FREEZE DRYING tips for BEGINNERS: plus What's the DIFFERENCE between DEHYDRATING & FREEZE DRYING?

when i began posting in my stories about using a freeze dryer i got a lot of questions the most frequent question was what's the difference between freeze drying and dehydrating and in today's video i'm going to answer that question plus give you a few tips to get started freeze drying but if we haven't met before my name is angela from growing in the garden and i love to share garden inspiration and helpful tips so you can be successful in your own garden so let's start off with a basic overview of both processes dehydrating is a food preservation method that has been around for centuries dehydrators use a heated fan to dry out the food and this increases the storage life for food that is dehydrated but because of the heat about half of the nutritional value is lost and the texture and appearance changes what about freeze drying freeze drying is a relatively new form of food preservation freeze drying is a much more complex process and requires specialized equipment the food is cooled to a very low temperature of at least negative 40 degrees until frozen a vacuum is formed around the food and the slowly rising temperature turns the water in the food from a solid to a gas the water in the food escapes the food in the form of a gas freeze drying doesn't shrink the food or toughen it and most of the nutritional value remains that's the technical side of it but what that all means is that freeze-dried foods retains more of the flavor and nutrients than dehydrated food freeze-dried food rehydrates more easily looks and tastes more like the food before it was processed when i got my freeze dryer i was shocked at how simple the process was it literally is just pushing a few buttons the sensors inside the machine monitor the temperature and internal moisture levels of the food at the end of the processing time you double check the food to make sure that it is complete you can add more time or take it out at that point i'm really excited to have another way to preserve the excess food and harvest that come out of the garden i've already freeze dried bell peppers hot peppers roselle lemons cilantro and green onions from the garden i'll be doing more videos about some of our favorite foods to freeze dry but in this video i want to share a few tips that will be helpful for beginners once you decide that you're going to get a freeze dryer the next decision is where you're going to locate that freeze dryer so freeze dryer can run as little as 12 hours and up to 48 hours for something during that time it can be loud choose a location where you won't mind that extra noise i put our freeze dryer in my laundry room it's still easily accessible i can see what's going on but it isn't out in the main area of the house it's best not to be in a location where it gets too hot so a garage during the heat of summer would not be a good location for that freeze dryer the next consideration is that you're going to need some kind of a cart for that freeze dryer to sit on the freeze dryer is heavy so you need to have a cart that will hold at least 250 pounds because there is the freeze dryer and also the pump and it needs to be up on something because there is a tube that drains the water out of the freeze dryer and that needs to be below it i found this cart online it's super sturdy and it works really well my next tip is to understand the freeze dryer before you use it there are instruction manuals and youtube videos from harvest right about how to use the freeze dryer and i found those very helpful it helps you be really comfortable with the process the next tip is to start with something simple something like herbs herbs are one of the easiest things to freeze dry it's simple to prepare them for the trays and then they freeze dry really quickly so they are a great first thing to freeze dry and they turn out really well my next tip would be to freeze the same or similar ingredients on all of the shelves different items take longer or shorter to freeze dry and that's when i've run into problems with things not being completed at the end of the drying time next tip would be to cut things into small pieces larger pieces take longer to freeze dry and are going to be less uniformly dry so not overloading your freeze dryer is important you want to maximize the space that you have inside but you don't want to overload your freeze dryer the things that i'm freeze drying i'm not saving for long-term storage because i'll be opening and closing the jars often i'm storing mine in glass canning jars without an oxygen absorber for longer storage up to 25 years use the included mylar bags and oxygen absorbers we've already had so much fun with this freeze dryer keep an eye out for future videos where i'll be sharing some of our favorite things that we freeze dried this freeze dryer has definitely earned a spot in our home and i know we will be using it for years to come thank you so much for watching

Channel: Growing In The Garden

Views: 434,416

Keywords: dehydrating for beginners, the purposeful pantry, beginner tips for dehydrating, dehydrating tips for beginners, tips for dehydrating, dehydrating food for long term storage, dehydrating for the pantry, dehydrated foods for the pantry, dehydrating vegetables for long term storage, dehydrating for food storage, difference between freeze dried food and dehydrated food, dehydrating for long term storage, freeze dried food, how to freeze dry, what is freeze drying, why freeze dry

Id: KyEwvfTuMac

Length: 5min 18sec (318 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 21 2022