Harvestright Freeze Dryer Hacks// Vacuum Sealing Mylar Bags, Anti Siphon Hose, EZ Oil Filter
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ย. 2020
- Today we are going into uncharted territory, because today, we are sharing some Harvestright freeze dryer Hacks. The Harvestright is an incredible machine, but with these 4 hacks, it becomes even better. I show you how to vacuum seal ball/ mason jars, how to vacuum seal mylar bags using only the freeze dryer, How to make an anti siphon setup on your hose, so you stop sucking up water into the freeze dryer, I do my first oil change on the premier pump and show you how to make an easy oil filter out of a Brita water filter pitcher. This will be the first of several Harvestright Hacks videos. Stay tuned for more.
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These HARVESTRIGHT HACKS were all game changers for me! Stay tuned for more HACKS coming in HACKS Vol. 2
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The color of the oil in this video isn’t blue. Why aren’t you using the dairyland oil in your premier pump?
@@nicklepackage5 he has a video on that subject, dairyland oil will destroy the newer pumps
For the anti-siphon trick. Its easier than that. Just have your water hose come off the table and thats it. Don't have it go down to the bucket. The water comes out, drips down into the bucket. Done.
Drill a hole to fit the house snuggling at the top of the bucket. Inn doing so the hose won't fall into the water that is in the bucket
Mine clamps to the top of the bucket.
I’ve used a canning jar attachment with hand pump to vacuum seal Ball jars.
This really is a game changer. Not only quicker and easier for Ball jars, but I also found that you can vacuum seal almost ANY jar that has “pop” lid with a rubberized seal (spaghetti sauce, etc).
The canning jar attachment won’t fit properly over those ‘recycled’ jars....but with this method in the HR vacuum chamber, it works like a charm! The pop lid may or my not shrink while vacuum is running, but as soon as valve opens to let air in, they "POP" down and seal as tight as ball jars.
I emailed Harvest Right suggesting they install a vacuum breaker on the outlet of the drain valve. Simply consisting of a brass "T" fitting, with one tube going down to the catch bucket and one tube going straight up a few inches.
The lady wrote "Thanks! I'll send that along!".
Love your video's, they are all helpful to me. Thank you!
Thanks for that close up view of the disconnect of the shelves.
Your tips and tricks are wonderful. Thanks so much!
Happy to help!
Another hack idea...Say I want to freeze dry ground beef and use in making camping meal kits. Simmer ground beef in water (just over top of meat by an inch or so) with salt for an hour or two. Cool on countertop then refrigerate entire pot with beef and water in it. When tallow on top hardens, remove off top and prepare for storage and reuse. Then drain/strain beefy water from remaining beef and save as a mild broth for cooking. Then freeze dry meat. Better than the old method of rinsing the beef after browning? Better reuse of all parts of the beef for sure.
Nice!!! Love it. Thank you so much. Love your channel.
Great video! Sealing the ball jars and the green leaf icon are super helpful tips, thanks!!
Hey buddy thanks for the tips it's nice to know these keep up the great work.
Glad I found you, just purchased thr large freeze dryer.....great videos
You're a gem!!
Awesome, thank you
wow awesome
Luv it! Great hacks! Thanks y’all 😊🙏
Great videos! Thank you for all your advice through your video series. It's been very helpful.
Good to hear and thanks for your support
Good stuff!
Thank you so much.
Just got my freeze dryer. I’m SO excited to use it! I’m glad you talked about the anti-siphon thing. I’m doing that today too!
I just received mine. I too am very excited to get started!
this is so cool thank you
Great video
Much appreciated, thanks for watching!
I ALWAYS learn something from you! Awesome info, and as always, thank you!
You are welcome. Hope its helpful
@@live.life.simple.
No one mentions the oil filter that comes with the unit; is it ineffective?
Just ordered my Medium tonight.... getting over the price...but it is needed for my garden. Thanks for your videos.
Watched the avocado tornado like 5 times. That is so cool.
fun watching your smart brain at work!! :) thx for tips
I ordered this 2 weeks ago. I’m so ready for it to arrive. Could be up to 10 weeks on backorder. I guess I have time to watch all your videos
Britta is the best water/oil filter I've found
Great video!!!!!!!
good tricks, thanks for sharing.
My pleasure, hope they are helpful
Thank you
Ty brother. Awesome advice. God bless
My pleasure. Hope its helpful
Always helpful
Y’all are the main reason I want one of these units.
i so need all the information you have shared . i’m so nervous about getting a freeze dryer since i or my husband are not mechanical- but i believe we can do it after watching you
yay!!!
Excellent video. Wonderful content shared here. I cannot wait to start utilizing these tips with my harvestright freeze dryer. Thank you!
-Will
How do I follow this guy.?
You rock.
Outstanding! My freeze dryer came with a oil filter canister that looks just like the brita filter.
Harvest Right used to provide a rudimentary oil filter. Not sure when they switched, but the one the provide now is probably a Brita with an oil instead of a water filter, lol. When watching these remember to look at when they were published. Things change over time.
great vidio, thanks from frigid Idaho
Bundle up and happy freeze drying
THUMBS UP: thanks for getting a microphone, your audio is much better with it.
Not sure if you've done this before or if you'd find it too time consuming but I empty my oil into a cleaned out nut container, that Costco sells. The top is smaller than the container so if you empty the oil into the nut container, let it settle for several hours the water settles to the bottom. When you pour the oil into the Britta filter you can see the water bubble that falls into the corner of the container then you can pour almost all of the oil out without pouring the water into the Britta. Then I freeze that last bit of oil, that has the water...
I used a 3 gal plastic bucket, drilled a hole at the very top to push the hose through, just keep an eye on it to make sure the liquid doesn't reach the tube opening.
Sir I'm from india and I'm a tibetan. I love ur show. Frankly speakin I've gotta do more than what I've been doin. I'm well aware of everything since the nets here.....the only problem is that I'm 39
thank you
You got it!
Can't wait to get my freez dryer saving up for it now
Nice!
I JUST paid mine off yesterday!!!! I'm like a sponge at this point learning all I can before it comes in! I have 3 kids in college and am SO EXCITED to be able to feed them from far away! HAHAHA!!
Save your pennies, they DEFINITELY add up!!! It just takes a minute!! You can do it! Set yourself an order date!!!
I have the slightly older software but I have been going into customize and vacuum test for a long time to seal ball jars. I also have never had the issue of sucking water into my dryer because I cut the drain tube short and it drains into a garbage can. The garbage can has a sump pump so the water never gets high enough for the tube to be in the water. The mylar bag trick seems pretty cool I will have to try it.
Ya - sucking water back up is a mistake most people will do at least once. Been there, done that.😂😂😂
Brita filter? f@#ING GENIOUS!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!
👍 you got it!
I have 2 suggestions one on the bag vacuuming and one on the filter! The bag will do much better if you sandwich the bag between 2 pieces of cardboard secured with Velcro. As far as the filter goes purchase 2 pitchers slightly smaller than a toilet paper roll, drill holes in one in the bottom, of the top pitcher then plug the hole in the paper roll and insert it deep into the top pitcher, place that on the lower one it will do a fantastic job and last a long time, I have been doing it that way sense 2015 and have done 1000s of loads, I still have the original JB pump that came with my machine!
Now if I could just find one :)
Their is also a tool that goes over ball jars that works with a vac sealer that allows this to happen. I saw a lady use a break bleeder to seal jars as well.
Also FYI you can buy the Brittany pitchers all day long at thrift store for under $5
Thanks Brian - good tips for the newbies. So far I've only sucked water up once - about 2 years ago. I don't have much call to seal Mason jars but I have done it for a few of my things. That's a neat trick with the bag - I'll have to try it now just for fun.
Hey - BTW. I'm going to be retiring soon - not quite what I had in mind though. At age 63 my company is eliminating my position after 29 years with them. My plans were to work another 3 years - a bit of a personal SHTF. I may be eating some of my FD stored foods before too long.
I just have to trust God and his plan. It will work out.
Well, that may be a blessing in disguise. You get to enjoy life a little earlier than planned.
My company did the same to me at 57 after 23 years of faithful service. Jerks.
glad to hear you had stores of food for that
Stay safe jerry.
We always pull a vacuum to between 500-750 in HVAC work. Below 1000 microns we start the dehydration process to make sure excess moisture is pulled out of the system. Above that micron level, depending on location, it will leave some moisture in the system. In this case, product. Just coming from an HVAC tech geek.
Brita pitchers are easy to find at second-hand stores for $2-$4.
Good tips. We've never had that suction thing happen, probably because we don't let the hose sit in the water. Also, I tracked down the company who actually makes those pumps and the rep said you don't have to change the oil until it starts looking cloudy.
😇love that pump
@@live.life.simple. - Me too. I did some research on it before deciding. It's a high end pump, typically used for industrial use/air conditioners, etc.
So happy you used my tip on the Vacuum seal jars without having to disconnect the pump. I didn't know about the mylar bag trick though. Thank you and your welcome ;) BTW if your oil does look like it has a lot of moisture in it. You can freeze dry it.
Did you ever try a normal coffee-filter instead?
@@TheoGottwald Yes thank you I have and you still get a bit of moisture
@@UpNorthOfThe49th ok i thought you will only want remove the dirt, the moisture is another topic. In such case of course you may need to do something else.
Some people freezdry the oil as you may know.
Do you feel comfortable not putting O2 absorbers in the "vacuumed" mylar bags? Also, instead of toilet paper, how about tightly packed batting (the stuff that goes in quilts)? Finally, how much oil gets trapped in the toilet paper?
I just use the Britta filter. Works fine not as messy
Those Harvest Right Oil filter containers are junk!
you can also get a plastic attachment for a lifesaver vacuum sealer. You put the plastic cap over the jar, attach the accessory cord, and it sucks out all the air. Pull the plastic adapter off and you are good to go. Takes 30 seconds hands free per jar. Saves wear and tear on the freeze right
Cool! sounds helpful
Thanks for the video! Those are some great tips. I'm looking forward to seeing your store! I've almost got the savings to buy one, and I will be sure to use your affiliate link to do so.
Awesome. What size and pump are you going to go with?
@@live.life.simple. Medium and premier
@@kmaynor16 perfect!
@@live.life.simple. Do you have a video going over the benefits of the Premier pump over the other choices?
@@Jasonoid
Indeed!!
I ordered my unit on Monday past; that's the kind of info that would help to know ahead of time!
So on the ball jars another hack is to put a very small hole in the lid and cover it with electrical tape ...this works like a one way valve and you can take the tape off to let air back into jars, so then you don't bent the lid opening jars. it it might work with the marlar bags as well I have yet to try it
the mail order catalog JC Whitney used to sell an oil filter housing for TP paper filters
Ha! I remember those. Guess we're dating ourselves. ;^)
My husband swears by using an air shim(air wedge) pillow to place under the front of the unit during defrost so that the water drains out the back hose, rather then the front.
You mean like the little inflatable wedges, like a auto body shop uses? Great idea!
heck the company should make a vacuum sealing attachment to put in chamber. I bet they are! One stop shop.
maybe another hack could be putting the right amount of new oil in the bottom of the filter container before first fill and marking the level then once it's gone through the filter medium I imagine some is left behind each time so you would be able to see that and add to restore the amount before returning to the machine
Cool vid. I think I'm going to construct one of those single-jar vacuum sealer chambers that you can make from PVC pipe and end caps. There are many TH-cams that show how to build them.
For mine though I am going to experiment with connecting to the drain hose of my freeze-drier as the source of vacuum.
I would of course have to run the pump manually for a while, via the test menu, to bring down the pressure in the vacuum/freezing chamber.
Then open the drain valve to draw the air out of the PVC vacuum sealer. I should be able to hear the rush of air stop, indicating that the vacuum is balanced between the two vessels.
Then shut off the drain valve to conserve the vacuum in the machine, and pull the clear, plastic drain tube off of the vac. sealer to seal the jar inside.
The vacuum chamber of the freeze-dryer would be a huge reserve of vacuum, so could run through jars one at a time fairly quickly.
I imagine that the drain hose should be able to stand up to the 14.7 lbs. or so of absolute pressure exerted on it by the atmosphere.
I think this method would create more vacuum than the Food Saver attachments; I've seen a TH-cam or two showing how that system can only pull about 22" of vacuum. Adequate I suppose, but I like the idea of greater air pressure being exerted on the lid of the jar.
Please! tell me how this worked for you and more instructions :)
@@tlflora I will. I have not tried it yet; lately I've been just using one of those inexpensive vacuum chambers for about 100 bucks, that comes with its own vacuum pump. They are normally used to remove air bubbles from paint, I believe.
This gadget has a nice, stainless steel pot that will hold a few quart jars.
love the ingenuity! thanks and good luck with the project.@@user-hq4jz6lc9d
Where are the heaters located? And thank you for your time.
Thank you so much for your reply..Where did you get the fan for you motor? I have taken freeze dryer apart and went to the sensing coil and dug all the epoxy out and resealed it. The people at Harvest right have been very responsive with sending USB back and forth trying to figure out the problem. I think I have it fixed now. My other friend just sent it back because it quit. Thanks for all your help
Have you tried using the round cotton cosmetic pads for the filter? A lot easier to put in the Britta and works excellent.
I freeze dried some pork steak cut in little squares sealed it in a jar with oxygen absorbers a week later on a couple of the pieces I can see white stuff on it does that mean it's molded and no good
@@loistreadway6737 it may be fat? did you figure it out?
I want to freeze dry some large flowers which will require me taking out the shelves. Do I use the same program is when the shelves are in the unit or do I need a different Setting? Thanks. I enjoy your channel.
You mentioned the oil less pump. How did you like it?
QUESTION TO ANYONE WHO KNOWS: Has anyone had any jars not seal with they use this method? I like to store in canning jars because I have so many and they can't puncture, but every time we do so we get a jar or two that just will not seal no matter how many times we try. I'm a canning/preserving instructor so I know that my jars are clean, chip free and my flats/lids are in pristine condition - would love to hear from anyone who has had this issue and figured out the cause. TIA!
Not every lid will work. Try a different lid. Most of the time every jar will seal but once in a while, you get a failure. I just change out the lid, make sure there are no cracks around the top edge of the glass jar, and I’m good to go.
Would using a vacuum sealer with the jar attachment work the same way without all the work? I usually just put an oxygen absorber in my ball jars without vacuum sealing them, but may try doing both now to guarantee freshness.
Why did you go from the oil less pump to the one you have now?
So, do I have to defrost my machine before using it to seal? And if I do, how can I keep my food from rehydrating too much between defrost time, and sealing time?
No suck valve, is that in case you forget to pull your hose out of the water? I can see how that would be easily done otherwise you could just keep your hose above the waterline right? I’m new here and totally excited about your channel.
The no suck fittings just allow air to escape through them instead of sucking water into the chamber
I have the 2015 model...will these hacks plus the hose hack work with mine?
Seems most people have brand new ones...lol
I am curious about sealing several mylar bags at once as well as using the zippered gusseted mylar. Have you done either? I have not yet ventured out to vac seal jars or mylar in my HR chamber...
I’ve only had the oil less pump, but ordered a premier pump. Why the Brita/TP method vs the filter kit that Harvest Right sells? Thanks...great hacks!!
The HR filter is ok but the Brita works so much better. Its easier to use and filters better
Hey will this mess up my machine? Should I do for just the minute for quart jars? Thx
Just a thought. With the oxygen absorbers you don’t necessarily have to have a crazy good vacuum on the mylar bags if you want. I know they can make tiny detailing suction attachments for certain vacuums I wonder if doing your trick to cut the corner off and then stick a freshly cleaned detailing attachment (only used for this purpose) into the hole slightly, turning the vacuum on and then impulse sealing that tiny corner would be just as effective as doing the entire chamber of the harvest right. Because on the walk from the freeze dryer to the sealer and unbending the fold is going to let air in anyway. This way you probably actually have more of a vacuum. I don’t have a freeze dryer yet to test this theory
1. cool name, good character. 2. I agree. I have cut the corner of mylar and used the foodsaver accessory attachment to vac air out. Now I have a nifty plastic attachment for jars too. So I put my FD food into mason jars, put the plastic cap on, plug in the foodsaver retractable accessory cord and it sucks the air out. Id rather burn out my foodsaver than add extra hours onto my harvest right. I filled 13 tough totes with mylar FD food and baking stables, now I am in the process of filling over 300 mason jars w everything from sour cream, corn, peaches, to taco soup and chilli. Another 4 months and I should have 1 years worth of food for the 6 in my family
@@imbrium06 I wouldn't worry about adding extra hours to the FD. Watch the video again and you will see (at 04:00) that you only have to run the vacuum about 2 minutes.
When you put the oil directly into the britta pitcher, how do you get the water out of it?
Do you have a hack for bags that have zip lock seal?
Hey guys...can I run a second batch immediately after first batch is complete. Or do I have to defrost the unit and start all over again...Thanks Zack
Can you add more than one Mylar bag into the chamber to vacuum seal?
what if i freez dry a used oxygen absorber ? is he like new after?
Can you please give information about the table holding the FD? Where to purchase?
Will the machine freeze dry with the insert out? Want use it to freeze dry larger items that wouldn't fit on shelves!
Can this process be used with the mylar bags with the ziplock type closures .
😮
I don’t have a HR yet but please help me to understand why you just don’t empty or switch out the bucket before opening the Valve to eliminate the risk of water being sucked back in?
Maybe develop a rack system to have a 2nd layer of jars to vacuum seal jars.
Lay tray on top of the jars, the ring prevents pressure from smashing down the flat lid. Double up jars. 👍
Thanks so much! What pump do you have?
2 premier and an oil less on order
hi, is this safe for the machine? do you even have to unplug the harness if you are just doing a func test for vacuum?
I also use my chamber vac to seal Ball jars. Only problem is they don't fit upright in the chamber vac, so can't use it to seal non-FD stuff (like liquids). But works exactly the same: loosely tightened lid, lie it down in chamber vac, 30 secs, BOOM! sealed!
cool! How much does a chamber vac sell for? How big is it?
@@live.life.simple. about $300-$400
Do you buy the oil from harvest right or have you found another brand that is good?
I was just thinking about buying a counter top vacuum sealer. This may just save me hundreds if I can do it right. I'm always concerned about food safety and how to know for sure that the food is safe and dry in the bags! Any other tips would be great. Thanks so much.
a vacuum sealer and mason jar attachment would run right around 100$ but they are faster at sealing individual jars, not sure how much time would be saved if any being able to do multiple.
You can get just a jar sealer (lid attachments and small hand held pump) at Amazon for around $25. Then you can reseal individual jars right after opening a jar and removing the amount of product that you want to use.
As far as the food being fully dry, it becomes quite noticeable after it is sealed in a bag- if it isn't fully dry you will see the food change color darker as the moisture balances in the sealed bag. You probably figured this out in the last 2 years, but for anyone else.
I have the older pump. How do you clean the see thru glass to see your oil level? Pm me please. Thanks
Are there any advantages of a dedicated vacuum sealer vs doing this in a FD ? Just wondering what the difference is ?
How do I order part to prevent water from entering freeze dryer when venting?
Do you need to use Ball jars?
Do you still put am oxygen absorber in the ball jars when vscuum sealing?