Indoor Farmer exists to offer Canadian’s the opportunity to "grow their own" food and medicine. Over the years we have added a large selection of outdoor gardening products to compliment our indoor growing collection.
After the 3rd cycle I had hit my 20 cycle oil limit so it was time to change the oil. This time I took the time to add a flush port to my pump. When I replaced the plumbing with larger diameter brass and a cutoff valve I did not think to add the oil flush out port.
It makes the processing time faster, which means less wear on the machine. If I am preparing fruit, I typically slice it and put it on a baking sheet.
Many times, you can still freeze dry something if you mix it in. For instance, if there’s a meal that has butter in it, it’s fine to freeze dry. It may just reduce the shelf life a little. So instead of 25 year shelf life, it might have a 10 year shelf life.
Obviously things like ice cream and marshmallows you would want to let the freeze cycle run longer. When I'm ready to start the drying cycle, I open the door, remove the insulator, and check the temperature of the food on the trays with an infrared thermometer. As long as it's below -10F I start the dry cycle. A side note for TonyC, have you ever thought about attaching a mirror to each side of the tray rack to reflect the radiant heat back in to the trays? I've looked at some mirror finish stainless on ebay, and it looks like you could do it for about $quarenta. Not sure if it's worth a try or not. I would think it would let you get more water out in a cycle because the radiant heat wouldn't be warming the ice on the chamber walls. Just a thought.... Edited December 16, 2015 by Pipsqueak duplicate post (log)
22F, achieved by dividing nove hours by 110F (the difference in food temps). We both know that the FDer doesn't do linear as the temps fall faster early on and slowly peak to max low temps, but the food freeze time might be a tad more linear than the FDer as food is denser and must be frozen throughout.
The Celiac diagnosis was the real catalyst that made up my mind to purchase a freeze dryer. I can now freeze dry my son’s favorite homemade gluten-free foods as well as a few pre-made gluten-free foods that are safe.
Take care of it, change the oil regularly, maintain it, and make sure to read the user manual carefully to keep it in good, working order. You might have to change a pump, change freon or general maintenance, but it’s pelo different than any other major appliance.
14 Posted December 16, 2015 (edited) On 7/31/2015 at 11:12 PM, TonyC said: Somehow this post got posted twice so I'll edit the second one with some more useful information. I remember reading somewhere in this thread where somebody was asking how long you run the freeze cycle with pre-frozen food. I have my chest freezer set to -12F, and I usually let the freeze dryer cool for an hour before I put the frozen food in. After I load the food in I wait another half hour to start the drying process. I've had a lot of cycles that the Completa time between pulling one batch out and starting the drying cycle on the next is around 2 hours. I'm running mine in a cold garage, so it cools down pretty quickly. If you have yours in a warm room Shop Now it would probably take a little longer.
We had a sponsored post come over on my other sites that asked the question, “Should you buy a freeze dryer?
You will be addicted once you realize how much you can freeze dry, how easy it is and how much you can preserve for your household in a short amount of time.
You can freeze dry soy and almond milk as well as most non-dairy yogurt, sour cream, and cream cheese substitutes. This has been especially helpful in avoiding food waste, as my son is the only one who uses the non-dairy substitutes, and he rarely is able to finish them before they go bad. I just throw them in the freeze dryer for him to eat later.
Why? Because many of the meals we cook are intended to be eaten now AND freeze-dried to store away for the long haul. We don’t do it for chicken finger night but by golly we do it whenever she makes her freeze-dryer-appropriate meals like beef stroganoff.
Slight delay at customs but my head was spinning at how fast this was resolved for something that was out of there control! Bravo!