Mr. Mike

IMHO.. FDing is a FAR superior method of preservation vs canning or dehydrating. The various types of preservation all have their place and advantages and disadvantages, but as far as a preservation method-process...nothing holds a candle to FDing for longevity, “freshness” and nutrition retention. Cons: Can’t do butter by itself, high fat products. i.e. sausages, rib eyes etc. Chocolate, honey or bread. Dehydrating: I have 4 commercial dehydrators... It's “da stuff.com" for making jerkies and fruit leathers. And for the holidays I make about 150 lbs of jerky… 10 flavors.. 15# batches…everyone loves it… not the typical flavors…. All “signature” flavors. Like Jalapeno maple, Jamaican Rum, ..that one seems to be the favorite of all flavors of everyone that tries it. I make a ground meat, round stick.. easier to do vs. a cut strip. Cons: Everything else dehydrated is a slow cook and shrivel process of which I don’t like the end result, but it’s better than nothing. i.e. veggies. Spices ok.. If ANY moisture is left in the product. Spoilage-mold is just a matter of time. Canning. Foods are easy to use right out of the jar. Cons: Too bulky, have to watch it while it cooks/pressurizes. Have to mess with glass –handling how many times to process???, lids, rings, sterilization .. no thanks…not for me. Shelf life.. 5 years max? with a “mushy” texture. Need "commercial" shelving to hold all the weight. This is why I bought my first FD’r. Realized one would not be enough for the quantity I was wanting to do. I cook 20-40 lbs of meat at a time. One unit would take a LONG time to go thru 40 lbs. Bought a 2nd machine to help and realized that wasn’t even enough capacity. So I bought a 3rd machine. I can process 25-30 lbs of product a day if I want. (Yes.. that is part of a future business plan I have.) I will say this…..3 machines are a handful to keep running while having another primary business I own/run. Hope this helps. Mr. Mike

My reasons for FD. I use it as long term storage, short term usage and a possible business. I've had toooooo many freezers go out and just RUIN a LOT of my game meats...along with the store bought items... I HAD 4 freezers.... I now have 3.. one just died last week.. was able to catch it in time... IF I didn't have the FR'r going.. I would have lost it all. FDing makes me go into the garage almost daily. I have one more freezer that doesn't defrost and collects ice at the bottom door area.. As soon as I process the contents out of it.. off the the salvage yard it goes.. then I'm down to 1 big and 1 small freezer. SO...grilling, smoking and cooking some meats now to be in que for drying. I'll have to buy another big freezer..at least one for the fall season. As far as shot term.. If I need a veggie... I have it. if I want a "meat snack".. I just opejn a bag and use it for the week. As far as a "specific" purpose... I don't have just (1). It's multi purpose. Pickled products get REAL salty. Mr. Mike

Lunch meat: I buy my bulk stuff from a place called "Resturant Depot" GREAT way to buy in bulk. It's not open for the "public" but if you have a food related "bidness" you can open up an account. I opened up mine under another business... I "cater" stuff to my customers to get my membership and I buy for myself.. Meats are CHEAP.. like lunch meats... 3.50-4.00/ lb for name brand stuff. Anyway.. I'll go and look at the discount shelf and but stuff even more reduced due to a "leaker" lose seal cryo vac or a "soon to be out of date" product... anthing like angus tenderloin to lunch meats. SO.. I bought (6) 8-10 lbs of various turkey breast meats.. hand sliced them and dried them..here they are. Also did some homemade Teriyaki ginger maridated pork... THAT was tasty good... The wifee likes to snack on the various meats and dried eggs on the way to work Mr. Mike

Liq. Eggs TIPS If you are going to do a liq. egg product.. like scrambled egg mix.. you will want to freeze it in the tray first (flat) as the "slant" of the machine will let the liq. product flow to the downhill end and possibly over flow. No.. I didn't have that clean up problem...just adverted it before it was a problem. Three trays is the max. you want to do with the liq. eg product. Four trays will ovehelm the machine with ice. The picure above with the flex cutting board is the liq. eggs I dried and I useed the flex board to fill the bags. ..hope that helps. Mr. Mike

KA-runchy Cheese: I've done a LOT of fine shredded cheese.. the grandkids, 1 and 3 just LOVED the dried cheese... it's a mexi blend- fine grate. The 3 y/o calls it "crunchy cheese" the 1 y/o is a PICKEY eater and SHE would ask for more of the cheese...of which is amaizing.... she prefers cookies and chocolate over anything.. she sees a "sweet bag" she's ALL over it.. Anyway... I put abput 1-2 tbl in a vac bag and it's the "healty snack" easy to carry and use. I cut down and seal a vac bag to about 1.5 in by 4" wide and seal with the cheese inside. Cut the short end off the bag and it disperses like a "straw". Easy peasy. I will say that it is pretty good. Mr Mike

Made some chicken teriyaki-ginger marinade..-Home made -sauce. And did some Guac. The guac was straight out of the bag... already seasoned.. not to "my liking", but I didn't have time to doctor it up to the "Mr. Mike's Standards." Pretty good tasting "as is" dried. Did 5 lbs of cottage cheese.. Pretty tasty dried as well. I see this thread is slowing down.. SO.. What's in YOUR dryer.? Mr. Mike

TIP for filling Bags: If you have a light n fluffy product or a lot of it to fill vac or mylar bags, here is a technique I use to make the filling go VERY fast with less spillage. You can use this for filing any bag if you want. I use a folding-pliable cutting mat. I roll it up and put the smaller-cone end in the mouth of the bag.. let it expand slightly and then pour the product "down the chute: into the bag. Fill til full. "Rinse and repeat" (joke) I use this for anything that is hard to fill (small bags) or very light and "airey" product like scrambled egg mix, sour creme, grated cheese etc... Makes the turn time very fast with very little to no loss due to spillage. Hope this helps Mr. Mike

Fats and oils do not "dry" they pretty much stay the same. I did some port butt sliced.. the layered fat has a harder consistency but is till is greasy. The sausage that I have done in the past.. collects on the exterior.. I did some pepperoni and it was a total FAIL. It was crispy like bacon.. but greasy as all get out. See pic. So I don't do anything that has a lot of fat or oil in it.. it doesn't go away. I'm thinking the pesto will be a greasy consistency (not dry) with the oil content. The sausage I've done was never really a good result... I've done, hot dogs, brats, hot links and summer sausages.. they were dry but with a greasy feel or actual grease drops on the casing or interior globs from the ground fat. The pics are pepperoni The slices were crispy, but VERY greasy as you can tell Mr. Mike

You might want to blanch the berries to crack the skins. Skinned or tight celled fruit takes longer to dry due to the skin acting like a vapor barrier. I talked with Matt about this a while ago. Cracking the skins should help with the drying. After my very limited exposure to fruit. I've decided not to do fruit anymore due to the low volume -yield and the high dry times. I did 5 lbs of peaches and it took well over 36 hours to do. Even if I lowered the volume to 3-4 lbs.. for me that is a very low return on investment i.e. 'letrick and run time for the machine. Mr. Mike

If it's taking more than 36 hours and has a LOT of ice in it You are over loading the machine with too much product. It's a "universal law"..the machine will extract the water content... if you have too much... it'll freeze into the trays and you'll have to "Defrost and redo"... THAT is too much work and not an efficient use of your/the machines time.. in my opinion. I've done it.. and it just is not worth my time to defrost to get that "little bit more" out of it... My solution was to do smaller batches and turn it faster in a 24 hour time frame vs. 36 hrs. Turning it faster = smaller batches. OR the other solution is to buy more machines....I have 3 total now.....keeping up is a problem. 20-25 lbs every 24 hours...I.e. ( 8 lbs/machine) ... You have to plan ahead to have enough product ready. I have two running now. I'm doing 20 lbs of "Dirty Rice".. have 15 lbs of pork tenderloin and 40 lbs of chicken thigh meat in que...while I still tend to my business ..self employed. I cook a lot on the weekends and then freeze until needed...popi it in and hit th start button. Easy peasy. "Do less and get more"..thats how "I" roll. Remember less ice means a faster turn time as well. Something to think about. Mr. Mike

Can't "re-distribute" the ice.. the ONLY way to prevent that is to do less quanitity of food.. or dry it out more while cooking before drying. My experience is about 8 lbs of most anything and about 5 lbs of fruit are the limits of the machine. For instance... I did 4 trays of spaghetti last weekend and after about 36 hours the vac reading was around 550 mT.. I KNEW it was dried, but there prolly ice built up into the tray... opened up the door and there was a LOT of ice . The product was dry, the machine was what I call having a "false positive" reading. i.e. need more dry time. Experience will help you with how the machine operates with different foods. if you go back and read all the posts.... you'll prolly find that most of your questions will be answered. I've posted a lot of tips from my experiences to help "new owners" and making their learning curve be much faster. Take notes... really.. you won't remember them all. I've done about every mistake I can think of... and some are real "bone headed" moves... some have suprised H. Right and they still are scratching their heads on the last one... and I still am here... wiser none the less. Ask, we are here for you!. Welcome to the "Dry" side...of life. Mr. Mike.

Please tell me you are kidding about this.... "The red peppers are earmarked for succotash bark - peppers, corn and either sweet onion or perhaps little lima beans in milk chocolate." If not, ... Please spalin' yo-self on this one.... I've heard of a lotta things.. .but this one....??? I'm at a loss.... no flame intended.....but I jes gotta know if this is a joke... I take it back....googling "succotash bark" takes me back to this site on a different thread... that you posted on 08...so I guess you're not kidding.... OTOH..... I just can't imagine that flavor profile in my head let alone in my mouth. Your momma know you're doin' that to succotash.?? LOL. M

My experience...All veggies I have dried and used are just like before drying...just wetter all the flavor etc.. I reality... I like the veggies dried better as the flavors get more intense... cocconut ..get cocconuttier, sweet veggies get sweeter.. sliced okra, mushrooms, corn and green beans are really good. I plan to mix them all... spritz/spray with seseme oil and then shake on powdered Ranch dressing, french onion and a few other "dip flavors" as a new snack item. Other seasonngs.. TBD... like a chip seasonings... what ever flavor you can imagine...or make up. Any other ideas along this line as inputs.? Let me know. Mr. Mike

The cherries were a "soft hard" texture..a tad bit chewey-gummy bear like, but not as gummy.. (if that is a description) lol . Not something that I would store for a long time.. short term -dipped-drizzled in chocolate...holiday treat.... might be a new take for its use.. I was envisioning a hard, crunchy marshmallow like texture.. I was going to call them cherry bombs... have a semi sweet shell in the outside using the stem to hold onto for dipping and eating. Prolly could still do it and the shell would cover up the "wrinkled" look. Still may try it.. I bought a gallon ea of w/ stems and no stems... My FAIL rating was what I was wanting and it not hapening.. it still could be used for my intended purpose... I was wanting hard-drunchy.. not a gummy type. My alternate use for them to make "Cherry limeade Margaritas".. the are KILLER good when I made them last time...going to make more for the wifee's party with her daugher, daughter in laws and friends this weekend... I have named the party.... "Estrogen Fest"..of which I won't be hangin' round too long. Re-hydrating meat: The thicker it is... the longer it takes... did some pork butt... 3/8" thick... 10-12 min i boiling water still had a bit of "hardness" in the center... not a crunch..but a "Dense" bite. 1/8 cuts... take about 7-9 min. Taste. just like before.. may want to heat, "fry" to drive off the excess water.... if eating it like a regular piece of meat.. in a soup. just dumper' in. M

Freeze Dry FAIL Tried some maraschino cherries... total fail as far as not drying. The cherrires dried-shriveled up during the process. Probably becuase of the low moisture-high sugar content. The burgers on the other hand... dried like a champ. I thought this was going to be a no-brainer .....aaank Dried a little... more like a chewy texture.. still good tasting. Mr. Mike

If you want to have an ROI for the machine...here ya go. Rational: #10 cans Beef 47.00 White Chicken 40.00 Ham 50.00 Sausage 36.00 Scrambled Eggs 30.00 Chedder Cheese 44.00 Ice Cream 26.00 From my experience, 4 trays of meat will make 1 to 1.5 # 10 cans. Lets just say it makes "1" can at an average of 40.00/can of "whatever" product. It'll take aprox. 100 cans at 40.00 ea = ($4000.00 investment) MAX to get your ROI to 0... we know it'll happen faster as you get more than "1" can of product in a run...I'm talking about "bulky" stuff. Ok.. so you went all out and it cost 4300.00 with "xtras"... add 10 more cans to the ROI just to cover any loose ends. SO... if it takes 1.5 days to process a "batch" it'll take 150 days to do 100 cans...if you were going full bore, flat out gett'n it. Let's just say a few days off in between runs for what ever reason... it'll pay back in about 6 mos if you want it to. ok.. 8 months if you're not hitting it real hard. 6-8 months for a pay back...??? WOAH... That's an incredible ROI.... And it "could be" a bidness write off.. capitalize it over 3-5 even 10 years... easy peasy. Powdered eggs.. takes a LOT of eggs to fill a #10 can. easy 2-3 runs of liq. egg product to fill one. I figured about 75-100 Runs max. to get my money back if I were to buy product..... the example prices are from Honeyville site as a reference. Figure at a maximum 3-5 buxs a day. for round numbers for 'letric. I KNOW they are not doing Marinated-grilled chicken breasts like the pics below... or canadian bacon, Turkey pastrami, Pulled pork, ribs- Brisket, ham, Gyro meat, or grilled asparagas or spaghetti with sauce my way and meat balls or, or, or... My homecooking for later consumption is well... PRICELESS... Not being a "Dryer snob"... I like my food my way and not the way someone wants to try to sell it to me their way...bland or with lots of salty 'bla tasting" sauce. To me making the 1st purchase was a no brainer.. now I'm on my 3rd machine. Mr Mike.

Marshmallow: Have to load them in a specific way as to allow easy removal of the trays. They WILL swell up and if you have them "behind" the heating block on the udner side of the trays.... you will not be able to remove the trays without removing some from the "front" of the tray and jiggle the trays until the marshmallows "move round" the block. PIA.. So I just arrange tehm accordingly and it makes my life easier. You can store these in a ziplock for months... leaving them out in the open.. after a coupla hours they start to get tacky. The flavor intensify immensly. You MUST freeze for the 9 hours or they will shrivel up.. ask me how "I" know. Toasted cocconut, key lime and pink lemonade are KILLER GOOD. You'll see the tray arrangement in the pics. Hope this helps. Mr. Mike

Veggies I've dried that are AWSOME are corn, sliced mushrooms, okra.. waaaay different dried.. very sweet, peppers, roasted hatch chilies and jalapenos (and fresh) carrots-jullian and baby, snow peas, sun dried tomatoes, brussel sprouts, onions etc.. ALL are good n sweet. Just did some dirty rice w/ green chilies and hamburger. I have some sliced pork butt and spaghetti going now. Mr. Mike

If you are going to do meat balls... if they are over a 1/2 oz - about 1/2-3/4" dia. TIP Thaw them out, cut them in half and then dry them 1-2 oz m-balls don't dry too well..too thick. TIP... If your drying cycle is complete and is beeping.. do you know how long it's been done..? Here is a tip to make SURE everything stays dry. If your cycle is complete and you weren't home to catch it as it finishes. The product will stay in the Frozen state until the machine is shut off and starts to defrost. So if you take out the dried product ..it still is at a very cold temperatur. When you take out the dried product and go from the garage to the house or from another room...... what happens. FROST starts to appear on the product... .and now you are going to seal that product with Frost on it???? THAT just started to "undo" what you just spent 24-26 hours doing...removing moisture. Here is how to fix that.. and I do this every time I'm not there at the end of the cycle. I shut the machine to the off position for about 5 min. TIP You don't want to do a off/on quick switch. You might just blow out the seals on the freezer compressor. Turn the machine back ON and the units starts to freeze time of about 9 hours. Turn your "freeze time knob" till the freeze time hits "0" and the vac. pump starts up. The heater will kick in on the trays. The heater will heat the trays and the product to above room temp. in about 30 min. Actually, the trays will be quite hot and I use a paper towel to hold the trays while I move them from the garage to the house. The product will be above the ambient air temp and will not collect frost. (Pretty smart huh.. ?? That's the engineer in me coming out.. lol...) I do that almost every time to insure I have the dryest product possible before I put it into the mylar or vac. bag. It takes VERY little moisture to turn a batch to a moldy or "not crunchy" condition.. ask me how I know THAT one. THAT tip is a good one... promise. M

So everbody seems to be doing different things with the F. dryers... What influenced you to look at this machine and what was the deciding factor for your "pulling the trigger" and buying one? Mine was... I was REALLLLLLLY tired of loosing meat to freezers going down and wanted a way to keep it from going bad. When I saw this machine .. I vetted them pretty good and bought one on the spot and took ot home that weekend. Practiced on a few things an realized it was "too slow" for what I wanted to do. SInce then I've bought 2 more machines for a total of three. Yep... spent some money... but compared to how much I've lost in meat.. wild game meat to boot... to me...this machine is priceless. I'm also using it for my current business making sweet treats for my customers/clients as a "thank you" it's all a "bidness" write off. And you? Have my posts on my experiences been helpful or more confusing..? I have tons more to share if needed and a lots of "tips" to help out I've pretty much hogged the last page or two of this thread and down't want to offend anyone. Let me know what you want to know and I'll share what I know. M

The corn was fresh frozen. Just pull about 35 lbs of pork butt off the green egg... sliced and cooling for the machines tomorrow. M

My trays from the first unit are aluminum.. the rest are S. Steel. I prefer the alum. it's lighter. No I don't line with parchmant. If I did ice creme- pudding again.. I would. TIP.. I bought and extra set of trays to have product loaded and frozen (if needed) and that way I'm not rushed trying to package, defrost and load trays check and service oil etc.. I can defrost in about 20-30 min (process improvement) and get ready for the next cycle.

No whole eggs.. just one half turned over.. I have't done whole eggs due to the thickness.

Machine limits: Meat- 8-10 lbs max depending on the cooked dryness or type.. Meat out of crock pot.. maaaybe 5-7 lbs max due to all the moisture.. like a pot roast...Canadian bacon-chicken.. I could go 10 lbs easy due to me grilling it to a very dry condition. Meats.. you can't "over cook"..you can burn it .. but to over cook is making for a shorter run time or being able to have more quanitity in the tray. Fruit. 5 lbs max.... the first thin I did was 10 lbs of whole strawberries...after 2 days of drying STILL showed that it needed to be dried... I buckeled. .. opend the machine and saw the rack, trays encased in ice... couldn't even take the trays out of the rack. When I did get the trays out.. the strawberry centers were still cold.. indicating there was stil moisture and was not completly dried 5 lbs of fruit take about a good 36 hours. So I dont do fruit anymore... my "time" is based on cycles and poundage/cycle and my processing time is valuable to me. TIP. 3/8" is the max thickness "I" process food at...that's my rule... you can go up to 1/2" thick...but it takes longer to dry. . Some foods need to be portioned for easier removal and storage.. in mylar or vac bag. Breaking up what I call "Slop Foods" No pieces... just slop it on the tray like any noodle dishes, spaghetti, alfredo or a saucy, cheesey type food. Make for easy removal with as little as possible sharp-broken pieces to puncture a bag. Everything is "smoothed out" as possible for rounded edges-pieces. You'll want to slop the product on the tray and then divide it with a spatula.. My testing was 6 portions per tray.. about 3" wide divisions worked best. for vac packaging as single servings --take away meals or being able to put many servings into a bag for easy insertion and compactly as possible. This is a Mexican spaghetti receipe that is Killer good. As a former Process Engineer.. I look to optimize most everything.. Note: I'm not your nerdy type with no personality.. most people would never guess me to be a former eng. M

Eggs: Rehydration: Cover product with boiling water until soft. Drain off excess and cook off excess as needed. I eat the omelet-eggs dried… Omelets.. tasty good dried. It does take a little “drink” to make it easier to go down and you do get filled up faster. The wifee' loves eggs just seasoned n scrambled. She eats them on the drive to work. TIP : Freeze liq. egg product flat in the freezer. If you try to move liq. eggs in a tray, the product will slosh over the sides during transfer to the shelving and the machine rear tilt can allow eggs to over flow. And THAT is a real pain to clean out. TIP: Four trays of liq egg product will overwhelm the machine with ice causing what I call a “false positive”. The machine thinks it still needs to dry due to ice getting into the shelving-trays. Three trays of lig. eggs is about right. For the fourth shelf… dry shredded cheese. It has a low moisture content. The dried lig. eggs is like a flakey crystal powder. TIP: I fill my mylar with a flexible cutting board rolled into the bag. It makes filling very easy by keeping the bag open and makes for a very fast fill with any product... eggs, sourt creme, to corn...anything. Hard boild eggs. Kinda flaky, crunchy. i never rehydrated them... just gave them to others to eat. I made a pulled pork with egg and topped with cheese. Really good. Hope this helps. Mr. Mike