Dehydrating your own foods...

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Great site. I can see why you dropped that much cash for it. I'd really like to learn more about how the unit works. I have spent my budget and more recently, but could see one of these being a good investment. We will see what next year brings.
 
Brent S said:
Great site. I can see why you dropped that much cash for it. I'd really like to learn more about how the unit works. I have spent my budget and more recently, but could see one of these being a good investment. We will see what next year brings.
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Right now you can get one for $18something. Hey - you can drive your budget! We'll do more this weekend. It's a toy that I didn't spend my money on... somebody else did, lol.
 
WGregMiller said:
Yep. Somewhere in my email is a recipe book that has detail on what can be freeze dried. I'll look for it.
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Wow, that little unit gets temperature down to -50degs. That's one tough little a/c unit in there. It looks like the oil needs to be filtered as it absorbs the moisture when it evaporates off as a gas. Is it very involved to filter the oil?
The reason I'm so intrigued by this is it compares to canning about as much as a modern Ferrari does to a model T.
In canning the heat breaks down flavor and nutrients, and texture. Also three years is average for canned goods to be dumped. You also don't have the portability with the heavy and fragile glass jars. Don't get me wrong here, I love canning. It also can be done without electricity. I just feel the freeze drying is light years ahead of it.
 
No. Filtering took me 5 minutes, and the filter 15 minutes. I did order more oil for it, but I don't see this running every day for a week either.

Also, the filter they sent with it soaked up some of the oil, so I'd have been short. Amazon comes through again.
 
Okay folks, here is an update on freeze drying.

We have run the machine through several cycles. The thing is smart, so it freezes everything for 9 hours, then starts the dry cycle. It sets the dry time, based on moisture it detects inside the machine. What I find odd is how it works. The trays fit in a rack inside a tube. When the dry cycle starts, it pulls a vacuum on the chamber, then heats the trays (not the chamber) to about 115 or 120 degrees. This forces remaining moisture out of the food, and ice forms on the inside of the chamber. And it does this until it thinks it is finished.

Maintenance: so far, none. I filter the vacuum pump oil each cycle as it gets moisture in it. I've lost very little oil, other than what the filter soaked up on the first run.

Results: so far, great. We have run tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms and a lot of other stuff through it and had no problems at all. We even ran sour cream through it. Came out as powder. Pretty cool.

Of course, a week after we got ours they had a sale and we could've gotten the next size up for the same price. That's my normal luck....
 
WGregMiller said:
Okay folks, here is an update on freeze drying.

We have run the machine through several cycles. The thing is smart, so it freezes everything for 9 hours, then starts the dry cycle. It sets the dry time, based on moisture it detects inside the machine. What I find odd is how it works. The trays fit in a rack inside a tube. When the dry cycle starts, it pulls a vacuum on the chamber, then heats the trays (not the chamber) to about 115 or 120 degrees. This forces remaining moisture out of the food, and ice forms on the inside of the chamber. And it does this until it thinks it is finished.

Maintenance: so far, none. I filter the vacuum pump oil each cycle as it gets moisture in it. I've lost very little oil, other than what the filter soaked up on the first run.

Results: so far, great. We have run tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms and a lot of other stuff through it and had no problems at all. We even ran sour cream through it. Came out as powder. Pretty cool.

Of course, a week after we got ours they had a sale and we could've gotten the next size up for the same price. That's my normal luck....
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I'm so glad it's working good for you! I hope the prices come down in the future on the buggars so I can get one too....
 
Brent S said:
I want to try some carrot chips. I will try par boiling in a syrup first to add a little more sweetness. Anyone else tried dehydrated carrots?
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We sun-dried our carrots, onions, tomatoes and a few other veggies. Cut them up blanched in water with a little citric acid put them out in the sun on drying racks that's covered with shade netting. Took between 3 to 4 days here. Then we vacuum sealed everything. We add it to stews etc. We have sealed the bags about 6 years ago and they are still tasty.

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 
I have got a ton of Arugula lettuce in the garden and I can not seem to eat it fast enough. It probably doesn't help that I pick the outer leaves to eat and leave the rest to continue growing. What can I say, why not just let it continue to grow instead of replanting so you don't use seeds if you don't have to. I like to stretch all my greens this way. I use arugula mainly fresh in salads, but also do cook with mustard greens for a milder taste. The curly leaf mustard has more of a punch verses the traditional mustard I normally plant, but the curly was at the feed store so thought I would give it a try.

Soooo.... I have decided to dry the arugula, then crush to use in cooking as a seasoning. It has a nice mild peppery flavor so think it will be good to use in tomato type dishes, like eggplant parmesan or roasted chicken.
 
Danil54grl said:
I have got a ton of Arugula lettuce in the garden and I can not seem to eat it fast enough. It probably doesn't help that I pick the outer leaves to eat and leave the rest to continue growing. What can I say, why not just let it continue to grow instead of replanting so you don't use seeds if you don't have to. I like to stretch all my greens this way. I use arugula mainly fresh in salads, but also do cook with mustard greens for a milder taste. The curly leaf mustard has more of a punch verses the traditional mustard I normally plant, but the curly was at the feed store so thought I would give it a try.

Soooo.... I have decided to dry the arugula, then crush to use in cooking as a seasoning. It has a nice mild peppery flavor so think it will be good to use in tomato type dishes, like eggplant parmesan or roasted chicken.
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The lettuce may turn out good. I tried using kale as a spice and it was repulsive! Celery and chives are two of my favorites so far for homemade spices.
 
Danil54grl said:
I like baked kale chips with a little salt, but haven't tried making them into a seasoning. Kale and cranberry salad is very good too, probably my favorite way to eat it in fact.
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You need to mix it with something! I tried chips too, but still wasn’t a fan. Too bad as the stuff literally grew fantastic here. It tried to take over the whole garden. At least if shtf ever happens I know I could survive on it, just not enjoyably.
 
Hey Greg, how is the freeze drier working out? Still good I hope. And have you tried eating anything you have done?
 
Danil54grl said:
Hey Greg, how is the freeze drier working out? Still good I hope. And have you tried eating anything you have done?
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So far, great!

We have eaten some meals that were freeze dried (more to test than anything), and it s amazing how close it is to the original. Actually, we had spaghetti tonight (homemade everything, thank you very much),and the onions and mushrooms that went into the sauce we’re freeze dried.

I know you were worried about maintenance. When we got the thing, one place in the manual said to drain and filter the oil from the pump with every use. Another place said to change every 4 or 5 times. Both said to flush the pump every 12 uses or so. Changing the oil was a 5 minute job. Flushing sucked and made a mess. That was my only complaint.

We found a separate vendor that sells an add on that adapts a car oil filter to the unit. I loved the part on their website that said to not tell Harvest Right about it because it’d kill your warranty. We bought the thing. I connected it and it turned a 30 minute pain in my butt to a 5 minute clean job. Their filters have a drain so it’s easy to get water out of the oil, and the oils stays clean with every run.

We bought the freeze dryer on sale, which they have all the time. They also seem to have better sales when the units wouldn’t sell as well due to growing seasons.

The only problem we had was a small oil leak and their support guys sent replacement gaskets 2 day for free, so I didn’t fuss about that. We have probably done close to 75 cycles, maybe more. For a while, it seemed like it was running all the time (with no noticeable change to our utility bill). We did veggies, meats, fruit, sour cream, and about anything you could think of to freeze dry - oh, and meatloaf, spaghetti and I don’t remember what all.

We got the one with 3 trays. I’d get the one with 4 if I did it again.....

Overall we are very happy with it.
 
I tend to get water in my oil with the milk machine. Have to change it about once a week with all the condensation in the hosesY. You got me wondering if that add on wouldn't work.

Glad you are enjoying your new toy so much. I'll pass this on to hunny. :)
 
After tilling the garden this morning, I came into kinda organize my stockroom some. Well, i was checking thru my supplies and found in one of my rice bags little black bugs, so I took it out and threw it in a bowl to drown all those little buggies and since they floated and rice sinks not a problem getting them out. . . . just ran water in the bowl and they floated on out. Since I had all that rice out and wet I went ahead and cooked up 8 cups of it. The rest I just put on some baking trays and placed them in the oven to dry out before I stored them again. The 8 cups cooked rice I placed on my dehydrator trays at about 120 for overnight. I tried to separate the best I could but there will still be lumps. Once it is good and dried its easy enough to just break them apart. This is like homemade Minute Rice and you would rehydrate the same. . . Bring equal amount of liquid to a boil, add rice, let sit for 5 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. You can use it as a quick side (adding in your own seasonings), homemade soups in a cup, MREs etc. Since my dehydrator is going, I also scrambled 10 eggs and added in on a sheet. This will be made into a powder for when the girls are not laying as well.
 
I got a plastic tub of strawberries yesterday for dehydrating.I looked through the post about strawberries.and found very little.i know that I remove the leaves and slice.but do they need to be a certain thickness?
 
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