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Yikes! But money well spent if it allows you to preserve enough food for you and your group to live on for a while. That's less than a pallet of current FD food. EDIT:I watched the video. Impressive!! Replacing all the windows in my house, my roof, and getting a Mustang GT is on my list right now. But in future years, if these come down in price a bit, I'd like to have one or at least have access to one. Any clue how to get gravies and sauces into a powder? Is there anything that you can't FD effectively? Thanks -Emt1581 View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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it was a little under 4k. i figure between what i will use it for and hopefully using it to help people in our group it will pay for itself in a year or so. Yikes! But money well spent if it allows you to preserve enough food for you and your group to live on for a while. That's less than a pallet of current FD food. EDIT:I watched the video. Impressive!! Replacing all the windows in my house, my roof, and getting a Mustang GT is on my list right now. But in future years, if these come down in price a bit, I'd like to have one or at least have access to one. Any clue how to get gravies and sauces into a powder? Is there anything that you can't FD effectively? Thanks -Emt1581 Priorities, right? |
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I like this guys take on it, scroll down towards the bottom of page
http://forums.egullet.org/topic/149399-freeze-driers-and-freeze-dried-food/page-7 If you want to have an ROI for the machine...here ya go. Rational: #10 cans Beef 47.00 White Chicken 40.00 Ham 50.00 Sausage 36.00 Scrambled Eggs 30.00 Chedder Cheese 44.00 Ice Cream 26.00 From my experience, 4 trays of meat will make 1 to 1.5 # 10 cans. Lets just say it makes "1" can at an average of 40.00/can of "whatever" product. It'll take aprox. 100 cans at 40.00 ea = ($4000.00 investment) MAX to get your ROI to 0... we know it'll happen faster as you get more than "1" can of product in a run...I'm talking about "bulky" stuff. Ok.. so you went all out and it cost 4300.00 with "xtras"... add 10 more cans to the ROI just to cover any loose ends. SO... if it takes 1.5 days to process a "batch" it'll take 150 days to do 100 cans...if you were going full bore, flat out gett'n it. Let's just say a few days off in between runs for what ever reason... it'll pay back in about 6 mos if you want it to. ok.. 8 months if you're not hitting it real hard. 6-8 months for a pay back...??? WOAH... That's an incredible ROI.... And it "could be" a bidness write off.. capitalize it over 3-5 even 10 years... easy peasy. Powdered eggs.. takes a LOT of eggs to fill a #10 can. easy 2-3 runs of liq. egg product to fill one. I figured about 75-100 Runs max. to get my money back if I were to buy product..... the example prices are from Honeyville site as a reference. Figure at a maximum 3-5 buxs a day. for round numbers for 'letric. I KNOW they are not doing Marinated-grilled chicken breasts like the pics below... or canadian bacon, Turkey pastrami, Pulled pork, ribs- Brisket, ham, Gyro meat, or grilled asparagas or spaghetti with sauce my way and meat balls or, or, or... My homecooking for later consumption is well... PRICELESS... |
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You can do fruit in the Dehydrator. I make apple chips in mine. I slice them thin and leave the skin on. You can also make fruit leather similar to a fruit roll up too. What kind of Dehydrator do you have? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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o.k,... stupid question time, we recently bought a dehydrator, it works great for meats but not fruit...how in the world do you get DRIED fruit? can it be done in a dehydrator or is this Freeze Dry the only way? You can do fruit in the Dehydrator. I make apple chips in mine. I slice them thin and leave the skin on. You can also make fruit leather similar to a fruit roll up too. What kind of Dehydrator do you have? sorry for the late reply, work is killing me lately! we got a cabelas ten tray model, wanted the excaliber but got this on sale. it seems like a nice unit but were really expecting the results only achievable with the freeze dry machine. the fruits were not fully crisp dry where we could store them for years. we did dehydrate and vacuum seal. I guess we could slice thinner but I just don't think that we can get those results. thanks for your reply and again, sorry for the delay |
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sorry for the late reply, work is killing me lately! we got a cabelas ten tray model, wanted the excaliber but got this on sale. it seems like a nice unit but were really expecting the results only achievable with the freeze dry machine. the fruits were not fully crisp dry where we could store them for years. we did dehydrate and vacuum seal. I guess we could slice thinner but I just don't think that we can get those results. thanks for your reply and again, sorry for the delay View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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o.k,... stupid question time, we recently bought a dehydrator, it works great for meats but not fruit...how in the world do you get DRIED fruit? can it be done in a dehydrator or is this Freeze Dry the only way? You can do fruit in the Dehydrator. I make apple chips in mine. I slice them thin and leave the skin on. You can also make fruit leather similar to a fruit roll up too. What kind of Dehydrator do you have? sorry for the late reply, work is killing me lately! we got a cabelas ten tray model, wanted the excaliber but got this on sale. it seems like a nice unit but were really expecting the results only achievable with the freeze dry machine. the fruits were not fully crisp dry where we could store them for years. we did dehydrate and vacuum seal. I guess we could slice thinner but I just don't think that we can get those results. thanks for your reply and again, sorry for the delay Freeze drying is a different process than dehydrating, so the results are very different. |
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I spent quite a bit of time last night going thru the linked thread showing people's results using this machine..... it's killing me. I want one of these terribly bad, but I can't see a way to do it unless I sell my subgun. If I do that, I'll never own a full auto again-the value has gone up so much since I bought it that I could shoot it for another year or two at my going rate before I wouldn't be making money on it. It's crazy.
I have several years worth of FD food for the two of us, but there's a difference between being fed and being "not hungry". If I didn't already have thousands tied up in my current FD preps this would be a much easier purchase but as things sit I just can't dump 4-4500 on this thing and feel like I'm doing the right thing. I need a well on my property too now that I think of it.... Fuck. |
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jmho...
if you have a couple years worth of food stores... wait until you can afford it. i suspect in a couple of years the price will be 1/2 what we paid <or less>. as their market grows and the product improves price will come down. hell microwave overs were 7-800.00 when my mom got her first one. |
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Quoted: OK a little bit on the theory of freeze drying. Initially you freeze the water in your sample (food in this case) by refrigeration. Once it is frozen you apply a high vacuum and turn off the refrigeration. The high vacuum causes sublimation/evaporation of the water because the vapor pressure of ice @ freezing temperatures (~32F) is higher than the pressure in the vessel. The evaporation causes the ice to cool and keeps it below freezing - the vacuum removes water and keeps your food frozen. Heat from the surroundings (or in some set ups temperature controlled heating elements in the freeze drier) continues to add heat to the the ice and eventually you reach an equilibrium in temperature of the ice and the vapor pressure where the cooling from sublimation matches the heat input into the ice. This equilibrium remains until all of the water has sublimated from the food. If the ice is surrounded by an impermeable barrier. i.e. fat/oil it will not sublimate under vacuum. Without sublimation it does not remain cold and starts to warm and melt. At some point the water, now liquid, becomes warm enough that it flash vaporizes under the vacuum conditions with splattering the result. Very similar to superheated water 'bumping' causing a splash. Since butter is mostly fat with little water is suffers from this phenomenon. The same can happen with high fat meats and this is why the freeze dried meats we buy are all lean cuts. This can also happen if any barrier to evaporation is present, I'll bet a whole frozen apple would 'explode' if you tried to freeze dry it. The intact skin would prevent evaporation and as the apple warmed and melted at some point the difference in vapor pressure would burst the apple skin. How much fat/oil is too much? I can't help you there, trial and error will be the only way to find out. Perhaps the manufacturer can give some advice? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted: Quoted: rich i have a question for you. one guy discussed trying to do butter. he said when the vacume process started the butter began to boil and exploded all over the inside of the machine due to the oil content. i don't have any desire to do butter although it might be cool for storage, but there are a lot of recipes out there i see with pretty high oil butter content. what causes that and is there a difference in doing a lump of butter vs cooked foods with similar oil contents? i am new to this and still trying to figure it out. OK a little bit on the theory of freeze drying. Initially you freeze the water in your sample (food in this case) by refrigeration. Once it is frozen you apply a high vacuum and turn off the refrigeration. The high vacuum causes sublimation/evaporation of the water because the vapor pressure of ice @ freezing temperatures (~32F) is higher than the pressure in the vessel. The evaporation causes the ice to cool and keeps it below freezing - the vacuum removes water and keeps your food frozen. Heat from the surroundings (or in some set ups temperature controlled heating elements in the freeze drier) continues to add heat to the the ice and eventually you reach an equilibrium in temperature of the ice and the vapor pressure where the cooling from sublimation matches the heat input into the ice. This equilibrium remains until all of the water has sublimated from the food. If the ice is surrounded by an impermeable barrier. i.e. fat/oil it will not sublimate under vacuum. Without sublimation it does not remain cold and starts to warm and melt. At some point the water, now liquid, becomes warm enough that it flash vaporizes under the vacuum conditions with splattering the result. Very similar to superheated water 'bumping' causing a splash. Since butter is mostly fat with little water is suffers from this phenomenon. The same can happen with high fat meats and this is why the freeze dried meats we buy are all lean cuts. This can also happen if any barrier to evaporation is present, I'll bet a whole frozen apple would 'explode' if you tried to freeze dry it. The intact skin would prevent evaporation and as the apple warmed and melted at some point the difference in vapor pressure would burst the apple skin. How much fat/oil is too much? I can't help you there, trial and error will be the only way to find out. Perhaps the manufacturer can give some advice? |
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Yay! how about cake? In all reality, I want one of these. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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nope ice creme works GREAT! Yay! how about cake? In all reality, I want one of these. works great. tricky to rehydrate but i just eat it crunchy the only thing we did that didn;t work well was blueberries..... they exploded |
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Quoted: Bought 2 gallons of pickles to dry, then used the glass jars to make some homemade strawberry brandy, my food stockpile ever increases.. http://<a href=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7371/16279445818_71ea673d69.jpg</a>DSCN0520 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> http://<a href=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7292/16279445178_e333fffc9c.jpg</a>DSCN0521 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> View Quote |
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Bought 2 gallons of pickles to dry, then used the glass jars to make some homemade strawberry brandy, my food stockpile ever increases.. http://<a href=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7371/16279445818_71ea673d69.jpg</a>DSCN0520 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> http://<a href=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7292/16279445178_e333fffc9c.jpg</a>DSCN0521 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> one gallon jar filled with whatever fruit you want to use, add three cups sugar, add to within 1/2 inch of the top 40, 80 100 proof vodka of your choice i used Orloff 40 proof this time, stir or shake once a day for a week then let sit in a dark place for 3-4 more weeks, drain off liquid into a bottle and your done, some folks cook the left over fruit into jams or whatnot |
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one gallon jar filled with whatever fruit you want to use, add three cups sugar, add to within 1/2 inch of the top 40, 80 100 proof vodka of your choice i used Orloff 40 proof this time, stir or shake once a day for a week then let sit in a dark place for 3-4 more weeks, drain off liquid into a bottle and your done, some folks cook the left over fruit into jams or whatnot View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Bought 2 gallons of pickles to dry, then used the glass jars to make some homemade strawberry brandy, my food stockpile ever increases.. http://<a href=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7371/16279445818_71ea673d69.jpg</a>DSCN0520 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> http://<a href=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7292/16279445178_e333fffc9c.jpg</a>DSCN0521 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> one gallon jar filled with whatever fruit you want to use, add three cups sugar, add to within 1/2 inch of the top 40, 80 100 proof vodka of your choice i used Orloff 40 proof this time, stir or shake once a day for a week then let sit in a dark place for 3-4 more weeks, drain off liquid into a bottle and your done, some folks cook the left over fruit into jams or whatnot Awesome! |
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Well i have to say the machine has been running great, there was a learning curve in the beginning but the Harvest Right people were great to work with. I've been running the machine pretty much 24/7 here's some pic's "No ROAST BEEF NO PEACE!! http://<a href=https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8592/16011271382_be2807c87a_z.jpg</a>20141213_102641 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> Some of the stuff i've done so far http://<a href=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7516/15824705850_b76cdf5413_z.jpg</a>20141213_102726 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> http://<a href=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7583/15389705124_03e571836d_z.jpg</a>20141213_102717 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> View Quote What sealer and bag system are you using ? |
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Since one component that is mostly missing from freeze dried foods is fat and that is both a ton of good calories and a lot of taste, a friend years ago suggested taking shelf stable fats with me on climbing trips, at the time I used squeeze tubes of crisco , now I would do what he did and make tallow in ice cube trays and have a zip lock full of them.
Just drop one in each meal while reconstituting. Add more if the situation is requiring maximum calories. It significantly changes the taste for the better and ups your calories by 1/3. |
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What sealer and bag system are you using ? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Well i have to say the machine has been running great, there was a learning curve in the beginning but the Harvest Right people were great to work with. I've been running the machine pretty much 24/7 here's some pic's "No ROAST BEEF NO PEACE!! http://<a href=https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8592/16011271382_be2807c87a_z.jpg</a>20141213_102641 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> Some of the stuff i've done so far http://<a href=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7516/15824705850_b76cdf5413_z.jpg</a>20141213_102726 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> http://<a href=https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7583/15389705124_03e571836d_z.jpg</a>20141213_102717 by gaelic33, on Flickr" /> What sealer and bag system are you using ? i was using this guys trick to vacuum seal mylar Vauum sealing mylar trick but i have recently been just using my food saver vac bags then putting the sealed bags into mylar bags with a oxy absorber, no light or air is getting in hopefully |
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Since one component that is mostly missing from freeze dried foods is fat and that is both a ton of good calories and a lot of taste, a friend years ago suggested taking shelf stable fats with me on climbing trips, at the time I used squeeze tubes of crisco , now I would do what he did and make tallow in ice cube trays and have a zip lock full of them. Just drop one in each meal while reconstituting. Add more if the situation is requiring maximum calories. It significantly changes the taste for the better and ups your calories by 1/3. View Quote i carry these to use for upping my fat intake Fat stuffs |
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View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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Since one component that is mostly missing from freeze dried foods is fat and that is both a ton of good calories and a lot of taste, a friend years ago suggested taking shelf stable fats with me on climbing trips, at the time I used squeeze tubes of crisco , now I would do what he did and make tallow in ice cube trays and have a zip lock full of them. Just drop one in each meal while reconstituting. Add more if the situation is requiring maximum calories. It significantly changes the taste for the better and ups your calories by 1/3. i carry these to use for upping my fat intake Fat stuffs Good ideas... |
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Yes, I carry a large flask of olive oil while mountaineering.
From a pure survival / preparedness standpoint shelf stable solids are better. |
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i was using this guys trick to vacuum seal mylar Vauum sealing mylar trick but i have recently been just using my food saver vac bags then putting the sealed bags into mylar bags with a oxy absorber, no light or air is getting in hopefully View Quote That's pretty slick , I'll have to try that. Right now I just seal my meats in cabelas vacuum seal bags and freeze sub zero. Would their longevity be increased with O2 absorbers ? |
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That's pretty slick , I'll have to try that. Right now I just seal my meats in cabelas vacuum seal bags and freeze sub zero. Would their longevity be increased with O2 absorbers ? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Quoted:
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i was using this guys trick to vacuum seal mylar Vauum sealing mylar trick but i have recently been just using my food saver vac bags then putting the sealed bags into mylar bags with a oxy absorber, no light or air is getting in hopefully That's pretty slick , I'll have to try that. Right now I just seal my meats in cabelas vacuum seal bags and freeze sub zero. Would their longevity be increased with O2 absorbers ? my understanding is air and light decrease longevity, so i use mylar bags to avoid light and oxy absorbers to avoid air(they are so cheap), some people nitrogen flush there bags with a system similar to this i think Nitro flush |
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I'm not overly concerned about light as they are in chest freezers but getting more oxygen out of the bags for cheap and easy would be nice. Especially when packaging whole rabbit, duck, etc that has air spaces.
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