First 500 lbs data spreadsheet link: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ieekdk5aH_2OWLUealeOLurU9_zl03BfFEg_qhAgcaA/edit?usp=sharing Batch worksheet link: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13DCB2hXo9_ZYrhIUicLk2IrEaQGszwbaJTcEH8wJxk4/edit?usp=sharing Want to support this work? Buy me a coffee :-) www.buymeacoffee.com/DanZm
Just before the world fell apart we started to take steps to be more self reliant... gardening, learning to can, adding a freezer... and then we learned about home freeze drying and wondered if it was worth the investment. Then we saw how people reacted to world upset and decided it was most definitely worth the investment. I feel like we got ours ahead of the curve but you beat us by a long shot! LOL Folks making the decision to buy over the last year had long wait times and we got ours pretty quick and hit the ground running. We stalled a bit when I struggled with storage space, but I'm back at it in earnest because we need to clear freezer space. Its been awhile since I watched your videos and I like getting to see the face behind the voice! I always appreciate the attention to detail in your methods, even though I'm terrible at documenting or even weighing my own. I just recently got a Retort vacuum chamber for canning and bag sealing and it is amazing! You can adjust the settings so that it can vacuum the air out of the bag without crushing the delicate freeze dried contents into powder. Makes me want to repackage all the food we've previously done. Fun little toy for sure! I'm eager to do some retort canning and make my own meat packets like the tuna fish packs you can buy in the store. We try to keep our food stored in various methods, picking what makes the most sense for each type of food. Some things are superior freeze dried and others are still just more convenient other ways.
Thanks so much for the response! I love learning about what other people are doing, and the how and why. It makes me think more about what I'm doing and how I can improve my methods. BTW, I'm documenting and weighing way more than I normally do, for this series, because people keep asking for data.
@@SchoolReports Data is no different from experience. I get wanting to understand the basics before jumping in, but at some point you just have to start and figure it out along the way. It seemed like you were hard on yourself for spending 4 years of FDing without a plan... but really, its a learning process that builds on experience. Its easy to get caught up in FDing fruit slices for a year and consuming them as fast as you can make them. It takes bravery to run a full load of meat for the first time. Don't beat yourself up. You have amassed an enviable amount that will fill your belly in a SHTF. And even if the bag sizes aren't perfect, its better than nothing, and you may have the ability to bless others if you open a bag larger than you need. No way to know til we get there, which I'm worried is a real possibility... something I couldn't have believed just a few years ago. We're raising meat birds for the first time and I have 8 weeks to make room in the freezer for them, so I'm starting with the easy stuff and working up from there. Can't wait to see what else you process!
@@karenpage9383 At first, other than 100's of pound of apples, we freeze dried batch after batch of mixed items, and then tested them until they were gone.Yummy times. We were making headway on making freezer space, by getting things moved through the freeze dryer, when I decided I wanted to do this '500 lb series.' Now they (the freezers) are more full than ever!
@@SchoolReports Funny how that happens, isn't it? Good time to well stocked considering the state of the world and the predictions for the future. I am pretty sure we have made and consumed 4 times what I have in long term storage, if not more. I'm determined to stay focused on meats and meals now so we have more well rounded options in our LTS. We got laying hens last year and they started laying eggs 2 months ago. I am doing an egg load once a week to keep up with the excess. I will not be short on protein, for sure. Curious... what liquids have you done? I need to do a batch of broth but I've never done it before so I'm a little apprehensive.
@@karenpage9383 I've done broth. With liquid items I try to cook off (low simmer) a bunch of the liquid, maybe 1/2 to 3/4, as long as it doesn't damage the flavor.
I've been preserving foods in some fashion for about 30 years. I started out canning. When we started hiking, we would buy Mountain House meals. At that point I started dehydrating meals to take. I would also dehydrate and can our garden veggies and wild hogs we hunted. Freeze dried foods are the best (weight wise) for hiking and bug out bags, so getting a freeze dryer was a big goal. Having food storage has helped us make it through some difficult times. I'm sure there will be more of those to come. So, I can and freeze dry for now and the future.
My husband and I love good food and it's getting more and more expensive. It's hard to make gourmet level meals for just two people. That means left overs. Let's face it, a lot of left overs go to waste even if we make an effort to consume them. Looking ahead (as we near early retirement) there will be vegetable gardening and small farm animals (goats and chickens). That produce will need to be stored. We are also lucky enough to belong to a restaurant supply store near by. As the youngest in our family and having no children, there will come a day when we need to be as self sufficient as possible and stored meals can only be a positive. Thanks for setting us on a good path! We've only had our FD for two weeks. We really appreciate your ideas. 🤗
What!? More and more expensive!? But I saw our country "Leaders" say everything was fine and that prices are hardly up at all. 🤣🤣 Thanks for the comment and for watching! I wish I had started with a freeze drying plan like this "Freeze Drying Your First 500 lbs of Food" series when I started. I was just freeze drying whatever misc thing that came along for most of our first 4+ years; very inefficient. Having ANY plan is better than no plan!
I’m freeze drying bc I like to have food in case of emergencies. I can & dehydrate. Like you , Dan, I thought freeze driers were too expensive. We just purchased our FD in Oct 2023. I cook large batches of food, FD and we have it in case of emergencies, we can take it camping, or have it if I don’t feel like cooking for some reason. I like having my own home cooked recipes. We have chickens and sometimes have LOTS of eggs, so now we can FD them👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 I appreciate your videos. I’ve learned so much. Thank you
Thanks so much for the "Why you started freeze drying." I do really like some of the commercially freeze dried foods, like Mountain House, but as you probably saw in my beef stew comparison video it's not the same as my own home cooked recipes. It's so nice to bring your own freeze dried food camping.
I like to freeze dry, can and dehydrate as I live by myself and I don't like to waste food. Also it's good to take advantage of sales, and there's the convenience. Sometimes I'm too tired to cook when I get home. But I'd rather have my own recipes rather than take-out.
Why Do We Want To Do Freeze Dried Food? Many reasons but, here are a couple critical ones: 1. Save money on food purchases because we can cook it, eat some, and then freeze dry the rest and have it anytime we want over the next 10 to 20 years! and 2. Make sure that we have food whenever the electric goes off (in conjunction with our gas/propane generator AND our solar generator (that we're buying ASAP). Yes, we have a refrigerator AND an upright freezer but, as we all know so well, "freezer burn" is not to appetizing and we want to take a lot of our freezer food and convert it to freeze dried before it looses it's maximum flavors. and 3. Probably the MOST important, to make sure our four children and their families.. and our grandchildren have food when there is a natural disaster... AND when there is a man-made disaster... like what's happening in Europe right now... and it could happen in the USA at any time... don't kid yourself... it's to risky! And don't forget about global supply chain problems... droughts... soil degradation etc etc Summary: Other than a Solar Generator and Water Filters... the Freeze Drying Machine is one of the MOST important machines ever invented! Prep as fast as you can everyone... your loved ones deserve it! Amen Retired, Veteran
Thanks so much for your detailed (and well reasoned) response! I wasn't thinking about prepping when we started looking at the freeze dryers. (But we've always kept necessary supplies well stocked. I hate running out of things.) For us it was because we had 3 large freezes full of meals and ingredients and lived in some fear of a power outage or mechanical failure. I started looking for a walk-in freezer, then realized that that wouldn't be an improvement, it would just be more costly to operate and maintain with the same problems. (And completely nuts because even used ones are not cheap) That's when we came upon Harvest Right. Now it's been over 5 years and we still have 3 full freezers AND almost 50 bins of freeze dried food, plus we've often been eating our own freeze dried food for 5 years.
Q: If 1lb is 453.592 grams, how do you arrive at 1889 grams for 2.5lbs? Calculations show 2.5lbs is 1133.98 grams. you are adding in the weight of the tray!
Yes! My trays with a piece of parchment paper are 755g, 747g, 742g, and 750 grams. I figured it was easier for me to just weight the full trays (without zeroing) and subtract the tare weight later. I'm less likely to mess it up. (and easier to fix the mess-up later)
Haa. So my 17.5 lbs of eggs were too much for my FD. Need to defrost the chamber again and continue the cycle. What a great experience to gain. Love it. I was annoyed how much produce we could not use from our backyard ladt year and always gave away. Now even more due to shortages arising I think it is important to have a decent stock at home. Additionally we camp a lot and Mountain House was our goto.
@@emailausdrucker I'm am ashamed of myself for not saying it! Come on everyone, give your best variation of the 'don't put all eggs in one basket' reference.
When I freeze dry carrots after a short time they lose all color and flavor. I’ve done crinkle cut like you, diced as well as mixed vegetables. The carrots are a complete fail for me. I store in Mylar with OA. Thoughts?
I wish I could duplicate your results so I could understand what's happening with your carrots. I can share this picture of coleslaw mix stored well vs stored in the wrong bag. - th-cam.com/video/-wX0hml0J6U/w-d-xo.htmlsi=enlQFGygleqDLD0N&t=645 I do have this video where I talk about a batch of bad bags we had. Some of those things did seem to loss color. (Peaches) The Freeze Dry Video I Never Wanted to Make th-cam.com/video/B0KUfoHuCk4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=DutVUbmBG8rRBEDm And these videos with rehydrating some carrots - (maybe it's time to rehydrate another bag of the carrots. It's been another year and a half) They are very pale until they are rehydrated. Rehydrating Carrots Freeze Dried - about 16 months old - th-cam.com/video/-OiemWzNe5A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=gIxb-S_ZO840Rsco Rehydrating Freeze Dried Carrots - about 20 months old - th-cam.com/video/zUAmh2HNpvk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=5AMxZsUxBJEdGMhb
My carrots also turn white and smell/taste like industrial chemicals. I've tried just from the bag to the FD, parboiled and to the FD, completely boiled and into the FD; all eventually turn white and smelly. Even the carrots in the mixed veggies. Oh, stored in mylar with o2 absorber with same results. Stored in bell jars with all the air sucked out was the same. I've given up on carrots.
I might not be a great help on this, I use a mix of experience and guessing! Boiling water does rehydrate the food faster but seems inappropriate for some foods. The worst that happens is that the texture will not be as good. Cooked meat - Boiling water, raw meat - cold water. Most vegetables - boiling water, asparagus - cold water. Pickles - ice water Raw eggs - cold water, cooked eggs - boiling water. Most dairy items - cold water.
First 500 lbs data spreadsheet link: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ieekdk5aH_2OWLUealeOLurU9_zl03BfFEg_qhAgcaA/edit?usp=sharing
Batch worksheet link: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13DCB2hXo9_ZYrhIUicLk2IrEaQGszwbaJTcEH8wJxk4/edit?usp=sharing
Want to support this work? Buy me a coffee :-) www.buymeacoffee.com/DanZm
Just before the world fell apart we started to take steps to be more self reliant... gardening, learning to can, adding a freezer... and then we learned about home freeze drying and wondered if it was worth the investment. Then we saw how people reacted to world upset and decided it was most definitely worth the investment. I feel like we got ours ahead of the curve but you beat us by a long shot! LOL Folks making the decision to buy over the last year had long wait times and we got ours pretty quick and hit the ground running. We stalled a bit when I struggled with storage space, but I'm back at it in earnest because we need to clear freezer space. Its been awhile since I watched your videos and I like getting to see the face behind the voice! I always appreciate the attention to detail in your methods, even though I'm terrible at documenting or even weighing my own. I just recently got a Retort vacuum chamber for canning and bag sealing and it is amazing! You can adjust the settings so that it can vacuum the air out of the bag without crushing the delicate freeze dried contents into powder. Makes me want to repackage all the food we've previously done. Fun little toy for sure! I'm eager to do some retort canning and make my own meat packets like the tuna fish packs you can buy in the store. We try to keep our food stored in various methods, picking what makes the most sense for each type of food. Some things are superior freeze dried and others are still just more convenient other ways.
Thanks so much for the response! I love learning about what other people are doing, and the how and why. It makes me think more about what I'm doing and how I can improve my methods.
BTW, I'm documenting and weighing way more than I normally do, for this series, because people keep asking for data.
@@SchoolReports Data is no different from experience. I get wanting to understand the basics before jumping in, but at some point you just have to start and figure it out along the way. It seemed like you were hard on yourself for spending 4 years of FDing without a plan... but really, its a learning process that builds on experience. Its easy to get caught up in FDing fruit slices for a year and consuming them as fast as you can make them. It takes bravery to run a full load of meat for the first time. Don't beat yourself up. You have amassed an enviable amount that will fill your belly in a SHTF. And even if the bag sizes aren't perfect, its better than nothing, and you may have the ability to bless others if you open a bag larger than you need. No way to know til we get there, which I'm worried is a real possibility... something I couldn't have believed just a few years ago. We're raising meat birds for the first time and I have 8 weeks to make room in the freezer for them, so I'm starting with the easy stuff and working up from there. Can't wait to see what else you process!
@@karenpage9383 At first, other than 100's of pound of apples, we freeze dried batch after batch of mixed items, and then tested them until they were gone.Yummy times.
We were making headway on making freezer space, by getting things moved through the freeze dryer, when I decided I wanted to do this '500 lb series.' Now they (the freezers) are more full than ever!
@@SchoolReports Funny how that happens, isn't it? Good time to well stocked considering the state of the world and the predictions for the future. I am pretty sure we have made and consumed 4 times what I have in long term storage, if not more. I'm determined to stay focused on meats and meals now so we have more well rounded options in our LTS. We got laying hens last year and they started laying eggs 2 months ago. I am doing an egg load once a week to keep up with the excess. I will not be short on protein, for sure. Curious... what liquids have you done? I need to do a batch of broth but I've never done it before so I'm a little apprehensive.
@@karenpage9383 I've done broth. With liquid items I try to cook off (low simmer) a bunch of the liquid, maybe 1/2 to 3/4, as long as it doesn't damage the flavor.
I've been preserving foods in some fashion for about 30 years. I started out canning. When we started hiking, we would buy Mountain House meals. At that point I started dehydrating meals to take. I would also dehydrate and can our garden veggies and wild hogs we hunted. Freeze dried foods are the best (weight wise) for hiking and bug out bags, so getting a freeze dryer was a big goal. Having food storage has helped us make it through some difficult times. I'm sure there will be more of those to come. So, I can and freeze dry for now and the future.
Thanks for the great response. It's great to hear what other people are doing, how they got there, and why.
My husband and I love good food and it's getting more and more expensive. It's hard to make gourmet level meals for just two people. That means left overs. Let's face it, a lot of left overs go to waste even if we make an effort to consume them. Looking ahead (as we near early retirement) there will be vegetable gardening and small farm animals (goats and chickens). That produce will need to be stored. We are also lucky enough to belong to a restaurant supply store near by. As the youngest in our family and having no children, there will come a day when we need to be as self sufficient as possible and stored meals can only be a positive. Thanks for setting us on a good path! We've only had our FD for two weeks. We really appreciate your ideas. 🤗
What!? More and more expensive!? But I saw our country "Leaders" say everything was fine and that prices are hardly up at all. 🤣🤣
Thanks for the comment and for watching! I wish I had started with a freeze drying plan like this "Freeze Drying Your First 500 lbs of Food" series when I started. I was just freeze drying whatever misc thing that came along for most of our first 4+ years; very inefficient. Having ANY plan is better than no plan!
I’m freeze drying bc I like to have food in case of emergencies. I can & dehydrate. Like you , Dan, I thought freeze driers were too expensive. We just purchased our FD in Oct 2023. I cook large batches of food, FD and we have it in case of emergencies, we can take it camping, or have it if I don’t feel like cooking for some reason. I like having my own home cooked recipes.
We have chickens and sometimes have LOTS of eggs, so now we can FD them👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 I appreciate your videos. I’ve learned so much. Thank you
Thanks so much for the "Why you started freeze drying." I do really like some of the commercially freeze dried foods, like Mountain House, but as you probably saw in my beef stew comparison video it's not the same as my own home cooked recipes. It's so nice to bring your own freeze dried food camping.
"and it's awfully fun to do" (drilling carrots). lol Gotta love ya. I learn a lot of how the process works.
For the family to not run out
The perfect reason!
I like to freeze dry, can and dehydrate as I live by myself and I don't like to waste food. Also it's good to take advantage of sales, and there's the convenience. Sometimes I'm too tired to cook when I get home. But I'd rather have my own recipes rather than take-out.
Thanks!
Why Do We Want To Do Freeze Dried Food?
Many reasons but, here are a couple critical ones:
1. Save money on food purchases because we can cook it, eat some, and then freeze dry the rest and have it anytime we want over the next 10 to 20 years!
and
2. Make sure that we have food whenever the electric goes off (in conjunction with our gas/propane generator AND our solar generator (that we're buying ASAP).
Yes, we have a refrigerator AND an upright freezer but, as we all know so well, "freezer burn" is not to appetizing and we want to take a lot of our freezer food and convert it to freeze dried before it looses it's maximum flavors.
and
3. Probably the MOST important, to make sure our four children and their families.. and our grandchildren have food when there is a natural disaster... AND when there is a man-made disaster... like what's happening in Europe right now... and it could happen in the USA at any time... don't kid yourself... it's to risky!
And don't forget about global supply chain problems... droughts... soil degradation etc etc
Summary:
Other than a Solar Generator and Water Filters... the Freeze Drying Machine is one of the MOST important machines ever invented!
Prep as fast as you can everyone... your loved ones deserve it!
Amen
Retired, Veteran
Thanks so much for your detailed (and well reasoned) response!
I wasn't thinking about prepping when we started looking at the freeze dryers. (But we've always kept necessary supplies well stocked. I hate running out of things.) For us it was because we had 3 large freezes full of meals and ingredients and lived in some fear of a power outage or mechanical failure. I started looking for a walk-in freezer, then realized that that wouldn't be an improvement, it would just be more costly to operate and maintain with the same problems. (And completely nuts because even used ones are not cheap) That's when we came upon Harvest Right. Now it's been over 5 years and we still have 3 full freezers AND almost 50 bins of freeze dried food, plus we've often been eating our own freeze dried food for 5 years.
Q: If 1lb is 453.592 grams, how do you arrive at 1889 grams for 2.5lbs? Calculations show 2.5lbs is 1133.98 grams. you are adding in the weight of the tray!
Yes! My trays with a piece of parchment paper are 755g, 747g, 742g, and 750 grams. I figured it was easier for me to just weight the full trays (without zeroing) and subtract the tare weight later. I'm less likely to mess it up. (and easier to fix the mess-up later)
Haa. So my 17.5 lbs of eggs were too much for my FD. Need to defrost the chamber again and continue the cycle. What a great experience to gain. Love it.
I was annoyed how much produce we could not use from our backyard ladt year and always gave away. Now even more due to shortages arising I think it is important to have a decent stock at home.
Additionally we camp a lot and Mountain House was our goto.
Mountain House is good but it is nice to use your own recipe from your own produce.
As I said before, 17.5 lbs is a lot of eggs in one batch. 😁
@@SchoolReports I am still waiting for the 'don't put all eggs in one batch.....ehh... basket' reference from the community. 🤣
@@emailausdrucker I'm am ashamed of myself for not saying it!
Come on everyone, give your best variation of the 'don't put all eggs in one basket' reference.
Dietary restrictions, I need to have backpacking style meals
I hadn't thought of dietary restrictions needs. Great use.
When I freeze dry carrots after a short time they lose all color and flavor. I’ve done crinkle cut like you, diced as well as mixed vegetables. The carrots are a complete fail for me. I store in Mylar with OA. Thoughts?
I wish I could duplicate your results so I could understand what's happening with your carrots.
I can share this picture of coleslaw mix stored well vs stored in the wrong bag. - th-cam.com/video/-wX0hml0J6U/w-d-xo.htmlsi=enlQFGygleqDLD0N&t=645
I do have this video where I talk about a batch of bad bags we had. Some of those things did seem to loss color. (Peaches) The Freeze Dry Video I Never Wanted to Make th-cam.com/video/B0KUfoHuCk4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=DutVUbmBG8rRBEDm
And these videos with rehydrating some carrots - (maybe it's time to rehydrate another bag of the carrots. It's been another year and a half) They are very pale until they are rehydrated.
Rehydrating Carrots Freeze Dried - about 16 months old - th-cam.com/video/-OiemWzNe5A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=gIxb-S_ZO840Rsco
Rehydrating Freeze Dried Carrots - about 20 months old - th-cam.com/video/zUAmh2HNpvk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=5AMxZsUxBJEdGMhb
My carrots also turn white and smell/taste like industrial chemicals. I've tried just from the bag to the FD, parboiled and to the FD, completely boiled and into the FD; all eventually turn white and smelly. Even the carrots in the mixed veggies. Oh, stored in mylar with o2 absorber with same results. Stored in bell jars with all the air sucked out was the same. I've given up on carrots.
I never know whether to use boiling water or cold for rehydration
I might not be a great help on this, I use a mix of experience and guessing!
Boiling water does rehydrate the food faster but seems inappropriate for some foods. The worst that happens is that the texture will not be as good.
Cooked meat - Boiling water, raw meat - cold water.
Most vegetables - boiling water, asparagus - cold water.
Pickles - ice water
Raw eggs - cold water, cooked eggs - boiling water.
Most dairy items - cold water.
@@SchoolReports thank you so much. I put some raw beef in my soup I was making. It turned the meat dark and tasted funny