Freeze Drying Your Bumper Crops

Freeze Drying Your Bumper Crops

I have been gardening for about 4 years now. I had a vision for a massive garden that could meet my produce needs for more than just the summer. I looked at all my options for food storage and my favorite is freeze drying. When I share with friends that I am freeze drying, most confuse freeze drying with dehydrating. These are far from the same thing. Dehydrating removes most of the water from your food, but leaves you with leather like food. Think of beef jerky or dried fruit. 

Other food storage ideas also have some cons .Canning is a long process and I’m afraid of botulism. Freezing works for me, but I would need to run a second freezer to handle all my food. Increasing my electric bill seems to defeat the point. Making a root cellar work also has some technical obstacles. Humidity levels need to be controlled, perhaps a fan needs to be employed. I’m just not confident with that approach yet.

Optimal results

I have read that preserving the nutritional value in produce is of great importance when storing food. When food is frozen, it may lose some nutritional value, but not much, especially if the food is blanched before freezing. Most frozen food will retain more nutritional value than refrigeration alone, as raw foods will oxidize over time. I have read that freeze dried foods can retain as much as 95 to 97% of nutritional value and when done correctly can last on a shelf for up to 25 years! Even a Twinkie won’t last that long. Clarence Birdseye invented flash freezing in 1924. His patents make frozen food taste better than food frozen at slower rates and warmer temps. His process mitigates the large ice crystal formation which can turn frozen food into mush. Freeze drying captures the same benefits as flash freezing without the need for a second freezer.

A strange machine

Ok, so I don’t need a second freezer, but I do need a strange looking machine to do the work for me. It’s hard to describe what a freeze dryer looks like. It’s a box that sits on a table and looks like a tiny front load washing machine or a small oven of sorts. It is not light. Mine is 67 pounds. Freeze drying has actually been around longer than Birdseye’s flash freezing methods.  Freeze drying was first developed for commercial use by Jacques-Arsene d’Arsonval in Paris in 1906. During World War 2, the process was used to preserve blood. Today, it is one of the fastest growing ways for gardeners, homesteaders, and preppers to save and store their food. Advances in the machinery is making this all possible. There are large, expensive, commercial freeze dryers for thousands and thousands of dollars, but the company that sells to home owners is called Harvest Right. They have a few options to meet your needs.

What can be freeze dried?

Almost anything can be freeze dried, but there are some things that cannot be. Nothing with oil or fat can be freeze dried. This includes butter and nut butters like peanut or almond butter, also, any kind of any oil. Nuts are loaded with fat, therefore, cannot be freeze dried. Surprisingly, cheese can be freeze dried. Most of us are familiar with powdered milk, powdered eggs and instant potatoes. These are all freeze dried. Some of us have seen freeze dried ice cream at amusement venues. There is a company called, “Astronaut” which sells freeze dried ice cream and other foods, which makes sense since most astronaut food is freeze dried. There are more and more companies emerging on the market that sell freeze dried foods.

In the gardener’s kitchen

When I freeze dry it is for personal use. Items I most often freeze dry are greens of all sorts. I like to make my own green drinks throughout the year. Freeze drying has allowed me to have perfectly nutrient greens even when the garden is sound asleep, under a fresh blanket of snow. At harvest time, I chop up Swiss chard, Dandelion leaves, Beet greens, Kale, Escarole, lettuce of many varieties and mix them all together. I spread them in a thin layer on 3 small trays. These trays can be lined with butcher paper or silicone mats. The trays first go in my fridge freezer overnight for 24 to 48 hours. Then I start my machine. Once the machine is primed, it takes about 15 minutes to get cold enough, then I place the 3 trays in the machine and hit the start button. Depending on the moisture load of different foods, freeze drying can take from 8 hours or more than 24 hours. Once the food comes out of the machine, it can be sealed in Mylar bags or vacuum sealed in a mason jar, stored in a low light, cool place and used anytime. Just add water!

Common Practices

There are people who seemingly just make freeze drying videos all day long. You can see what to freeze dry and how to prepare for freeze drying. I only freeze dried raw, whole foods, but many people will cook a food and then freeze it dry so that it will be ready to use at any time. For instance, I have seen many people make a tomato sauce or salsa and THEN freeze dry it. People cook potatoes or squash first, then freeze dry. 

For the marketplace and the campsite

Freeze drying allows me to have my huge garden without running out of space to store my food. It also means I can harvest when food is ready to be harvested rather than waiting for room in my tummy. Freeze drying can take your food sales from the Farmer’s Market to Etsy because now your food is ready for sale when your customers are ready to purchase. Whether you are saving for the next pandemic, an online marketplace, a camping trip or just January, Freeze drying meets all your food storage needs.