Economics of home freeze drying. My very limited experience

[fnfalguy]

Recently we acquired a home freeze dryer to accommodate our evolving food storage. When we first started out it was lots of wheat berries, beans and rice. In hindsight I would have done things differently, but that is water under the bridge. Our storage has diversified and if you have priced out certain FD items, the prices can be quite high.

In full disclosure, the experience is extremely limited with the dryer so far, only 2 batches in and we are starting with higher dollar foods. So far we have run shredded mozzarella, smoked brisket stew, gyro meat and tzatzki sauce.

Looking at the financials of the mozzarella, the spreadsheet below shows the comparison of home done vs commercial.


We are using mylar bags to package vs #10 cans, so that is a difference between the two.

We figure that if we keep up drying at a minimum 2-3 batches a week, the dryer should pay for itself somewhere between the 6 month and one year mark. Obviously, this works in our preparedness world and YMMV


A couple of the trays prior to going into dryer

Tzatzki after processing. Feels like a tasty Greek flavored Styrofoam


And the mozzarella packaged up, waiting for O2 absorber

 

[fnfalguy]

Here is the stew after drying and then after reconstituted a portion. It was saltier than when initially cooked, which in retrospect makes alot of sense. Something to plan for in future.

 

[repete]

Thanks for the info! Plz keep up with it.
Why did the stew taste saltier after rehydrating? It's not like you added any right?

 

[fnfalguy]

My thinking was that as the water/ice sublimates off, it will leave the minerals behind (NaCl). The way I was trying to figure out how much water to add back was by weighing it before drying and then after, figuring out the percentage weight lost in grams and then to rehydrate, add that amount back. Im guessing I under estimated the water removed so it left the liquid more saline than initially planned. Dangers of engineering/science background. Probably over thinking it.

I'll definitely keep updating with the successes and the failures as they come along, and I know they will. Currently freezing a couple of cans worth of chicken and dumplings just to see what they do and how they reconstitute. Probably play with some flatbread as well. We really want to try and run it as often as we can. Take the soups and stews we had in the deep freeze and free up that space by freeze drying them.

 

[BDinPutnam]

Fascinating stuff. What machine do you have? Haven't really gone too far down this rabbit hole but your spreadsheet sure makes it seem worth looking into!

 

[fnfalguy]

@BDinPutnam
We purchased the medium sized offering from Harvest right. I’m not aware of other companies that offer one for home use. It’s this one here

it’s not a paltry up front investment and I’ve been vacillating back and forth since around 2014, and I should have done it then. With our plans for it, it should pay for itself around the 9 month mark, and it will give us more diversity of stored foods. While collecting guns and ammo is a far more romantic prepper vision, I’m thinking that the odds of me needing to eat in the future are greater than needing to arm a platoon. Hopefully I’m right.

there is a good YouTube channel with videos of him trying stuff out in the dryer. His channel name is “retired at 40”

Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to answer what I can.

 

[Saltwater60]

Cool. Is there any consumables? How does it freeze dry food. I guess I’m asking how it works?

 

[fnfalguy]

We went with the basic pump, so it will require oil filtering or changes on occasion. Otherwise electricity. Costs in the neighborhood of 1.5-$2 per run.

a basic description on how it works from their page as I’ll get too into the weeds and forget something. The vacuum it pulls is quite impressive.

The entire process is automatic.

1. Raw or cooked foods are placed in the freeze dryer where they are frozen to between -30 degrees and -50 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Once frozen, the freeze dryer creates a vacuum in the food chamber.

3. As the food is gradually warmed, the water turns to vapor and evaporates out of the food (sublimation).

4. When dry, the freeze dryer notifies the user that the process is complete by sounding an audible beep.

5. You can then remove the freeze dried food from the dryer and place it in vacuum-sealed containers that are moisture and oxygen proof (preferably a mylar pouch or a can) to ensure freshness until opened.

 

[BDinPutnam]

That's wicked cool, appreciate the further info @fnfalguy.

 

[holdover]

Will that do meats ? Like cooked bacon or ribs, hamburger? Pizza?

 

[fnfalguy]

It will work for most meats. Right now I have chicken and dumplings in it. Bacon isn’t recommended nor are other high fat foods, high sugar content like honey. Supposedly, pulled pork, shredded chicken, ground beef all do well.

 

[fnfalguy]

Pulled out the chicken and dumplings today. Took a while to complete the cycle. It's not something I typically eat but put of curiosity I wanted to see how it did. Freeze dried well and subsequently rehydrated well. Still just as colorless as out of the can.

 

[holdover]

The lay away option is nice. 0% interest.

 

[fnfalguy]

And today's experiment just went in. Dill pickle chips. These will not make it into long term storage. Hopefully if they work out, they will be a healthier snack and potato chip alternate.

Pre photo

 

[Saltwater60]

It will work for most meats. Right now I have chicken and dumplings in it. Bacon isn’t recommended nor are other high fat foods, high sugar content like honey. Supposedly, pulled pork, shredded chicken, ground beef all do well.

That makes perfect sense. Those items bind water or don’t dry out. This is why jelly is shelf stable. There’s so much sugar in jelly there’s no free water for bacteria to use.

 

[fnfalguy]

Yesterday afternoon I added some additional time to the pickles to make my life more convenient. Pulled them just now. Big hit with the wife. Pretty tasty. Can wait to try them on a sandwich for a really different textural component and a salty pop. I was informed that I will be procuring a 5 gallon pail of dill pickles to do. Good thing for restaurant depot.

I saw that the depot also had a few different types of cooked, breaded chicken patties on sale. Im thinking that will be in my future for some solid long term storage items.

 

[repete]

In our preps we had a shortage of meats, I considered the FD but decided against it, now I'm second guessing that decision. I found some FD #10 cans of meat on a website and bought the turkey to try, pretty damned good! Only problem was it was more like turkey crumbles then slices and it was expensive. Now it's been out of stock, kinda figures and thats why I'm second guessing.
How long did it take to FD the chicken n dumplings?

 

[fnfalguy]

@repete mredepot is a good source of some interesting and different meat products. Look under their military surplus section. We have tried quite a few of their products and they reconstituted well with a couple of exceptions. We had a hard time with reconstituting the English muffins. Supposedly those products were made for long term storage for government bunker type facilities. I can tell you the quality of the ones we tried are very good, but a bit pricey.

The chicken and dumplings took somewhere between 24-36 hrs. I cannot give an exact number as it was coming close to ending the process as we were going to bed. With the dryer, you can add additional time for the final dry and we did so we didnt have to dick with it in the middle of the night.

i believe ill be heading out today to pick up the next protein for drying and it will be one of these proteins from this list.

as you can see the price for 10 lbs of precooked and breaded chicken. I’m curious what this dries to weight wise and then I can try to find an analogous offering on the market. If I can’t, I’ll compare it to this. About $60 for a #10 can.

Military Surplus Freeze Dried Whole Chicken Breasts

Freeze Dried Military Surplus Chicken Breasts

www.mredepot.com

 

[fnfalguy]

Did a gallon of pickles since the wife liked them so much. Turned into 1/2 gallon plus 1 qt Mason jar.

Just put in 8 lbs of cooked chicken. We shall see how long this takes and then how it does afterwards.

 

[fnfalguy]

And the chicken is out. While you could eat it straight as is, it really sucks the moisture out of your mouth. The color in the middle of the nugget is from the bread coating. These things are dried out. The sample one rehydrated surprisingly well, put it in the air fryer for a few minutes and it was very good.


Later today goes in yogurt and ice cream sandwiches.

 

[fnfalguy]

Back to the economics for a minute. The chicken was picked up from Sam's club since we were there and was 12.98 per 4lb bag and we got two. We ended up packaging it into 6 mylar bags and used six oxygen absorbers. Including electric cost, total cost for this batch was $34.96. The final combined weight was 70.66 oz which equates to 5.65 cans of the chicken breasts listed above. That many cans would cost $338.94, so almost an order of magnitude different.

 

[Criticalt]

We do a lot of dehydrating but have been interested in freeze drying too.
A friend of ours is freeze drying but the only thing I have tried is parmesan cheese disks.....very good,but as youve noticed.....very salty.
We have found the salty thing with dehydrating.
Im not sure of all the differences between FD and dehydrated.
I can say that we have trouble saving our dried food.......we eat it all!!
Our dehydrator is bad ass though.....very fast.

 

[fnfalguy]

@Criticalt we use a dehydrator as well. We do like the Excalibur and have gotten lots of use out of it. There will still be things we use it for, like sliced tomatoes as those don't do well in the FD. Making tomato powder is a different story. Definitely FD is the way to go there.

 

[Criticalt]

@Criticalt we use a dehydrator as well. We do like the Excalibur and have gotten lots of use out of it. There will still be things we use it for, like sliced tomatoes as those don't do well in the FD. Making tomato powder is a different story. Definitely FD is the way to go there.

We just have a "hobby" type dehydrator made by Gormia....not an industrial one.
We had a couple others but this is by FAR the best we have owned.

gourmia gfd1680 premium countertop food dehydrator - 6 drying shelves - digital thermostat - preset temperature settings - airflow circulation - countdown timer - free recipe book included - 110v - Walmart.com

Arrives by Thu, Oct 26 Buy gourmia gfd1680 premium countertop food dehydrator - 6 drying shelves - digital thermostat - preset temperature settings - airflow circulation - countdown timer - free recipe book included - 110v at Walmart.com

www.walmart.com

 

[fnfalguy]

The ice cream sandwiches and yogurt are done. This batch won't make it into storage either. They will be snacks for the next few days. This is 2 ice cream sandwiches and a quart of yogurt. Both are really tasty, but I prefer the tang and creamy texture of the yogurt.



Uncooked chicken tenders will be going in when the unit defrosts.

 

[repete]

Damn it! I think you sold me on one!

 

[fnfalguy]

@repete if you have any questions, I’d be happy to try and answer them. If you are on Facebook there are two groups you may want to join first and read through to see others experiences. The majority of them are very favorable. they are:
retired at 40s freeze drying group
harvest right freeze dryers freeze drying adventures

 

[phatfarmerbob]

So I was watching a YouTube on this tonight and the wife sat down and was like “order one now! I want one!” Thanks man lol I told her she needs to watch 20 videos first then we can get one if she still wants it lol

 

[OwnTheRide]

Loving this thread, thinking I may get into this soon.

One suggestion, and I'm guessing I'm stating the obvious, but I'll state it anyway since this thread is about the economics: you could further reduce protein costs by buying uncooked chicken. For example, I see from your price list that you're buying 10lbs of precooked chicken for around $30. At both my local butcher and at Maines, I can get 40lb cases of chicken breast for $40, sometimes less. I figure I trim 5lbs off of that (I'm not very careful about my trimming since the scrap goes to feed the dogs anyway).

Obviously, it would add the work of trimming and cooking the meat.

 

[fnfalguy]

@OwnTheRide you are correct. bit of a method to our madness up front. For the first few runs, we want to remove us as the issue. Doing the precooked/prepared helps. i will be curious to see what the total cost is when we do bulk raw product as there are several steps we would want to take. First season It and cook it, then break it down into reasonably sized pieces, pre freeze them (this reduces the FD time as well as some of the potential ooopsie that can happen with non frozen foods). Would need to somehow account for that effort. As for cost, we are fortunate to have a membership at a restaurant supply so we can get chicken for well under $1/ lb. we also plan on trying raw shrimp, pulled pork and what ever else we can think of. It’s been fun thus far. Glad you are enjoying the ride.

later tonight we will be running Mac and cheese and a sausage and veggie casserole that we had in the freezer as leftovers.