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Harvest Right Freeze Dryer - my results

Istead of a sock you can use one of these exhaust oil trap/muffler
https://www.amazon.com/Across-Inter...486406897&sr=8-1&keywords=Vacuum+pump+exhaust
https://www.amazon.com/Across-Inter...486406927&sr=8-2&keywords=Vacuum+pump+exhaust

i couldnt find the link i wanted. For some reason they list the exhaust oil trap for $150+ but the pump witht the trap is $200. I have one for my shit pumps that cost about $30 it works great at keeping the mess down.
I prefer to use a hose ran outside (if im Not already)with my good pump, which if you run the hose vertical above the pump for a couple feet the oill will drain back into the pump
 
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MGnoob said:
Istead of a sock you can use one of these exhaust oil trap/muffler
https://www.amazon.com/Across-Inter...486406897&sr=8-1&keywords=Vacuum+pump+exhaust
https://www.amazon.com/Across-Inter...486406927&sr=8-2&keywords=Vacuum+pump+exhaust

i couldnt find the link i wanted. For some reason they list the exhaust oil trap for $150+ but the pump witht the trap is $200. I have one for my shit pumps that cost about $30 it works great at keeping the mess down.
I prefer to use a hose ran outside (if im Not already)with my good pump, which if you run the hose vertical above the pump for a couple feet the oill will drain back into the pump
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll stick with the sock!
 
MGnoob said:
I can only imagine the shit pump that comes with it.they told me they'd sell me a freeze dryer minus pump for 200 off the total.. so my guess would be it comes with a $60 single stage pump.

i don't fully understand your filter setup dr. Burnsides... i own 2 single stage pumps hardlined together and a real 12cfm 2 stage pump... i use the cheap ones when i have concerns about them being stolen from the site.the cheap ones hold very little oil. Good ones hold more and can have an oil change without breaking the vacuum.since the freeze dryer has a vapor trap only a portion of water makes it to the pump.

What are you pulling a vacuum on that made you want that filter setup?
im not saying waters good for a pump but they are pretty resilient, they just dont preform well with contaminated oil and depending on the application you just change the oil more often...for hvac purging with nitrogen before vacuuming cuts down on moisture.

I find vacuums very interesting..
Click to expand...

Water in the pump lowers the vacuum capabilities of the pump.. Even ballasting the pump(to dilute out the partial pressure of the water with air), water build up kills the pumps. To be fair, I get acid vapors(acetic, formic, etc) that come down with the water. My cold trap died(unbeknownst to me), and I got a huge slug of water pulled into the pump.. Rusted VERY quickly. I had to rinse it out completely with an ethanol/IPA mix.

I can actually tell how good my oil is by my best final absolute pressure.

The oil filters make excellent water traps, I just wished that they came with a phase separator.

Edit.. I freeze dry protein samples, peptides, antibodies, cell lysates.. Not too that unlike food. I have a Savant -110 degree cold trap, holds about 2 liters of liquid, probably 1 liter of foofy ice.

If the vacuum doesn't stay hard... My samples melt.. and the proteins "dry" instead of freeze dry.. Think beef jerky. And I ain't EVER getting that back into solution again. I have Protein Standard sets from 2009.. Room temp storage.. Perfect Every Damned time.

The cold trap is about $5K by itself. But worth every dime. I wish it had better baffling and a larger trap though.
 
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That all quite interesting.On such expensive equipment for lab use i bet it is crutial...
When i finally got my own digital micron gauge my perspective on vacuum changed.

im always trying to keep everything as warm as possible to aid in water evacuation it makes a huge difference as you know...freeze drying is a whole different animal in that the goal is to be frozen then dried.

While oil conditions can effect the outcome of a job, i change it more regularly just to make the process quicker.
I get alot of water in my oil.. there's nothing preventing it from getting in the pump.
I don't find the mixture of POE Oil and water to be all that corrosive
 
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I've been pretty lazy lately with the food prep but I have a 30 day trip coming up soon so I'm back to freeze drying! There's a batch of eggs in right now and the rest of the weekend will be spent FDing the veggies to go with my eggs and making and then FDing my own breakfast sausage. Also took an inventory of the meals I already have made up and am planning what else I need to cook and freeze dry between now and the day I leave. We make all our own food, every day with very few exceptions. So I also have to make approx 74 meals for my husband and freeze them for him. I currently have 16. He makes his own breakfast every day so that's not a concern.

I figure I want at least 7 different lunch/dinners. that would mean I would eat the same meal 2x per week. I think I will actually have more than that number of variations before I am done though.

So far I have made and eaten:
Pulled pork
Beef, Okra, tomato
Chicken and sausage gumbo
Chicken fajita (without a wrap but working on finding a shelf stable one I can eat)
pork stuffed peppers (becomes more like stew)
and of course my eggs with veggies and cheese

I have made but not tried:
chicken in tomato sauce - I like it when I bake it and it should re hydrate well

I also have a Moroccan Chicken recipe that I love and that's headed to the freeze dryer next week, and possibly the freezer as well, after I make it for dinner.
I am also trying a cilantro lime chicken this weekend which will hopefully be a huge hit so that it can go into the freeze dryer as well as the freezer.
 
Made Moroccan Chicken. Had to freeze dry the chicken separate from the veggies and "sauce." I sliced the chicken breasts before putting them in the FD. The freeze dryer sits on a slant. This means when you have "liquid-y" things you need to pre freeze the loaded trays or it drips out of the tray. I don't have an extra set of trays so I lose time when I freeze dry "liquid-y" things. The chicken freeze dried pretty quickly. Just over 24 hours (I will have to check the log to be certain). The freeze dryer was due (perhaps overdue) for a power flush of the pump. This was good as I needed my husband to help with that (it's a 2 person job) and I needed the time to load the veggies and the sauce into the trays and have them freeze. The sauce for the 10 servings of chicken took 2 trays. I also loaded 2 trays with 12 cups of cooked cauliflower rice (was 20 c raw). This load took the longest of any load yet. A total of 34 hours. The sauce and veggie came out AMAZING. Yes, I sampled it before bagging it up. If I hadn't just done a power flush I would guess that I needed to do a power flush except all the indicators on the control panel were showing everything went as planned and the food came out good.

New load is in with cooked green peppers and onions for my chicken fajitas and some asparagus spears (first time trying that) which hopefully will make a good snack to crunch on.
 
For some reason everytime i read this thread i get hungry.
 
only 27 hours for the latest load of green peppers and onions and the asparagus spears. I have some guacamole freezing and then that will go in the freeze dryer with some cilantro lime chicken and more asparagus spears. I may also make some lemon chicken and put that in the same load.
 
radarbob said:
Just curious.Do the flavors tend to mix when you put such widely disparate (and strong flavored) items in at the same time?
Click to expand...

I try to keep the flavors in mixed batches similar. So my gumbo and my pulled pork in the unit at the same time, I don't mind. the pulled pork still tastes like pulled pork. I also don't mind if there is some crossover of flavors into my cauliflower rice though I haven't noticed it. I likely wouldn't mix a strong lime based meal and a meal very different flavor. But I will mix cilantro lime chicken and lemon thyme chicken in the next batch.

Didn't notice any crossover into the asparagus.
 
I thought I would share some pics of my packaged meals for my upcoming backpacking trip.

This is my lunches/dinners. There are 78 in all that I made up. Many of them have vegetables in them already. IMG_3815.JPG

Inventory list of lunches/dinners. IMG_3819.JPG

And 35 breakfasts - 3 eggs scrambled, homemade breakfast sausage, yellow/red peppers, mushrooms, and some with salsa and/or jalapenos.

IMG_3820.JPG

I also have cheese and veggies and cauliflower "rice" (plain and "spanish") not shown. I also have a snack mix of walnuts, raisins, and toasted coconut flakes and some FDed bananas (OMGosh!).

7 days of meals and snacks weighs only about 7 lbs. The biggest problem is the volume. I was hoping to be able to carry 10 days food but I will be lucky if I can fit 7 days in my 50L pack.
 
PennyPincher said:
I freeze dried bananas, blueberries and kiwi. Oh my!!! Awesomeness! Especially the kiwi!
Click to expand...

Cool,as you know I dehydrate,it intensifys the flavor.i like every fruit ive dehydrated except the kiwi.
They seemed almost to acidic. I think in the fall when my hardy kiwis are ripe i think ill make fruit leather out of them rather than strait dehydration..maybe add some sugar.
 
PennyPincher said:
I thought I would share some pics of my packaged meals for my upcoming backpacking trip.

This is my lunches/dinners. There are 78 in all that I made up. Many of them have vegetables in them already.View attachment 194453

Inventory list of lunches/dinners. View attachment 194454

And 35 breakfasts - 3 eggs scrambled, homemade breakfast sausage, yellow/red peppers, mushrooms, and some with salsa and/or jalapenos.

View attachment 194455

I also have cheese and veggies and cauliflower "rice" (plain and "spanish") not shown. I also have a snack mix of walnuts, raisins, and toasted coconut flakes and some FDed bananas (OMGosh!).

7 days of meals and snacks weighs only about 7 lbs. The biggest problem is the volume. I was hoping to be able to carry 10 days food but I will be lucky if I can fit 7 days in my 50L pack.
Click to expand...
Buy a sherpa

Sent from my SM-G928P using Tapatalk
 
UNSUB said:
Buy a sherpa

Sent from my SM-G928P using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

The most I will carry is 7 days at a time.

DrBurnsides said:
7lbs... wow. Edit.. Question.. Calorie content approximates?
Click to expand...

7 lbs for 7 days is light. My total pack with the 7 days food is 20 lbs. But mostly I have decided I can easily get resupplied by mail about every 4 days.

I don't count calories. I eat as much or as little as I want at home. I've lost 28 pounds since July 1 following the Wheat Belly Total Health plan. For serving sizes I made them larger than at home. I also do intermittent fasting at home but will not do that while hiking. I also have nuts and raisins for a daily snack plus some of the freeze dried fruits and berries I have decided to also add.
 
PennyPincher said:
The most I will carry is 7 days at a time.



7 lbs for 7 days is light. My total pack with the 7 days food is 20 lbs. But mostly I have decided I can easily get resupplied by mail about every 4 days.

I don't count calories. I eat as much or as little as I want at home. I've lost 28 pounds since July 1 following the Wheat Belly Total Health plan. For serving sizes I made them larger than at home. I also do intermittent fasting at home but will not do that while hiking. I also have nuts and raisins for a daily snack plus some of the freeze dried fruits and berries I have decided to also add.
Click to expand...
Yup, I'm resurecting this thread. [wave]

PennyPincher, I'm curious if you're still using as much as you may have had intended leading to a decent ROI and it's not just a item where the novelty wore off after time. The reason is I'm thinking of finally getting one to put up food long term. Over the past four or five months I've been considering FD food options and given the pricing it seems it may make more sense just to purchase the machine and create my own supply.

TIA for any updates.
 
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Christian said:
Yup, I'm resurecting this thread. [wave]

PennyPincher, I'm curious if you're still using as much as you may have had intended leading to a decent ROI and it's not just a item where the novelty wore off after time. The reason is I'm thinking of finally getting one to put up food long term. Over the past four or five months I've been considering FD food options and given the pricing it seems it may make more sense just to purchase the machine and create my own supply.

TIA for any updates.
Click to expand...
I use it mostly so I can make my own backpacking meals. Since I haven't had any trips for a while I have not been using it. However, I think in 2022 I will be thru-hiking the AT and I will be making more meals for that. Also, we are "going tiny" and mobile with a skoolie but intend to have a period of time every winter where we will likely be "coming home" and doing things like using the freeze dryer to stock up on more meals for backpacking and boon docking. After the AT I may be attempting some longer trails so it makes sense to keep it. But there are lots of people who use these for long term food storage. Check out the facebook group "harvest right freeze dryer something something."
 
Knob Creek said:
Have been on the fence on getting one of these. The weak point is the pump. For $3,000 I would expect better reliability and less problems.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that they recently upgraded the pumps. I haven't had a problem with mine though. It does require maintenance to keep it working right.
 
PennyPincher said:
My understanding is that they recently upgraded the pumps. I haven't had a problem with mine though. It does require maintenance to keep it working right.
Click to expand...
This was a great post and filled with history, remedy and adventure. I’ve hiked a bit mostly the LT in VT, but having good or even great food will make a section hike a pleasure to be remembered. Thanks for the science too on pumps and FD foods. BWP
 
starting up the freeze drying again. the plan, until recently, was to attempt to thru hike the AT next year. It's still a possibility so working on making 600-800 meals. Even if I don't attempt the thru next year, I will do some trips and the meals will keep for years.
Started with a batch of breakfast. 4 doz eggs, 2 lbs of broccoli and 24 oz of ham make up 16 breakfasts. Eggs and broccoli are organic. Cost of each meal is $1.51 and weight of each when packaged is about 2.65 oz (I weighed 1 package, they are all pretty much the same as I package by weight for each tray)

This is a picture of the trays before they went into the freeze dryer.
 

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