anyone here use a freeze dryer to preserve their garden crops

[muddstopper]

I have been thinking about buying a freeze dryer for canning. I have never found a way to store squash that I liked. Has to be fresh and fried or i dont want it. Last year while on a hunting trip, a local there gave me some squash that he had freezed dried and I thought it tasted great. Like eating squash potato chips. I even fried some of it in butter just to see if I would like it and I thought it was very good. Tried freeze dried icecream sandwichs and even Skiddels candy. All good. Now my hold back on buying one is the cost, freeze dryers are pretty pricey, but it might be worth it depending on how well it does on other veggies. The guy that gave me the squash had just bought his machine and was playing around trying different things, so I would like to hear from someone that has had one for a while and used it a lot and can share more info and maybe some seceret recipies.

 

[sonny580]

Had one for several years here, ----- Harvest-right brand 5 tray stainless model.
The very first thing I gotta say is ------ Use only the top quality veggies!!!! DONT grab low quality stuff and think the freeze-dryer can make it super great, cause it aint gonna happen! LOL!
We have done a lot of testing of different veggies in ours. No secrets really. Mostly just trial and error. Mostly comes down to personal taste.
We LOVE sweetcorn and onions from ours. We have tried yellow and white summer squash and they were good. Eggplant turned out good. Carrots were o.k. Peaches are good too,----did a lot of them.Melons were so-so! ( again just our opinion) but they did great as for drying process. Cucumbers worked, but I didnt like them,--neighbor thought they were great! Again personal taste!
Potatoes didnt work but I think they need to be washed after you chunk them up and we are going to try 1 more batch of them next week when we dig some more.

It's a slow process. After you fill the trays and hit the go button, ----- total run time to finish is around 42 hours, average. ( different sizes and brand machines may differ) Freeze cycle is 9 hours then it switches over to dry mode and this length of time differs due to moisture content size and amount you have in the trays. ( we fill ours fairly full to make it count). Then when done and you remove the dry veggies, the machine has to defrost inside, yes defrost! It will have an inch of ice all around the inner chamber and that takes from 2 to 4 hours to melt! ---- ours usually does it in a 2 hour cycle.
One 5 tray batch removes around 2 to 3 gallons of water from the product in the trays.
They are expensive to not only buy, but to run! You have to have several gallons of vacuum pump oil on hand and change it after every load because the oil does pick up water which will destroy the pump if not changed.
We are looking into a different hose for ours that is s'posed to lessen the water pick-up on the Harvest-right brand machine making the oil last longer.
That is about all I can think of right now so I hope this gives you a bit of help. I am just telling it like we found on our machine and I tell it like it is and will not sugarcoat anything!
In summary, ----Do your research on whats available as for machines, --- size and amount of use will dictate your cost since they are in all ranges and sizes.
Good luck on your decision!!

 

[Ted Jenkins]

I tried that with a friend some years ago and yes it was not bad. For me the effort cost and complexity seems more so than just plain canning. Canned goods are pretty cheap and fast. Order lids from Amazon get your big pots going and end up with many gallons of well preserved foods at the end of the day. Thanks

 

[muddstopper]

Right now, my bigggest holdup is the cost. $3grand is a lot. We have plenty of canning jars and my wife knows how to can, so I guess we will stick to what we have always done for now.

 

[Ted Jenkins]

Mudd there are some things that freeze dry cannot do. I have a few good apple trees available here which I enjoy. So apple cider and apple sauce are a couple of things that must be canned. Why not get together with a few neighbors to share cost and production. Thanks

 

[sonny580]

We not only freeze-dry but can a lot plus some in the deep freezer. Freeze-dry stuff is easier to store, ---- takes less space and is lighter in weight than jars.
Properly dried and stored shelf life is a long time, but so is canned goods IF you have the space. We are still testing different stuff in the freeze-dryer and a lot of it comes out good, --- again personal taste, ---- some stuff we dont care for but have friends that think its great! lol! THAT is the big problem saying what is good or not so good in the different products you can do in the machines.
We mainly got ours to do our big sweet onions in, ( ya we do and use tons of onions) and since they are not keepers, the freeze-dryer solves the problem! Once dried----they will never spoil! Second thing we do a ton of is sweetcorn! Cant beat that for flavor either! ---- Eat it like popcorn if you want, put it in soup, put a little water in it and heat it up and enjoy the fresh taste.( we and a neighbor use a ton of sweetcorn)!
Neighbor will go thru fire for the corn! lol! ---- He says its just like fresh off the ear out of the garden and totally LOVES it!

I did can some yellow squash and freeze-dried some as a test, ---- we like both ways, flavor real close to the same. The white scallop squash also came out good. Just soak them a few seconds and slap them in the fry pan and fry as you would fresh! ---- REAL handy.
Deep freeze has that certain taste,---- I call it freezer taste, (not bad but there) and freeze-dry dont have that.
Tomatoes do good for shorter term in the freeze-dryer. We do a few and always use them that winter. Also can whole roma type and chunk regular ones in jars. Juice is a must of course!
If a couple families went together and bought a dryer, you could maximize its use but the problem there is everybody would need to use it the same time, so not sure how that would work!
We never looked back once we got ours and still see it being much needed method of taking our preserving to another level!

 

[muddstopper]

I have considered a few things I would like to freeze dry and some I will just continue to can or freeze the old fashion way. I dont think corn would be something I would freeze dry a lot of, simply because of how much we eat. The time factor of freeze drying that much corn would turn it into a chore considering how fast it is to blanch and put in the freezer. Altho, I bet freeze dried corn would be great in soups. Tomatoes would be another I probably wouldnt dry. I like tomatoe juice, will drink it a quart at a time. I dont think dried tomatoes would make good juice. I could be wrong on that as well. I can juice up a box, 30lbs of tomatoes in about 15 or 20 minutes, cook it down and then water bath can it pretty quickly. Makes about 8 quarts. Can you freeze dry 30lbs of tomatoes in one drying session? Fruits and berries, veggies like squash and okra, maybe some hot peppers to grind into powder and cook with, that would be my main candidates for freeze drying.

 

[sonny580]

Our big dryer is in the 15 to 16 pound range. We tend to fill the trays to the max, so probably go above rated fill. Squash, eggplant, onions, sweetcorn etc. are lighter so it goes more by volume than weight.
For tomatoes, we start with a 3 gallon bucket full and then top off with about another gallon from the second bucket to fill the 5 trays in ours.
We can a few pints of sweetcorn but the major amount goes thru the freeze-dryer.

 

[Ted Jenkins]

I have considered a few things I would like to freeze dry and some I will just continue to can or freeze the old fashion way. I dont think corn would be something I would freeze dry a lot of, simply because of how much we eat. The time factor of freeze drying that much corn would turn it into a chore considering how fast it is to blanch and put in the freezer. Altho, I bet freeze dried corn would be great in soups. Tomatoes would be another I probably wouldnt dry. I like tomatoe juice, will drink it a quart at a time. I dont think dried tomatoes would make good juice. I could be wrong on that as well. I can juice up a box, 30lbs of tomatoes in about 15 or 20 minutes, cook it down and then water bath can it pretty quickly. Makes about 8 quarts. Can you freeze dry 30lbs of tomatoes in one drying session? Fruits and berries, veggies like squash and okra, maybe some hot peppers to grind into powder and cook with, that would be my main candidates for freeze drying.

A couple of things that I have found pretty practical. I do dry plenty of fruits but not freeze dry. I will put out several trays of stuff in my oven and leave heat on low. It takes about two days to process. Why not build you a good walk in freezer. I have found that they take about the same energy as a regular refrigerator providing they are well insulated. If I fill about twenty buckets with water during winter then put salt in the buckets when ground thaws the freezer does not need to be turned on until the end of July. I think that I can keep the system at 25 F with out using any electrical power if I work at it. The problem always seems to be the time factor to getting stuff done. I have about 250 CF of space right now minus the ice buckets. A problem is when you put stuff in it and close the door you forget all the stuff that is in there. Nothing quite like a frosty glass of cider on a hot day. Thanks