxic, chemotherapy actually killing people and thus saying that if you have cancer you should only use "natural" cures and should reject chemo, Obama secretly being born in Kenya and not being an American citizen, denialism that HIV is the cause of AIDS while at the same time pushing the lie that antiretrovirals don't work and aren't necessary, 9/11 "truth" about how the whole thing was an inside job and the official story was bogus, etc, etc; basically if it is a nonsense woo conspiracy theory with zero real evidence backing it you can pretty much bet that Mike Adams of NaturalNews will believe in it and promote it).

You need to find some more reliable and accurate sources and maybe do a bit of fact-checking before you believe something.

What is being proposed in California is NOT (as far as I can tell) unlimited usage for a flat income-based fee. Rather, the current "fixed charge" (what a residential electricity customer pays--regardless of whether they use one kwh or several hundred thousand kwh--simply for having electricity service) is what will be income based and the actual usage charge will still be based on consumption; see https://www.foxla.com/news/california-e ... come-based .

[vnatale]

What is being proposed in California is NOT (as far as I can tell) unlimited usage for a flat income-based fee. Rather, the current "fixed charge" (what a residential electricity customer pays--regardless of whether they use one kwh or several hundred thousand kwh--simply for having electricity service) is what will be income based and the actual usage charge will still be based on consumption; see https://www.foxla.com/news/california-e ... come-based .

In Massachusetts that fixed charge had been $7 per month for everyone regardless of income for years and years. Just raised to $10 effective January 2023.

[boglerdude]

D1984 is gonna get freeze-dried

IIRC CA is going to give free healthcare to illegals over 50

[D1984]

D1984 is gonna get freeze-dried

IIRC CA is going to give free healthcare to illegals over 50

"Is gonna get freeze dried"? What the heck is that supposed to mean? Stop resorting to nonsense and insults and ad hominem and come up with some actual fact-based arguments if you want to be taken seriously.

Seriously, can you actually provide evidence rebutting anything I said about the unreliability and factual inaccuracy of what is on NaturalNews? Facts talk and bulls**t walks and right now all I see from you is a load of BS.