Here is a link to Harvestright.com. They are showing a home based model for freeze drying at home for preppers. Mine is on the way, 25 year shelf life, just like the big boys! Better than canning, I think, we'll see!
Please, let us know how it all turns out.
Posted by LabRat (Member # 78) on :
I will, should be here tomorrow, I'm excited! My "food forest", is just about set. I put in 3 plum, 2 pare, 2 apple, 2 peach, 2 fig and one other that escapes me at the moment. Yesterday I received 8 seedless grape and 10 blackberry plants that I got potted up. Today I've got to weld up some grape arbors, I'm planning to trellis the grapes overhead and have watermelons wandering underneath. It all looks good in my minds eye, but we'll have to wait and see!
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
How is the dehydrating going, LabRat?
Posted by LabRat (Member # 78) on :
It's an on going learning experience with some disappointment and some amazement. The disappointment came right off the bat when I sliced up a pineapple to freeze dry along with avocado, banana, strawberry and apple. The avocado and banana did what I thought they should have, so if you've never had avocado or banana jerky, give it a try. The banana is like eating a cookie and taste pretty good! The avocado, not so much but you can rehydrate for gockomolie (spell check wants to know if I want to add this word to the dictionary), I didn't but should have, now I have to go from scratch again on the avocado.
I shortened the freezing and drying time and didn't get all the moisture out of the pineapple or the strawberries due to my inexperience. The machine is fully automatic once turned on and works fine when left alone. Operator input Will do in the smartest machine!
Now I pre-freeze everything for a day or so before putting in the freeze dryer, then the dryer drops the temp to really cold, something like 50 below for about eight hours and then the vacuum pump kicks on and a heating pad under the food trays warm up for another seven hours. The moisture leaving the product and forms ice on the walls of the chamber. The food is removed and everything is turned off and moisture from the melting ice is allowed to drain away.
The liquid content of food is just amazing! I'm please with the little freeze dryer and it works much better than a heated drying system. I have an Excalibur and I loaded it up with peppers and dried for about two days, then transferred to the freeze drier and got 1 1/2 cups of water out!
From an economic point of view it's probably cheaper to buy freeze dried food in #10 cans for storage and just use it for special item you can't buy like freeze dried shrimp and lobster. I'll play with it off an on, it's just for fun!
Got my grapes in the ground and climbing trellis and planted watermelons in same hill, grapes are growing good, watermelons, not so much. I think poor soil and 100 degree heat almost did them in. They are again setting fruit, so we shall see.
The black berries I put in another area with three avocado trees, all on fish water drip and my goodness, don't think I've ever seen anything grow as well, (or have as many thorns), yea haa!!