The question I have is about the energy cost of the freeze dryer as well as the packaging. If you calculate in the total cost of everything needed, what is the cost comparison to store bought freeze dried stroganoff, vs what you made yourself?
Screw energy cost, initial investment is over $2k for Harvest Right's cheapest freeze dryer. And honestly, you're probably going to be compromising a lot on quality if you want anything cheaper.
It's still much cheaper. I have mine plugged into an electricity usage meter. You're looking at about 5 to 10 cents per serving for electricity. I spend more on the mylar bags and oxygen absorbers required to store the food than the electricity. Still much cheaper than store bought.
@@mikegibson9150 Something else to consider is that if you use the machine inside the house during the summer, there is also the air conditioning cost to remove the heat from your house.
I've always wanted one of those freeze dryers!!! I'm a food scientist and have gotten to work with freeze drying in a lab setting, but I would love to have one for home use! The technology is just so cool! I haven't bit the bullet and purchased one yet, but they do frequently run deals on the Harvest Right freeze dryers so if you have a few friends who want to go in on it with you and you all share the unit, it could make sense financially. Trying to convince my brother to go in on one with me 😂. Also worth noting that last time I looked into the company they had several sizes available, so not all of them are as expensive as the larger units. If you aren't planning on doing an enormous amount of food at a time, a smaller unit would take up less room and would be less of an investment.
my trick to freeze dried things with pasta is to undercook the pasta before freeze-drying. keeps it from getting mushy and helps absorb more water so it isn't runny.
Don't just laser-focus on backpacking. You can stock a pantry and have a year's supply of food for a whole family saved up which would come in mighty handy some day.
If you stock up foods for your family and try to store it.. it is a massive hassle... ask me how i know.. we just had to go through our preps due to a badly packaged container of rice introducing rice weavils to our pantry... we had to toss out hundreds of dollars worth of food by the time we were all done dealing with the invasion. Not to mention even canned goods have expiration dates. So, I just purchased one of these machines. Ive wanted to for years. As we rotate our food through the pantry, we will be taking stuff that might be at risk of expiring and making full meals with it.. thereby being able to extend its shelf life by a decade. The world is too unpredictable of a place to not keep things on hand to protect your family from problems. If you have food, 80% of your daily problems are solved, leaving you able to concentrate on getting your situation better.
Cost of a freeze-dryer is around $3,000 US. The bags and the oxygen absorber which he didn't show but help with shelf-life run less than $2 US each. There's the electric cost to run the machine, which varies depending on your local rates and how long it takes to freeze-dry. (Wetter items take longer.) You would have to make a lot of backpacking meals to break even. But, if you garden, hunt, fish, can get good deals, etc., you can freeze-dry meals or individual ingredients. And freeze-dried items have a shelf-life of decades, depending on what it is. There's the security and lack of food waste issues to consider as well.
Yeah. Freeze dried are not marketed to people that want the occasional meal for backpacking. They are marketed to homesteaders and preppers that want to stack _literal tons_ of food deep for emergencies.
Dehydraters are useful if one forages. Say if you forage a bunch of mushrooms you can then store them dehydrated to use them whenever. And I think freeze dryers and dehydraters are relatively similar, at least the end product. So if you both forage and backpack (which is probably pretty common) it would be reasonable to purchase a freezedryer if you go foraging often. Or maybe just buy a dehydrator and get prepackaged foods unless you like experimenting and you have the income for a one time large purchase.
@@Cats-TM There is a difference between freeze-dried and dehydrated foods. Freeze-dried rehydrates almost to its original state. Dehydrating is actually cooking at a low temperature to dry it out, so the texture changes. Also, freeze-dried preserves the nutrients better than dehydrating, and it has a longer shelf-life. Is it enough to justify the cost? That's a personal decision.
@@essaboselin5252 Ahh, okay. I was unsure as they seem to do similar things but are wildly different prices. But, yeah, really just depends on how often you will use it and all that jazz.
You don't really need to use all that. If you want long shelf life (10+ years) then use the oxygen absorbers and special bags. But if you just want a meal for next week's hiking trip, just put it in a jar or a standard $0.01vaccum bag. Also freeze drying is not just about preserving, it can be used for cooking as well. You can use it to make home made bouillon cubes or freeze-dried fruits for a party.
I imagine talking to someone about your channel as the following: “What are we going to do?” “I have just the idea. I’m going to consult Nate.” “Who’s Nate?” “Nate… from the Internet!” *dramatic zoom-in*
Not really surprised by the results. The question though is how much backpacking would you have to do to make this break even with store bought pouches to make it worth buying a freeze dryer?
Well, it costs ~$3000 for one of those freeze dryers. MSRP on the store-bought meals is $10.99 for two servings; the price per serving for making your own is going to vary by where you shop and your exact ingredient choices, but where I usually shop, it comes out to about $4/serving to make a decent beef stroganoff, along the lines of what they made. So, if I got one and only used it for that, I'd need to make ~2,000 servings of freeze dried beef stroganoff before it saved me money. Which is quite a lot of backpacking.
Sometimes it isn't about the cost or break even point, but what they add to the food to make it stable enough for freeze drying and convenience. They both said the first thing you tasted was SALT!
@@coyoteseattlethat's if you purchased a dedicated freeze dryer for making camp meals. But let's assume you purchased one or have access to one to use for other reasons and didn't have to cover the costs. I mean I already have several saws, hammers, and screw drivers so I do not calculate those into the costs of building another birdhouse. The question then becomes more about trading your time verses convenience.
@@coyoteseattle 2000 servings becomes almost trivial if you shared it with a camping group, or even better, sold extra packets at a modest mark up. It's also just something that's very useful to have if you make any produce like apples, berries, or hunted meat It's absolutely not a regular household purchase, but there are enough uses that more people should own them
Nat what would happen if you freeze dried candy floss? With the beef strog' maybe if you coated the meat in flour before cooking it could thicken the liquid after freeze drying then rehydrating.
Great video once again! There is a couple Whom make their own meals for minimalistic trekking and campingtrips. I've seen them on TH-cam I think. They freezedry everything as well.
Can you do a video on air pressure and breaking skin. Use a basic air nozzle found in shops and ramp up the psi until it breaks a hotdog. And see what happens at psi from 10 to 100. Then, change nozzle types if you can
Try using a food dehydrator instead of a freeze dryer, most of us can't afford a freeze dryer. Would love to find out how homemade chili tastes after being rehydrated.
Beef jerky is dehydrated meat. If you freeze dried it, you will have to rehydrate it and they put it into the dehydrator to turn it back into beef jerky.
I’m with Nate - I do NOT like mushrooms. They taste like dirt to me. I don’t care for the spongy texture, either. My beef stroganoff contains no fungus. I DO like that ginger beard, though… 😍
Best part about this not eating like 500% your daily needs of sodium and questionable food chemicals. Plus some of the cheaper meals are god tier awful. I’d be interested in you making breakfast ones. Reconstituted powdered eggs in camp meals I’m pretty sure are against the Geneva convention lol.
Commenting here so you see it, comming from an older vid about vacuumed sealing beef for dehydrating. I wonder why you didn't just use a dehydrator, can you try that? Thanks
What up Nate From the Internet! Hey, a while back you made a video on TKOR where you ripped open some lithium AA batteries and dropped them in to a bowl of water. Could you make another like video on this channel but use lithium polymer batteries from a cell phone? I need to dispose of 6 PS4 batteries and this would be a great method, if it works. Keep the camera running like you did back then, if you do make this. Thanks man!
Probably. Although you do have to put in the time, effort and skill, which may not necessarily make it less costly, over all. But if you enjoy cooking, then yep. It's all good.
I can see a scenario where someone doubles a recipe they were already going to make for dinner and freeze dried the leftovers. You still have time and effort- just a lot less than making a complete recipe just to freeze dry. I can see doing this just to have the option of a quick and easy lunch or dinner for single people on those days nothing goes right and time is never on your side.
I love Nate and his content, and I know that it's a sponsor, but "It's cheaper than buying the bags" doesn't take into account the fact that the machine costs over $3,000. It's going to take a lot of meals to make up that cost
I have the same question. Maybe the freeze drying process doesn't change much for components of a dish verses the finished dish. Maybe the sauce coating the other ingredients when reconstituted makes a difference in flavor? I would like to know.
It wouldn't make that much of a difference in the final result, but would make it more complex to calculate the amount of water needed to rehydrate each portion.
The question I have is about the energy cost of the freeze dryer as well as the packaging. If you calculate in the total cost of everything needed, what is the cost comparison to store bought freeze dried stroganoff, vs what you made yourself?
That's my question as well.
Screw energy cost, initial investment is over $2k for Harvest Right's cheapest freeze dryer. And honestly, you're probably going to be compromising a lot on quality if you want anything cheaper.
The freeze driers cost multiple thousands of dollars.
So unless you plan on stocking deep on _a lot_ of freeze dried stuff, there is no comparison.
It's still much cheaper. I have mine plugged into an electricity usage meter. You're looking at about 5 to 10 cents per serving for electricity. I spend more on the mylar bags and oxygen absorbers required to store the food than the electricity. Still much cheaper than store bought.
@@mikegibson9150 Something else to consider is that if you use the machine inside the house during the summer, there is also the air conditioning cost to remove the heat from your house.
Good to see my childhood TKOR guy still making science fun!
Childhood 😂😂😂 how long has it been bro 2-3 years 😂😂😂
i thought he died but im glad to see he didnt
I knew it. I wonder if he still is in TKOR because now its just some random women and where the other one?
@@jensaukema732Nate joined ~7-8 years ago
@@Dylanlamprecht Nate got fired a while back so he's posting on his own channel now.
After you freeze dry it add a teaspoon of corn starch. That should act as a thickener when reconstituting it.
Wow, that's a great tip and makes a lot of sense.
I've always wanted one of those freeze dryers!!! I'm a food scientist and have gotten to work with freeze drying in a lab setting, but I would love to have one for home use! The technology is just so cool! I haven't bit the bullet and purchased one yet, but they do frequently run deals on the Harvest Right freeze dryers so if you have a few friends who want to go in on it with you and you all share the unit, it could make sense financially. Trying to convince my brother to go in on one with me 😂. Also worth noting that last time I looked into the company they had several sizes available, so not all of them are as expensive as the larger units. If you aren't planning on doing an enormous amount of food at a time, a smaller unit would take up less room and would be less of an investment.
my trick to freeze dried things with pasta is to undercook the pasta before freeze-drying. keeps it from getting mushy and helps absorb more water so it isn't runny.
Not me seeing the red hair at a glance and thinking it was Cali 😂😂
Cali, you've changed...
Don't just laser-focus on backpacking. You can stock a pantry and have a year's supply of food for a whole family saved up which would come in mighty handy some day.
If you stock up foods for your family and try to store it.. it is a massive hassle... ask me how i know.. we just had to go through our preps due to a badly packaged container of rice introducing rice weavils to our pantry... we had to toss out hundreds of dollars worth of food by the time we were all done dealing with the invasion.
Not to mention even canned goods have expiration dates. So, I just purchased one of these machines. Ive wanted to for years. As we rotate our food through the pantry, we will be taking stuff that might be at risk of expiring and making full meals with it.. thereby being able to extend its shelf life by a decade. The world is too unpredictable of a place to not keep things on hand to protect your family from problems. If you have food, 80% of your daily problems are solved, leaving you able to concentrate on getting your situation better.
The mountain house food is made as a survival food high salt is to restore lost salt from working/surviving.
Yeah, we actually discussed that but it got cut.
Cost of a freeze-dryer is around $3,000 US. The bags and the oxygen absorber which he didn't show but help with shelf-life run less than $2 US each. There's the electric cost to run the machine, which varies depending on your local rates and how long it takes to freeze-dry. (Wetter items take longer.) You would have to make a lot of backpacking meals to break even. But, if you garden, hunt, fish, can get good deals, etc., you can freeze-dry meals or individual ingredients. And freeze-dried items have a shelf-life of decades, depending on what it is. There's the security and lack of food waste issues to consider as well.
Yeah. Freeze dried are not marketed to people that want the occasional meal for backpacking.
They are marketed to homesteaders and preppers that want to stack _literal tons_ of food deep for emergencies.
Dehydraters are useful if one forages. Say if you forage a bunch of mushrooms you can then store them dehydrated to use them whenever.
And I think freeze dryers and dehydraters are relatively similar, at least the end product. So if you both forage and backpack (which is probably pretty common) it would be reasonable to purchase a freezedryer if you go foraging often. Or maybe just buy a dehydrator and get prepackaged foods unless you like experimenting and you have the income for a one time large purchase.
@@Cats-TM There is a difference between freeze-dried and dehydrated foods. Freeze-dried rehydrates almost to its original state. Dehydrating is actually cooking at a low temperature to dry it out, so the texture changes. Also, freeze-dried preserves the nutrients better than dehydrating, and it has a longer shelf-life. Is it enough to justify the cost? That's a personal decision.
@@essaboselin5252 Ahh, okay. I was unsure as they seem to do similar things but are wildly different prices.
But, yeah, really just depends on how often you will use it and all that jazz.
You don't really need to use all that.
If you want long shelf life (10+ years) then use the oxygen absorbers and special bags.
But if you just want a meal for next week's hiking trip, just put it in a jar or a standard $0.01vaccum bag.
Also freeze drying is not just about preserving, it can be used for cooking as well.
You can use it to make home made bouillon cubes or freeze-dried fruits for a party.
School lunch food slop vs home cooked delicious looking 4:23
I am so happy your channel is taking off❤️
Entertaining as always Nate! Thank you!
Why didnt this get recommended for me. I am subscribed and I got recommended every other video of nate
I imagine talking to someone about your channel as the following:
“What are we going to do?”
“I have just the idea. I’m going to consult Nate.”
“Who’s Nate?”
“Nate… from the Internet!”
*dramatic zoom-in*
Freeze dry ferrofluid while on a magnet. I want to know if the peaks dry in shape.
I love to finally see Nate freely doing what he loves. I love this content and missed it so much!
Not really surprised by the results. The question though is how much backpacking would you have to do to make this break even with store bought pouches to make it worth buying a freeze dryer?
Well, it costs ~$3000 for one of those freeze dryers. MSRP on the store-bought meals is $10.99 for two servings; the price per serving for making your own is going to vary by where you shop and your exact ingredient choices, but where I usually shop, it comes out to about $4/serving to make a decent beef stroganoff, along the lines of what they made. So, if I got one and only used it for that, I'd need to make ~2,000 servings of freeze dried beef stroganoff before it saved me money. Which is quite a lot of backpacking.
You can always sell freeze dried candy. That is a hit right now.
Sometimes it isn't about the cost or break even point, but what they add to the food to make it stable enough for freeze drying and convenience. They both said the first thing you tasted was SALT!
@@coyoteseattlethat's if you purchased a dedicated freeze dryer for making camp meals.
But let's assume you purchased one or have access to one to use for other reasons and didn't have to cover the costs. I mean I already have several saws, hammers, and screw drivers so I do not calculate those into the costs of building another birdhouse.
The question then becomes more about trading your time verses convenience.
@@coyoteseattle 2000 servings becomes almost trivial if you shared it with a camping group, or even better, sold extra packets at a modest mark up.
It's also just something that's very useful to have if you make any produce like apples, berries, or hunted meat
It's absolutely not a regular household purchase, but there are enough uses that more people should own them
Just realised Eric was wearing a WetLeg T-Shirt (WetLeg is a band from the Isle Of Wight)
I want to see a freeze dried, lemon and candy cane! It’s truly cheaper to do it yourself sometimes
Nat what would happen if you freeze dried candy floss?
With the beef strog' maybe if you coated the meat in flour before cooking it could thicken the liquid after freeze drying then rehydrating.
I think if you just add a bit of a thickener/emulsifier like xanthan gum, the sauce would rehydrate more consistently thick.
Thanks for the video Nate!! Oh, hope to see more of Eric in your future videos as well.
Great video once again!
There is a couple Whom make their own meals for minimalistic trekking and campingtrips. I've seen them on TH-cam I think. They freezedry everything as well.
Do a series and call it "Buy or DIY"
DIY or DI WHY?
fact that you compared to mountain house already answers the question
Keep up the videos, Love them all
honestly this is supreme content
Freeze dried jello sounds fun.
Could you try freeze drying watermelon and other fruits then try to use them as ice cream or dessert toppings?
3 Things... Homemade Mashed Potatoes with brown gravy, Peas/corn/green beans(your pick) and Chicken Fried Chicken Patty(s) or Fried Chicken (your pick)! 🐓🌽🥔🟤
I would love to see you do a video on extracting water soluble Silica from vermiculite using acetic acid
20 minutes to rehydrate instead of 5. And insulate your Mylar pouch while rehydrating. 😃👍
Can you do a video on air pressure and breaking skin. Use a basic air nozzle found in shops and ramp up the psi until it breaks a hotdog. And see what happens at psi from 10 to 100. Then, change nozzle types if you can
Love your videos hope you get back to the top
Cool video Nate! I recently tried freeze-dried Skittles at a craft fair. They were really good. It would be awesome to see the process! 😎👍🏻
more please, thank you
You should freeze dry gummie bears and put them in the cotton candy machine
That's an insanely pretty knife chopping those vegetables.
You're doing far better then the current tkor host, love the videos, keeping grants dream alive but doing things how you want to great content.
I don't want grace to be offended but it's true 😔
Awesome vid Nate.
I want to see the worlds biggest sticky hand in the freeze dryer
Thanks nate!
Sweet another awesome video ❤
Thanks for an awesome watch, Nate and Eric!
I would perhaps try and freeze dry the sauce, noodles and beef separately.
Just gotta say keep up the great videos.
This was an interesting video. I don't have enough use of a freeze dryer at the moment but would be useful once I get my garden going again.
I bet TKOR feels really dumb about letting Nate go right about now 😆
Who? ;)
@@kompressahdnb The Widow
man I haven't watched yall in so long
Calli is looking buff in this vid
nice video guys!
You should make a recipe book for this kind of thing and all the different cotton candy recipes.
Those noodles look so good
Very excellent video, truly wish I had a freeze dryer but to expensive right now
I was actually debating about making stroganoff earlier, fuck it I’m doing it
Can you make cotten candy from a freeze dried ice cream sandwich?
I'm with you there Nate, I hate mushrooms!
freeze dry a jawbreaker
I wonder if you'd have more success with the sauce if you'd added a bit of cornstarch to the bag before you sealed it up.
No, he just added too much water because he did not weigh it before freeze drying.
I got a idea for a video for you. Do you remember the light bulbs with spikes you got in Spencer's? Can you make them? What are the made out of?
I was wondering how much water to add to freeze dried meals you freeze dry your self thanks
Imagine using a freeze drier as intended, for preserving food 🤣
Is homemade freeze dried ice cream better than store-bought or NASA’s
Try using a food dehydrator instead of a freeze dryer, most of us can't afford a freeze dryer. Would love to find out how homemade chili tastes after being rehydrated.
Would you mind putting soft serve ice cream in a vacuum chamber
This can be a series on its own! "Freeze Dry Everything" instead of SVE...haha
I wonder if a 1/4 tsp of cornstarch in the bag would thicken up the soup would make a massive difference.
Let’s gooooo I was wondering where you went
you should make giant pop rocks
Freeze dry beef jerky and then rehydrate it and see if it tastes like normal meat or still like beef jerky
This^^^^
Beef jerky is dehydrated meat. If you freeze dried it, you will have to rehydrate it and they put it into the dehydrator to turn it back into beef jerky.
Freeze dried beef jerky sounds... inedible. I'm not even sure you could get it back to its original state after dehydration?
Nate I want to see how this would work with the old homemade freeze dryer that was made on tkor way back when.
Suggestion: will an incandescent bulb without the glass operate submerged in liquid nitrogen
I’m with Nate - I do NOT like mushrooms. They taste like dirt to me. I don’t care for the spongy texture, either. My beef stroganoff contains no fungus.
I DO like that ginger beard, though… 😍
Hello Nate 😁
What a handsome-cutie. Best part of the video- “while Eric is (cooking), I will heat up some water”
So put it on the market and compete? I'd buy it!
Wont compete. Most of the price of final product is transport, store fees and taxes.
Best part about this not eating like 500% your daily needs of sodium and questionable food chemicals. Plus some of the cheaper meals are god tier awful.
I’d be interested in you making breakfast ones. Reconstituted powdered eggs in camp meals I’m pretty sure are against the Geneva convention lol.
I cannot believe the cruelty of making this food right in front of us and not providing the recipe!! 😮😮😂😂😂😂 I want to make the stroganoff.
Interesting results.
Commenting here so you see it, comming from an older vid about vacuumed sealing beef for dehydrating.
I wonder why you didn't just use a dehydrator, can you try that?
Thanks
Try to make your own instant coffee 😄
What up Nate From the Internet! Hey, a while back you made a video on TKOR where you ripped open some lithium AA batteries and dropped them in to a bowl of water. Could you make another like video on this channel but use lithium polymer batteries from a cell phone? I need to dispose of 6 PS4 batteries and this would be a great method, if it works. Keep the camera running like you did back then, if you do make this. Thanks man!
how about an old test in the freezedryer u did from back in the tkor days
Inspired me to cook more 🥹❤
So how many pack pack meals do you have to make to offset the price for the freeze dryer though?
Can we have a follow up after 25 years to confirm shelf life please
I'll see what I can do.
Can you freeze dry gummy bears and then turn them into cotton candy and also try putting the gummy bears in just like that and see what happens
Twice the views with a tenth the subscribers as TKOR. Well done, Nate.
Why did that other guy look so un-inthused to be there? Lol
ruby red grapefruit and throw it at a wall
A little guar gum sprinkled in will thicken that sauce right up.
Most of their issue on that was failing to weigh before and after to know exactly how much water was needed. In this case, they added too much.
Now this is intresting
Can you freeze dry sushi?
Can butter be freeze dried?
Probably. Although you do have to put in the time, effort and skill, which may not necessarily make it less costly, over all. But if you enjoy cooking, then yep. It's all good.
I can see a scenario where someone doubles a recipe they were already going to make for dinner and freeze dried the leftovers.
You still have time and effort- just a lot less than making a complete recipe just to freeze dry.
I can see doing this just to have the option of a quick and easy lunch or dinner for single people on those days nothing goes right and time is never on your side.
I love Nate and his content, and I know that it's a sponsor, but "It's cheaper than buying the bags" doesn't take into account the fact that the machine costs over $3,000. It's going to take a lot of meals to make up that cost
I'm gonna freeze dry my life. Then I can forget about paying my damned bills!
Why not try to do the sauce separately then powderize it and then add it to the other ingredients in the pouch?
I have the same question.
Maybe the freeze drying process doesn't change much for components of a dish verses the finished dish. Maybe the sauce coating the other ingredients when reconstituted makes a difference in flavor?
I would like to know.
It wouldn't make that much of a difference in the final result, but would make it more complex to calculate the amount of water needed to rehydrate each portion.
Now I'm curious what Nate freeze dries that isn't food....
I've been watching you since I was 5
So you're at most 11?