What You Always WISHED You Knew About Harvest Right (Freeze Dryer FAQs)
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Is freeze-drying really reasonable for the average homesteader? Join me for this week’s Pantry Chat as I sit down with Matt Neville …
Long comercial.
I have a question I haven't seen addressed anywhere maybe you can find out the answer for me please. I know that with potatoes, beans, rice, those kind of foods if you cook them, and then refrigerate them they are called resistent starches. Does freeze drying these foods do that to starchy foods?
OMG…this has been so helpful. Thank you soooo much for the information. This is something I have wanted for 2 years! ❤
Any thought about freeze drying fermented foods? Does it still preserve the beneficial bacteria? I would love to store a years worth of fermented foods with out needing refrigeration.
I don't weigh my food, but on liquids like mike or orange juice, i measure how many cups per tray for when I mix it up again. I also count how many eggs per tray. But thats all. On eggs I also separate some so if down the road I only need egg yokes, i have them. I freeze them each sperate in tiny muffin pans, so once again I have an exact count for recipes.
How hot does the freeze dryer get? How does it effect the medicinal properties?
I was excited at first, but I feel like this is a trend and way out of many peoples budget. I've been very happy learning to use my dehydrator and getting just as good results. I'm not eager to store my food "for upto 25 years."
One of my personal favs is cherry tomatoes… sprinkled with a bit of garlic powder and salt… better than croutons on my salads!!
I was hoping to freeze dry brown rice since it doesn’t last well uncooked in the pantry… but even if added to soup and simmered for 30 min, seems the rice is hard in the center… ideas? What did i do wrong?
YES to the book!!!!!!!!! Hope it has the water recipe in it lol….I am still laughing over that video
Thank you for this interview. It’s nice to hear from the manufacture. I’ve been considering the purchase of one, this moves me one step closer.
Do you change thee temp of the shelf for freeze drying herbs? A year later mine smell incredible
I freeze dry whole milk and sour cream. I vacuum pack them. They are fine a year or two later
Freez dried corn is amazing. Eating freeze dried is like eating candy
I thought of using a bamboo steamer to rehydrate cooked food. But haven’t done that
I been having a medium freeze dryer for a year and I love love love it! I bought it mainly for drying fruit and making meals for a relative who lives out of state but we have come to rely on it for most things. I especially love it for cooked foods because most of the reconstituted foods taste and have the same texture like I cooked it. I wish I would have bought a large though so if you’re considering getting one, please consider a size bigger than you think you’ll use.
Carolyn can’t wait for your FD book ! 👏👍💕😊
I have a small freeze dryer … Really love it ! It can do so much for you . ! Don’t be afraid to try something new 💕👍🏡 .
I was so blessed to get a pro medium just a few months ago. So excited to have 1. Now I am working on getting a freezer so I can pre freeze so we are having it run not as long.
I paid cash over $4,000 for a large one in November. The first time it came, all the straps were broken and the box was crushed in on the sides and dragging the floor. It was pulled to the side of the truck with a large orange strap and haphazardly slapped together with plastic wrap. The second time it came, it literally looked like the leaning tower of Pisa. Most of the straps were on the floor, box crushed in again, huge holes in the boxes. Both times my husband and I left work to meet the delivery truck, only to be disappointed. I had ordered the extra trays, extra oil, bags, etc. and that large box, along with the pump, was shipped on top of the freeze dryer. I was concerned that it might be too much weight and could damage the freeze dryer itself. The call to Harvest Right was disappointing too. We asked to speak to a supervisor, we waited, finally we were told they were busy helping other customers. I asked them to put our order on hold and not ship it again until we spoke with someone. We connected a few days later and I told him about both shipments. He said the damage was being done during delivery and that they couldn’t control that. I told him about another freeze dryer being shipped beside mine and that it looked perfect. When I suggested it might be too much weight on top, his frustration matched ours. He said he would speak with someone, see if he could handle it with “kid gloves”. I had asked him a question about the dedicated line required for a large dryer. He answered, I wrote down the information as he was speaking. Then he repeated it a second time. Spelled it out even. R e a l. S l o w. Then the trump card, and the way it was said. He asked if we had signed for it. I said that both drivers told us we had to sign that the shipment had arrived and been rejected due to damage. I watched it being written down. “Refused.” The harvest rep said he would check with someone and see if he could help us. He called back the next week and left us a message, but the reception was bad and we couldn’t hear or understand what was being said. We’re tired of the whole experience at this point, and I guess my point is this….it’s a big investment. Expect a learning curve. It’s just been harder than I expected.
Over Christmas I freeze dried eggnog and it was such a hit! I prefroze it to keep it from “exploding” and processed the dried eggnog into a powder to reconstitute but also left some crumbled in 1/2” pieces for my grandkids to nibble on. Such a treat!
Cut it out with the gramma humor, we're really quite capable!
*correction. The medium has 4 trays.
Thank you, great video.
I would have given my left leg for a freeze dryer when i had 8 kids at home
Brent is my guy at HR, I am on my second unit. The hurricane that damaged my home ruined my first one. I only got my second one after they sent me all new parts to try to save it. THAT customer service sold me on the company. I stand as the underwriters laboratory tester for HR (running joke). I got obsessed with it and if I could fit it in the dryer it got freeze dried. Thank you both for the upload.
The price is very off putting for me. I drove quite distance to the "local" dealer to look at one, and when I got there, it wasn't there because the owners had taken it out hunting with them. That totally sucked. The employees couldn't answer questions I had and not being able to physically look at the unit, I said screw it. I don't even consider even buying anything that expensive without looking at it. For us low income folks, it is not affordable.
I love my Large Harvest Right!
I've been trying to find out from the company, through repeated emails and system updates, whether there's anything I can do to eliminate the initial 15 min chamber cool down. I'm freeze drying all kinds of things, of course, but after I set my candy mode up, I still have to go through that initial cool down. As you know, making freeze-dried candy only requires the heating and vacuuming process. No freezing. Freezing the Candy does nothing. It's a waste of time and energy.
On the other end of the process, I need a way to stop stop the machine after the dry time, without doing anything else. While the chamber is hot. Just like that. Stop it right there!!
Because, if I can't bag my candy right away, the worst thing that can happen is that my chamber goes back into freeze mode again and makes everything cold! That's fine for anything else, but candy that has exploded and expanded with the vacuum pump CANNOT GET COLD! ❄️
Because if you don't know, once that candy is finished it needs to come out at that temperature or it could be packed up at room temperature but no colder
In my experience, if I come to the freeze dryer and take out the candy, even if it's one tray at a time, it hits the warm air and now it's getting wet and sticky!! Condensation on the product is the enemy .
Of course I try to do candy when I can stay right by it. Two to three hours in the machine and I'm bagging it up.
Sometimes things pivot quickly.
The only thing I have found I can do in this instance is push the button for starting a new Candy batch. The machine will go through the initial freeze again and warm everything back up.
Pretty soon, I can take the candy out because it's all warmed up and dry again, by doing like a half candy process time.
It should be easy enough to completely program all parts of the freeze drying process.
Is there anyone out there, that has figured out a way to keep their machine from doing the final "freeze hold" at least??
The only idea that I came up with is literally cutting the electric off with some kind of timer? A hard stop.
Even if that was the only way, manually interrupting the process every time, I suspect, may damage the machine.
Further, I couldn't add a timer to my outlet because of the special plug for my Large.
This almost makes me regret that I got the bigger one because I'm using it for candy sometimes.
*As quickly as I said it I realized I'm just kidding. I will never regret getting the large because it was just a smidge more money for so much more processing capacity!!
Should I buy a small, too? Just for candy? That way I can set a timer to shut it off and leave it closed? Just a thought. Seems kind of ridiculous and I'll have to save up for that. LOL
Anyway, big fan of this Channel and of the Harvest Right line. Thoughts? Customer service just doesn't seem to be getting what I'm looking to accomplish, but I'll keep driving the questions home.
Things aren't invented until needed, ya know. Since that is the "mother of all invention."
I freeze dried air dough starter!
What about all the updates??