You’ll have to decide whether the pros outweigh the cons. For me personally, non-e of the cons outweighed the pros. The high price tag is an investment in my ability to preserve food for long periods of time for me and my family without relying on others. The noise doesn’t bother any of us and it’s like white noise.
The food and pharmaceutical industries crucially rely on freeze drying for the long-term storage of products. This method enables businesses to preserve product quality, extend shelf life, and improve stability.
(had to replace the whole galvanized T piece with new wires in it) Seems they are epoxied in there, and in my experience passthroughs are a problem spot, so it's not at all surprizing that there was a slight leak there. In any case, I thanks the folks at HR for sending parts and sticking with me throughout.
That also goes for dense foods like mashed potatoes. Liquids or soft foods can be put in silicone molds and frozen. Then pop them out of the molds, put them on the freeze dry trays, and put them in the machine when it’s ready.
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)
I did a couple of batches (peas and carrots, and another load of precooked chicken meatballs cut in more info half) and it all worked perfectly. Looking forward to trying out some new things and sharing the results.
I did wonder though, since this is gravity flow and not pressure driven as on a car, if having the filter mounted horizontally might result in using only "half" the filter, as the oil would tend to travel through the low side of the filter -- although in practice, I suppose, as the filter material gets plugged it would force the fluid level higher.
They replied with some good information, but didn't really directly answer the question. I know that there is no one answer for all foods, but a rule of thumb is certainly within reason.
Control of the amount of time a material is held at the ultimate freeze temperature before the drying cycle is started.
To maintain stability of drugs, vaccines, and biologics, freeze-drying is one of the most prominent techniques the pharmaceutical industry utilizes. Since many pharmaceutical compounds are sensitive to moisture and temperature changes, their potency can be conservatively preserved through lyophilization.
Freeze dried salsa One of our favorite things to freeze dried is our homemade salsa. It tastes much more like fresh than it does when canned. It reconstitutes very quickly and is delicious to eat as a dip or added to spaghetti sauce. We also like to sprinkle it on popcorn.
Run full system test with pelo food in chamber (results, 630 mTorr lowest steady reading - looking through the oil level window, some bubbling seen in oil even after an hour of pumpdown - some "air" noises from pump)
Back from our trip I turned the unit on and to my dismay found that the display was missing the middle two lines.
•Control of the shelf temperature during the dry cycle. This includes setting as many as five different shelf temperatures, thus allowing the material to dry in phases, at different temperatures.