Freeze Drying at home

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goshengirl

goshengirl

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I've been seeing/hearing those ads for the Harvest Right home freeze dryer for some time now, and I would love to hear some feedback on it (or any other home freeze dryer). Who here has one? What do you think about it? What sort of items do you freeze dry? Would you buy it again?

Any and all feedback would be appreciated!
:)
 
From those I know that have it, it’s a love or hate it. It mists oil from the compressor and can get pretty messy. It’s noisy and there is maintenance. Those that use it outdoors don’t seem to care as much, those that hoped to have it in a corner of their basement wish they just spent $2k in dehydrated food.
 
goshengirl said:
I've been seeing/hearing those ads for the Harvest Right home freeze dryer for some time now, and I would love to hear some feedback on it (or any other home freeze dryer). Who here has one? What do you think about it? What sort of items do you freeze dry? Would you buy it again?

Any and all feedback would be appreciated!
:)
Click to expand...

I have the mid size Harvest Right, it runs dang near 24/7 in our basement. We have had it almost a year, no issues. The oil in the pump is a pain in the butt, gonna be springing for the $1500 oil-less pump soon.

What do I think about it? it is pricey but I would buy it again. I like being able to freeze dry a meal that we cooked, fresh fruits, veggies, shredded cheese, pretty much anything that is low in fat and oil content.

What have we freeze dried? Onions (red, yellow, white), spinach, diced tomatoes, sliced tomatoes, taco meat, steak (cut into strips for fajitas), potato casserole, spaghetti & meatballs, refried beans, bananas, strawberries, pineapple, kiwi, blackberries, apples (with cinnamon), oregano, basil and I am sure I have left some out.
Now taco meat you must remove as much grease from it as possible, anything with a high fat content, oil content won't work as it will go rancid. The oil and fat does not preserve correctly in the freeze dryer so care must be taken. You will know by weight after you get the hang of it, freeze dried food weighs grams (not ounces) compared to it's hydrated weight!

What else would you like to know about it Goshengirl?
 
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Homesteader33 said:
What else would you like to know about it Goshengirl?
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Thanks so much!

Just trying to wrap my brain around the whole process, and its worth. The fact that you have it running constantly and would buy it again means a lot. Can you buy it with the sans-oil pump, or is that an add-on - I'll have to look into that.

So high fats are out - no cheese then, I take it? Only meat that's super lean?

What is the general process - they always make it look like they take a cooked meal and stick it in the freeze dryer. I'm wondering how it compares to canning and freezing - do things have to be blanched, that sort of thing. How are you storing your freeze dried items? And how does it taste - is it something different than the original, or is it comparable to the original?
 
I use our frost free freezer to freeze dry herbs and such. All you have to do is wrap a tube of paper around them and place them on a rack near the bottom of the freezer.
To remove them from the freezer place an open jar with a tight fitting lid in the freezer overnight an place the herbs in the jar the next morning. Put the lid on the jar and then remove it from the freezer. The outside of the jar will collect moisture and sweat but the inside will remain dry. Once it all gets to room temperature you can remove the contents from the jar and place it in the container of your choice.

This method will work on meat and fish but the results do not look appealing. Adding water to rehydrate the meat and rapid cooking provides you with the same balance of nutrients and some of the flavor - especially if the meat is browned when cooked. Add salt and pepper in the last few moments of cooking and not before. The leaner the meat the better it is. (freeze dried fat is not in the least bit appealing)
 
goshengirl said:
Thanks so much!

Just trying to wrap my brain around the whole process, and its worth. The fact that you have it running constantly and would buy it again means a lot. Can you buy it with the sans-oil pump, or is that an add-on - I'll have to look into that.

So high fats are out - no cheese then, I take it? Only meat that's super lean?

What is the general process - they always make it look like they take a cooked meal and stick it in the freeze dryer. I'm wondering how it compares to canning and freezing - do things have to be blanched, that sort of thing. How are you storing your freeze dried items? And how does it taste - is it something different than the original, or is it comparable to the original?
Click to expand...

General process - blanched, no
we do cook meals and put the leftovers right on the trays.
canning and freezing you lose some taste and nutrients, with freeze drying you lose almost none. Texture well there will be some texture differences. For example veggies will not be as crisp they green beans won't have that "snap" freshness but taste and nutrients are still in tact upon rehydration.

Storing - we use vacuum sealed mylar, vacuum sealed jars (short term) and some vacuum sealed food saver bags (short term only), all of these we also use 02 absorbers in each one as well. Mylar bags offer the longest storage time available especially if vacuum sealed, 25 years for most things because they are protected from light and O2, but you must ensure it is completely dried.

We did screw up a lot when we got started and realized we had to run cycle times longer to ensure it was dried thoroughly.

BTW you can freeze dry shredded cheese, we have and it works just fine. Reconstituting it the texture is affected but if using it for cooking it works just fine.

Caribou is correct they do have sales often and scratch and dent (you must call about these though I think) they also have a zero interest/no minimum monthly payment required lay-a-way at least they used to, we bought ours on this because they popped up on sale and didn't want to drop the $ at that time so we paid it in a couple months and shipped immediately upon us paying it. Tech support is awesome if needed, mine arrived dented and you are supposed to contact them if it is damaged, not sign for it, etc. (they provide great instructions) so I contacted them and the tech spent 3 hours on the phone with me ensuring it was structural damaged then they offered to ship another one or I WANTED to handle it. I told them if they gave me $300 store credit we would call it good and they did just that. The dent is on the top you will only see it if you are 6'4" or taller or on a ladder!
 
@Homesteader33, thank you. I think I will try saving up for one. I do a lot of canning and dehydrating now, but in some ways I think freeze drying might be a better fit (or at the least, another tool) - just need to save up.

@SheepDog, I’m a fan of lean meats, so that’s not a problem. I can meats, but don’t always care for the result (beef is fine, but chicken smells like canned dog food to me). But as for the herbs - any reason why you would freeze dry herbs instead of dry them? Better nutrient retention?
 
[USER=32 said:
@SheepDog[/USER], I’m a fan of lean meats, so that’s not a problem. I can meats, but don’t always care for the result (beef is fine, but chicken smells like canned dog food to me). But as for the herbs - any reason why you would freeze dry herbs instead of dry them? Better nutrient retention?
Click to expand...

Yes, freeze-dried herbs retain all the essential oils that are lost in heat drying. That wonderful smell of rosemary when in the dehydrator is the essential oils evaporating away.I have freeze dried rose petals, rosemary, parsley, sage, thyme and much more. The flavors are much stronger when freeze dried.
 
Just ordered the oil-less pump, it isn't in stock and will ship as soon as it is I will update this thread on it's performance when I run a few loads. Until then.....I gotta keep filtering the oil I guess and keeping the ole freeze dryer running! Once we get the oil-less pump the current pump will get flushed out good and filled to the top with oil and become a spare "just in case" pump!
 
oil less pump and vacuum sealer update for anyone interested. We love the oil less pump....when they first sent ours they had bearing issues, ours made a horrid noise after about an hour and I called and they told me they are replacing the bearings with ceramic now and will send me a new one and to return the old one when I received the replacement (they covered all shipping). Since we received the new one we have had no issues, we follow the guidelines for cleaning it and it runs fine.

Lets talk about vacuum sealers...I hate them! We ended up recently buying a Vacmaster VP220 about 2 months ago, I love vacuum sealing now! I will never again use a vacuum sealer that is not a chamber type sealer...NEVER AGAIN! We have had 4 food savers and a Sinbo, they are destined for the trash bins soon. The VP220 seals Mylar very well I haven't tried thicker mylar bags (9mil) but it works great with 5 mil.

This machine is 'spendy' but well worth it in my opinion if you can afford it. So to sum up our setup we now have about $2200 in our freeze dryer, $1400 in the oil less pump and $1200 in the vacuum sealer. So our setup we have near $5000 in it but we are hoping it will last years. We have a room full of freeze dried items and continue to add to the stockpile we have. Still can't keep up with bananas, seems that I should be selling these since every time our son, nieces or brothers visit they carry a bag or two away with them but it's a healthy snack so we don't complain!
 
Drfacefixer said:
From those I know that have it, it’s a love or hate it. It mists oil from the compressor and can get pretty messy. It’s noisy and there is maintenance. Those that use it outdoors don’t seem to care as much, those that hoped to have it in a corner of their basement wish they just spent $2k in dehydrated food.
Click to expand...
I do have one and so far love it. The mist is not so bad if you put a sock over it. I got to play with it some when we got it, but then my MIL couldn't take care of herself and she eventually moved in with us so because it had to get moved into the kitchen area and she was hard of hearing along with hunny so didn't use it. Now it is back in the spa re room and have gotten to play once more.
 
I am wondering if freeze drying Elder, would be best way to store them.
 
I would be concerned they would be like blueberries and you would need to pop the skin on each one multiple times or drying them will be difficult at best. We have done blueberries and have not had good luck with them unless we blend them first.

As for storage we use a Vacmaster VP220 and 5mil thick mylar with a 300cc Oxygen Absorbers and a 10 gram silica gel pack desiccant in each bag.
 
Our freeze drier is supposed to ship in 5 days (or so). Been a long wait. Have a ton of stuff ready in the freezer along with an extra set of trays to have frozen and ready to go.
We went with the premium pump instead of the oil less. To many bad reviews of the oil less pump needed to be shipped back to harvest right every 10,000 hours for service. Not cheap to do.
Really excited to get started and clear out a lot of frozen stuff.
 
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Homesteader33 said:
I would be concerned they would be like blueberries and you would need to pop the skin on each one multiple times or drying them will be difficult at best. We have done blueberries and have not had good luck with them unless we blend them first.

As for storage we use a Vacmaster VP220 and 5mil thick mylar with a 300cc Oxygen Absorbers and a 10 gram silica gel pack desiccant in each bag.
Click to expand...

Do you have to change settings on your vacmaster to seal the mylars? I use the heck outta our vacmaster. Didn’t know I could do mylars with it. Thanks for the info!
 
Double R said:
Our freeze drier is supposed to ship in 5 days (or so). Been a long wait. Have a ton of stuff ready in the freezer along with an extra set of trays to have frozen and ready to go.
We went with the premium pump instead of the oil less. To many bad reviews of the oil less pump needed to be shipped back to harvest right every 10,000 hours for service. Not cheap to do.
Really excited to get started and clear out a lot of frozen stuff.
Click to expand...

I'm so jealous....
 
Double R said:
Do you have to change settings on your vacmaster to seal the mylars? I use the heck outta our vacmaster. Didn’t know I could do mylars with it. Thanks for the info!
Click to expand...

On the vacmaster VP220 when sealing mylar i set the seal time to maximum. The VP220 can seal a maximum thickness of 5 mils. Harvest right bags are thicker so they can't be used with a VP220. I also seal ours with an impulse sealer just to make sure!

Edit: I also set the cool time to max sealing mylar.
 
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Homesteader33 said:
On the vacmaster VP220 when sealing mylar i set the seal time to maximum. The VP220 can seal a maximum thickness of 5 mils. Harvest right bags are thicker so they can't be used with a VP220. I also seal ours with an impulse sealer just to make sure!

Edit: I also set the cool time to max sealing mylar.
Click to expand...
Thank you 🙏🏼
 
Double R said:
Thank you 🙏🏼
Click to expand...
FYI we just sealed over 500 ears of corn harvested from our garden, some was cream corn cut off the cob and scraped the juices and some was whole ears. we sealed them in food saver bags using the VP220. we tried using bass pro/cabellas bags...don't do that! food saver bags worked perfectly in the VP220, the others have much smaller channels for air to be pulled out of the bag and it just doesn't work. we used quart size bags put 2-4 ears for on the cobb and used a large plastic serving spoon to put off the cob cream corn into the quart bags, worked beautifully!
 
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