Freeze dryer

[Bearsixty7]

We've had a Harvest right for about 4 years now, Home Depot was offering them about $100.00 less than direct purchase and at the time they had 0% for 12 or 18 months, made buying and paying for it very easy.
Eggs are the main thing we freeze dry. My BIL at the start of C19 bought 120-200 hens for eggs and meat just in case supply chain issues got real bad. We would go over periodically and get dozens of eggs as they couldn't use or sell them fast enough. We blend them then freeze dry them. We used some just to test and you would never know the scrambled eggs were made from freeze dried eggs.
Every now and then when eggs go on sale we buy some and process. We could probably exist for 1-2 years on everything we have already.

Apples, bananas and pineapple are also processed often as they make great snacks.

We have also tried some of the "experiments" you see on youtube, skittles, purreed tomatoes, grapes, some are interesting and some are not good.

 

[gsganzer]

Max,
What's the average time to process a batch of food or for a freeze dry "cycle"? I know it depends on the product. But if I had a bunch of yellow squash and sliced it up, how long to run a load through the gizmo?

 

[workinonit]

I'll have to take the word of all of you that know and think FD is the best thing since sliced bread. I won't be paying for one. Sure would like to try something freeze dried and see.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

Max,
What's the average time to process a batch of food or for a freeze dry "cycle"? I know it depends on the product. But if I had a bunch of yellow squash and sliced it up, how long to run a load through the gizmo?

The average run time of a "cycle" is 24 hours. Give or take and hour. It is all moisture content dependant.
We have found that grainy or stringy veggies take a little longer as the fiber content takes longer to release the moisture.

To shorten the drying time and getting the best results is to cook them, then process them in the freeze dryer. Takes less time in the freeze dryer this way and the stringy texture goes away after cooking them first.

 

[MAX-24-Dean]

One thing we would have done different, would have been to buy the medium sized freeze dryer instead of the smallest unit available.
It takes very little extra power to run the unit that is the next size up. This would have allowed us to not pack trays as dense and reduced the drying times a little.
It would have also allowed us to process more food in less time during our peak harvest time from our two gardens.