Ideas to try. Vinegar, dill, and salt. Cinnamon and salt. Sour cream, onion powder, and salt. Cheese, garlic, and salt. We will get our HR freeze dryer in a couple weeks.
Right. I got a small and wish I had at least a Medium. Remember with large... You need a real dedicated outlet.. Not difficult you must need to keep that in mind.
What about salting the blanch water so that the potatoes aren’t overly salted at the end of the process for the plain chips? I think that would work. Has anyone tried it?
Just found your video on the sweet potatoes. We have been dehydrating zucchini and sweet potatoes in a regular dehydrator. We didn't put any spice on the sweet potatoes but used chili seasoning on the zucchini chips, gives it a little zing. I'm nearly sold on a freeze drier as it provides a more natural product, meaning it looks/tastes more like what went in.
Your Facebook group is amazing!!! Any question I’ve had has been answered by people who know what they’re doing!!! Cinnamon is great on sweet potatoes.
I think Rote in the FB group gets a better result by roasting his chips for a few mins instead of blanching. I've been meaning to try it both ways but there's always a back log of stuff to run. That said, I just harvested 50lbs of sweet potatoes from the garden, so I know I'll be trying this soon!
I went with the medium HarvestRight Freeze Dryer about 5 months ago. I’ve hada few issues. Problems with the impulse sealer having to be replaced 3 times. Recent issues with components that have had to be replaced twice have caused me to lose 3 1/2 weeks of food storage during harvest time. Thank goodness I have an IT professional next door to help me with these component replacements. I couldn’t have done them by myself!
I had a 4 month long trial with my HR. The tech team support was a challenge and had to finally call the sales team to get action and the non working unit fixed. I think many of their employees are new and don’t know the product. My husband who is an engineer worked with them. They finally took my unit back and 4 weeks later I recieved it back/fixed via FedEx and the unit was significantly damaged due to poor packaging. We refused to accept the unit and after more conversation HR sent us a new unit in an additional week. The unit works (finally) but there were lessons learned and I lost 4 months of prep time 😔 but grateful it was all fixed in the end.
@@WI_Rottie_Mom Sounds like you were as frustrated as I was. On the good side, I haven had a single operational issue since that problem was resolved. I haven’t had to deal with the service department again. Hang in there!! 😀
I had too many problems. I threatened to just scrap their freeze dryer and buy a Blue Alpine. They didn’t care about that. Still wanted to charge me a service fee just to talk to me so I bought a Blue Alpine.
Did my first batch of Sweet Potato before you did this vid. Added Cinnamon and some with salt and some with stevia. Got some pointers with this vid. Texture was fine with me without blanching. Will have to try the blanching and the Food processor on next batch
@@makosandburger8668 Key, I've learned, you need to put a spritz of oil on the chips or all of the seasoning, for obvious reasons falls off. So I put seasoning in Avocado oil because of it's naturally buttery flavor. Mix the seasoning in the oil and do a quick light brush after patting dry the material to be freeze dried. Cut my story buying down 90+%. I find I don't have the taste for store bought chips any longer
Hey, where did you get those green stands to stack you trays on top of each other? This would be helpful to have when pre freezing food for just freezer space logistics.
I throw that stuff on EVERYTHING! Including the bagel... their whole line is killer. BBQ seasoning on burgers and steak seasoning on steak obviously... so good.
Really love these videos. They save me so much time and food trying to figure out what I like. I've been throwing in a tray of beets for my last few runs. Turns out I enjoy them plain. Smoked paprika is nice, goes with the sweetness well but I just can't dispense it evenly enough. Salt was god awful. It was too much and took a lot of the sweetness away from the beet. Carrots plain are gross. I tried slap your daddy seasoning on it but it came out way too salty and hot. I'm doing pickles now per your recommendation. Mushroom and nutritional yeast is gross. Something that everyone enjoys is okra with salt and pepper. I'm doing a batch right now with soy sauce and maple syrup. I think those will be great. I was going to try sweet potato but I'd like to convert the starches into sugars and just go ahead and roast them in the oven. Problem is turning them into a chip that won't fall apart. Do you have any advice there? I'd also like to freeze creamed spinach into a cheeto puff. Would you use pure cream cheese? Don't want them falling apart too easily.
I would take the plain chips and make a sauce with the juice in canned apricots (no fresh ones at Thanksgiving time) and corn starch, maple syrup, or brown sugar and cinnamon, and mix with the dried chips and the slices apricots, then bake. That would probably rehydrate them to use up the plain ones you didn't like. Or use apple or orange juice for the sauce base.
Hey Brian, Have you ever tried reconstituting them with a flavored/seasoned broth and then freeze drying them again? I was going to give it a try. But if you don't think it would work, I don't want to waste the time. My hope was they would absorb the flavor and retain it after the second round of freeze drying. If it works, the possibilities are endless.
@@meggimoo318 I might give that a try next time, but I suspect blanching wouldn't absorb much flavor. Maybe if they were left in the water longer than the blanching time-frame they may. But I don't want to cook them before freeze drying them. I want them raw before freeze drying.
I have a question, how do you freeze dry coffee. I though about making the coffee then putting it in the freezer dryer to make it instant coffee. Am I right or crazy then how do you store it and in what.
@@thefreezedryingcommunity I freeze dried cucumbers 🥒 and I was disappointed ☹️ in how they turned out. Have you done any and if so how did you do them?
I don't freeze dry yet but those to seasonings you did sound really good. I would of done a salt and vinegar (maybe a little pepper too) and do a garlic one. Kinda wonder how you would do a sour cream and onion flavor
I have done mac n cheese just a few weeks back using (fake 😂 cheese Velveeta). I have not done French fries, but I have seen a few comments saying they weren't great.
How would these work with cinnamon and powdered stevia? I'm interested to know about powdered stevia in all kinds of foods as I know sugar is mostly a no no
On potatoes, the spice sticks pretty well. Some will fall off and if you bag it, some may get knocker off if the package if jumbled around. Mainly because it does not have the oils that potato chips are soaked in.
Neat, have some home grown sweet potatoes to do this with. Also what happened to the FB group, its just gone for me, and gives a warning screen saying "content not avail" anymore!?
So I don’t think that you have tray dividers for the small size freeze dryer that’s the one I have and I would be interested in them Not sure if that could be a thing but just asking
Can you tell me and include a link to a kilowatt hour meter that will work with the large freeze dryer? Does the one you linked to work with the large freeze dryer with the funky plug?
@@patriciahart9750 I wish I could do more as well. Between recording, editing, posting, answering comments, our freeze drying store and 2 social media groups, I think I am busier than I have ever been! We have alot of fun doing this and have enjoyed building a community of people.
@@thefreezedryingcommunity I can believe it. I am a member on your MeWe group and it is one of the busiest groups I've ever seen, and people are really friendly. Great job with that. We have only had our freeze dryer about 3 weeks and I am learning a lot. Thank you!!!
Freeze drying means sublimation of water from the freezed, crunchy, ice cold food, in pressure where; water can't exist in its liquid form. And here you're boiling it.
Couldn't you just buy a bag of frozen Sweet Potoato chips from costco and see if they would freeze dry nicely. taske good and last for 20 years :) Has anyone tried that?
I did two bread runs (fully loaded trays of bread spritzed with water) and I still had a faint odor. But I am very sensitive. I went ahead and ran a load of raspberries and there was no odor in the berries.
I added cinnamon and brown sugar. So good !
Ideas to try.
Vinegar, dill, and salt.
Cinnamon and salt.
Sour cream, onion powder, and salt.
Cheese, garlic, and salt.
We will get our HR freeze dryer in a couple weeks.
great treats for your pups
Yams and sweet potatoes are DIFFERENT foods - did you know? You are definitely cutting yams.
He's right. Pull the trigger! My only regret is not buying the FD last year. Go with the large!
I think we are already regretting not buying the large!
@@terrim.602 Sorry to hear 🙉.
I'm actually deployed an will be away from my FD for 6 months 😭.
Try to sell it.
Right. I got a small and wish I had at least a Medium.
Remember with large... You need a real dedicated outlet.. Not difficult you must need to keep that in mind.
What about salting the blanch water so that the potatoes aren’t overly salted at the end of the process for the plain chips? I think that would work. Has anyone tried it?
Use a mandolin. Perfect even slices
Just found your video on the sweet potatoes. We have been dehydrating zucchini and sweet potatoes in a regular dehydrator. We didn't put any spice on the sweet potatoes but used chili seasoning on the zucchini chips, gives it a little zing. I'm nearly sold on a freeze drier as it provides a more natural product, meaning it looks/tastes more like what went in.
Your Facebook group is amazing!!! Any question I’ve had has been answered by people who know what they’re doing!!! Cinnamon is great on sweet potatoes.
I think Rote in the FB group gets a better result by roasting his chips for a few mins instead of blanching. I've been meaning to try it both ways but there's always a back log of stuff to run. That said, I just harvested 50lbs of sweet potatoes from the garden, so I know I'll be trying this soon!
if you try both ways let us know which is better.
Could you roast right in the FD pan? Or roast in another pan amd transfer over?
Roast at what temperature? Did you try this? Good.results?
@@amyloeppky5880 Roasting in the pan will ruin them.
I went with the medium HarvestRight Freeze Dryer about 5 months ago. I’ve hada few issues. Problems with the impulse sealer having to be replaced 3 times. Recent issues with components that have had to be replaced twice have caused me to lose 3 1/2 weeks of food storage during harvest time. Thank goodness I have an IT professional next door to help me with these component replacements. I couldn’t have done them by myself!
How was the customer service?
I had a 4 month long trial with my HR. The tech team support was a challenge and had to finally call the sales team to get action and the non working unit fixed. I think many of their employees are new and don’t know the product. My husband who is an engineer worked with them. They finally took my unit back and 4 weeks later I recieved it back/fixed via FedEx and the unit was significantly damaged due to poor packaging. We refused to accept the unit and after more conversation HR sent us a new unit in an additional week. The unit works (finally) but there were lessons learned and I lost 4 months of prep time 😔 but grateful it was all fixed in the end.
@@WI_Rottie_Mom Sounds like you were as frustrated as I was. On the good side, I haven had a single operational issue since that problem was resolved. I haven’t had to deal with the service department again. Hang in there!! 😀
@@NANASplash I got a brand new one back with no issues!! 😉
I had too many problems. I threatened to just scrap their freeze dryer and buy a Blue Alpine. They didn’t care about that. Still wanted to charge me a service fee just to talk to me so I bought a Blue Alpine.
Thanks Brian! commented on the MeWe post as well! Great job!
Awesome, thank you!
Because of your awesome Channel I purchased a medium freeze dryer, I love it!
My only concern is it did not come with an insulated pad
@@FusionHowie We haven't used our insulated pad for years. Doesn't matter.
@@carolclarkson4859 Thank you very much
Did my first batch of Sweet Potato before you did this vid. Added Cinnamon and some with salt and some with stevia. Got some pointers with this vid. Texture was fine with me without blanching. Will have to try the blanching and the Food processor on next batch
how did your salted cinnamon chips work out? Are you still making them like that or did you find a different seasoning option?
@@makosandburger8668 Key, I've learned, you need to put a spritz of oil on the chips or all of the seasoning, for obvious reasons falls off. So I put seasoning in Avocado oil because of it's naturally buttery flavor. Mix the seasoning in the oil and do a quick light brush after patting dry the material to be freeze dried. Cut my story buying down 90+%. I find I don't have the taste for store bought chips any longer
Maybe coating the sweet potato chips with melted butter for sweeter seasonings may work
Hey, where did you get those green stands to stack you trays on top of each other? This would be helpful to have when pre freezing food for just freezer space logistics.
Thanks for the videos they have really helped us dile in our freeze dryer.
Glad to help
I’m going to try these with “everything but the bagel” seasoning
yum
I throw that stuff on EVERYTHING! Including the bagel... their whole line is killer. BBQ seasoning on burgers and steak seasoning on steak obviously... so good.
Awesome snack. One of our favorites. We like to use ranch and bbq seasoning.
@TomClarkson what type of BBQ seasoning do you use?
Sounds great!
My first thought was BBQ seasoning. Yum. I have to try this
Video didn't show pulling them off the trays. Do they stick together when they're dried while overlapping?
Lol, you so missed the perfect opportunity for a big, cheesy grin!! I yam! 🤣
Really love these videos. They save me so much time and food trying to figure out what I like. I've been throwing in a tray of beets for my last few runs. Turns out I enjoy them plain. Smoked paprika is nice, goes with the sweetness well but I just can't dispense it evenly enough. Salt was god awful. It was too much and took a lot of the sweetness away from the beet. Carrots plain are gross. I tried slap your daddy seasoning on it but it came out way too salty and hot. I'm doing pickles now per your recommendation. Mushroom and nutritional yeast is gross. Something that everyone enjoys is okra with salt and pepper. I'm doing a batch right now with soy sauce and maple syrup. I think those will be great.
I was going to try sweet potato but I'd like to convert the starches into sugars and just go ahead and roast them in the oven. Problem is turning them into a chip that won't fall apart. Do you have any advice there? I'd also like to freeze creamed spinach into a cheeto puff. Would you use pure cream cheese? Don't want them falling apart too easily.
Have to wonder what would happen if the blanching water had the smoked paprika.
I would take the plain chips and make a sauce with the juice in canned apricots (no fresh ones at Thanksgiving time) and corn starch, maple syrup, or brown sugar and cinnamon, and mix with the dried chips and the slices apricots, then bake. That would probably rehydrate them to use up the plain ones you didn't like. Or use apple or orange juice for the sauce base.
Oops I didn’t blanch the first load. Will do that going forward. I use a mandolin to slice the chips with a “ruffle” or cross cut.
Thanks. I have a bowl full of sweet potatoes and will try that next.
Sounds great!
Good information. Can't get into MEWE for some reason.
You have to apply for the mewe group. There are ?'s to answer to keep out the spammers and scammers
@@thefreezedryingcommunity I signed up with the mewe group that is why I was surprised. I got in fine last time so I will try again.
Love it
Would the sweet potatoes freeze-dry with a cinnamon-sugar mixture?
cinnamon yes, sugar no
We add cinnamon and a tiny bit of sweetener
I like cinnamon on my sweet potatoes
👍
Gab social also has a freeze drying sight
Thx. I’ve been on gab a long x so this is good to know.
You had me at “I yam”
😆
Can you do regular potatoes this way to make potato chips
What about spritzing them with olive oil before seasoning them? I'd use onion and garlic powders. I'd worry that salt might be too salty.
Maybe some salt and nacho or Parmesan cheese powder.
Can you do okra the same way?
Hey Brian, Have you ever tried reconstituting them with a flavored/seasoned broth and then freeze drying them again? I was going to give it a try. But if you don't think it would work, I don't want to waste the time. My hope was they would absorb the flavor and retain it after the second round of freeze drying. If it works, the possibilities are endless.
Why not blanch them in broth instead of water? I wonder if the flavor would be infused.
@@meggimoo318 I might give that a try next time, but I suspect blanching wouldn't absorb much flavor. Maybe if they were left in the water longer than the blanching time-frame they may. But I don't want to cook them before freeze drying them. I want them raw before freeze drying.
I have a question for you!, have you ever freeze dried can'd condensed milk and can'd caramel?
I have a question, how do you freeze dry coffee. I though about making the coffee then putting it in the freezer dryer to make it instant coffee. Am I right or crazy then how do you store it and in what.
I have a video on it
@@thefreezedryingcommunity I freeze dried cucumbers 🥒 and I was disappointed ☹️ in how they turned out. Have you done any and if so how did you do them?
I did one tray of my coffee as a test. I normally use honey and creamer, but omitted the honey but did use the creamer. It seemed to work fine.
I don't freeze dry yet but those to seasonings you did sound really good. I would of done a salt and vinegar (maybe a little pepper too) and do a garlic one. Kinda wonder how you would do a sour cream and onion flavor
OH I JUST REMEMBERED YOU MADE POWDERED CHEESE IN ONE OF YOUR OLDER VIDEOS AND I WOULD DEFINITELY TRY SOME OF THAT TOO!
Great idea!
I did beet chips. Some cooked and some raw. Came out the same.
I have done mac n cheese just a few weeks back using (fake 😂 cheese Velveeta). I have not done French fries, but I have seen a few comments saying they weren't great.
How would these work with cinnamon and powdered stevia? I'm interested to know about powdered stevia in all kinds of foods as I know sugar is mostly a no no
cinnamon and stevia would be good i bet
Since the potatoes are not frozen, does the freeze dried blow the spices around as it processes the load?
On potatoes, the spice sticks pretty well. Some will fall off and if you bag it, some may get knocker off if the package if jumbled around. Mainly because it does not have the oils that potato chips are soaked in.
The freeze dryer doesn't have a fan inside like a dehydrator.
Neat, have some home grown sweet potatoes to do this with. Also what happened to the FB group, its just gone for me, and gives a warning screen saying "content not avail" anymore!?
So I don’t think that you have tray dividers for the small size freeze dryer that’s the one I have and I would be interested in them Not sure if that could be a thing but just asking
Yes, we do carry dividers for the small dryer
@@thefreezedryingcommunity yeah sorry about leaving that comment I actually did find that out and then I ordered them. So thank you very much.
White cheeter cheese powder .Try apples with kool-aid powder on them
.
Do you have a link for the cart that you have your dryer on?
I do not. It was purchased from harbor freight a few years ago.
lol "I yam". 😁
Nutritional yeast will give it a cheesy flavor also.
Can you tell me and include a link to a kilowatt hour meter that will work with the large freeze dryer? Does the one you linked to work with the large freeze dryer with the funky plug?
I have not found one that works with the large. You would have to hardwire a 20 amp meter
@@thefreezedryingcommunity Thank you for responding. Love the videos. Wish you had more each week.
@@patriciahart9750 I wish I could do more as well. Between recording, editing, posting, answering comments, our freeze drying store and 2 social media groups, I think I am busier than I have ever been! We have alot of fun doing this and have enjoyed building a community of people.
@@thefreezedryingcommunity I can believe it. I am a member on your MeWe group and it is one of the busiest groups I've ever seen, and people are really friendly. Great job with that. We have only had our freeze dryer about 3 weeks and I am learning a lot. Thank you!!!
Chili powder and lime salt
You need a Mandolin to slice those taters...
Yams and sweet potatoes are different. Just had to get that off my chest. That drives me nuts
Freeze drying means sublimation of water from the freezed, crunchy, ice cold food, in pressure where; water can't exist in its liquid form. And here you're boiling it.
Freezing potatoes raw makes them black when you thaw. Blanching then freezing changes the potato and then it doesn't turn black.
Ranch dressing maybe
Couldn't you just buy a bag of frozen Sweet Potoato chips from costco and see if they would freeze dry nicely. taske good and last for 20 years :)
Has anyone tried that?
They would be cooked in oil and would not freeze dry
I'm just here for the dad jokes
I have them stored in my dad-a-bank
No rating on the “joke”
I'd give it a 0-1.5😂
My machine has such a horrible chemical smell. I've done the bread run 3 times, tried cleaning everything but it's still there. So disappointed.
You could try a starchy food like mashed potatoes. I think you will find that it will turn out great.
I did two bread runs (fully loaded trays of bread spritzed with water) and I still had a faint odor. But I am very sensitive. I went ahead and ran a load of raspberries and there was no odor in the berries.
That smell eventually goes away. It does not affect the batches. I think it is the new rubber gasket.
Spray it down with Vodka.
Harvest right had me do a “gassing off” run
Watch 2 videos of him still no seasoning why are you scared to add it on !!!!!