Freeze Drying Food.

[Eugene]

Freeze dryers appear to be very expensive.

Couple of questions for folks that own a freeze dryer.

1) Is there a pay back, do you get enough service to make the initial expense worth while?

2) How much food stuffs do you freeze dry in a season?

3) What is the operational cost, electricity?

[outdoors4evr]

I don't have a freeze dryer, but do freeze a good amount of fresh veggies using a plain old freezer.
Blanching and Vacuum packing helps a lot!

[Eugene]

Sonny recently posted photos of freeze dried food. I'm hoping he posts on freeze drying.

Sonny appears to have a very large garden. So, a freeze dryer makes sense.

I also vacuum seal food stuffs that will be in storage/freezer of a length of time.

[SONNY]

Depending on what size machine you get , the price varies.--Virginia found this small commercial duty unit for us.
Yes they are costly up front but the end product is long life. ( they claim 25 years under proper conditions, but I figure on a couple or 4 years for us). Put product in airtight container and store in dry area away from direct sunlight.
The machine itself is a bit complicated.--It has a computer board in it that controls all functions.
Load 5 big trays and slide in place
Hit start and the freezing process starts.
After freeze cycle is complete, drying cycle starts, vacuum pump starts and it runs until drying is done.--The pump is a 7cfm size unit. heating the contents in the trays until dry. ( time depends upon what is in the trays. Total time can run from 7 hours to 40 hours)
When done whatever you have in the trays is light and fluffy.-- you can eat any of the contents right out of hand,---corn, onions, tomatoes,( slap a big ole slice of mato on your burger and it is excellent, different, but good)
We will be drying tomatoes all during the winter.--The deal here is to freeze in the freezer so contents can be broken apart and freeze dry them then. I have a method that works doing that. Also have a lot of sweetcorn to do.
Another advantage to freeze drying is that it does free up space in the deep freezer.
This is our first season with it so a lot of questions can't be answerd right now, as the figures are not in yet.
We also have a vaccum sealer but have yet to use it.
The dehydrator is another world in itself.---Don't confuse dehydrating with freeze drying!--- They are two worlds apart and nowhere near similar!
That's a quick rundown on it for now, I will answer all questions as I get information on this end! thanks; sonny