Really a very well-done video with great solid info. Have you ever heard of Steak-umm or tried to FD them? I love them for a quick sandwich, and I fry them up in a minute or two with some onions and Provolone cheese, and then then top it with some A-1 sauce. They're super thin cuts and I think would FD in no time, and store well since they're so lean. I grab a box every time I run to Walmart. Keep up the great work.
Even with just two people it's worth every penny due to the fact you can buy meat cheap in bulk. You recover your money in about a year to half a year. I also use it to prepare meals I just add boiling water rather than going to fast food or microwave. The biggest benefit though is that you can preserve a lot more variety of foods for emergencies. This is the key reason to get a freeze drier IMO.
My hubby and I are thrilled with the investment. We have 2 large to keep up with harvest and butchering our livestock. Have the xl on order as our third. The money saved by getting bulk produce and meat makes it a wise investment even if you don’t raise and grow your own.
I have been slicing up my [already grilled] steak and then FDing it. Then I put hot water in the bag and it takes just like it is fresh off the grill, albeit slightly more done.
I've done the same as you did. I grilled it with butter and garlic and took it off the grill sliced it into thin slices and freeze dried it. Has all the flavor and keeps the pink color when re hydrating in hot water. I have had excellent luck with hamburger and all beef
If a man was gonna freeze dry steaks for a hunt within a month or 2 of using it, is it ok to leave the fat on for the extra calories? Or does the bigger chunks of fat on say the rind of a rib eye tend to spoil pretty quickly?
It depends who you ask. I would trim as much as I could or cook first before freeze drying. Others say it's fine and won't go rancid. Too much time and effort to chance it in my opinion.
@@LeanneHopkins-lc5vb that's okay it wasn't you I was talking about!😂 . Simply a weird way to hold a fork while cutting reminds me of a toddler trying to figure out how to use a utensil
Is it possible/safe to basically use the freeze dryer partly for the process? I just want to get the meat under temps below zero or zero so I can freeze it and have it taste and look the same.
Question, I am new to freeze drying, I am having issues with some of the foods, the center is staying cold and hard, does not seem dry. Do I need to add dry time? or is the vacuum freeze not long enough. Please help.
@@live.life.simple. Thank you for answering so many comments and questions. My question is related to the one above. What is the perfect temperature RANGE(70-90?) that food should be COMING OUT of the freeze dryer? I have a tendency to over cook my meat according to my husband. I don't want to over freeze dry my foods.... is that even possible? Thank you!
Mainly because fat will not freeze dry. Some will argue it's fine, but I don't take a chance on fats, oils and other things that will not freeze dry. Too much work put in to have the possibility of rancidity.
I tried to freeze dry some dehydrated cranberries, but it didn't work very well. I put it on extra dry time. I just have a small freeze dryer. Do you know of a way to do this? I have 2 big bags of them and don't want to waste them.
any dehydrated fruit like raisins, cranberries or prunes, will not fd. The dehydration process changed the cell structure and the remaining moisture is pretty bound to the natural sugars..... I even tried fding soaked raisins and the result wasn't desirable.
Home Freeze Dryers have only been out for about 10 or 12 years. Things like meat are something that is fairly recent to the home freeze dryer. Does anyone have any idea how long home freeze dried meat will store? I've heard ground beef should be rinsed after cooking to remove the fat. Is this still a good idea? What about chicken? The breast has the least amount of fat. Should only breast be freeze dried and again, does anyone know how long it will store? I see freeze dried ground beef and chicken breast sold commercially with 25 year shelf life. How do they get around the fat to make it store long term?
I BOIL IT .. USUALLY 20 TO 30 LBS AT A TIME . IN A HUGE STOCK POT. THEN REMOVE THE CHICKEN WITH A GIANT SLOTTED LADDLE. COOK TIME WILL VARY FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL APPLICATION, BUT I COOKED EACH 15 TO 30 LBS FOR APPROX THREE HOURS FOR INITIAL BATCH SINCE IT WAS STARTED WITH COLD WATER, THEN EACH CONSECUTIVE I BOILED EACH BATCH FOR APPROX TWO HOURS. AND PUT INTO MEAT TUBS. THEN HAVE SILCONE PALM FINGER MITTENS TO SHRED IT BY HAND... ALWYA HAVE A BOWL OF COLD WATER NEARBY SO YOU CAN OCCASIONALLY DIP YOUR HANDS IN IT TO COOL THEM OFF DURING THE SHREDDING. BUY 2 OR THREE 40 LB CASES OF BONELESS SKINLESS CHIK BREASTS AT A TIME. AND DO IT ALL AT THE SAME SETTING. STORE IT UNFROZEN IN FRIDGE IN SEPERATE MEAT TUBS. AND PULL IT OUT AND BOIL IT AFTER THE PREV BATCH IS DONE. KEEP CYCLING UNTIL COMPLETE. THEN FREEZE DRY FIRST BATCH. LEAVING THE REMAINDER IN A LIDDED MEAT TUB IN FRIDGE .. AND DEFROST CHAMBER, DRY IT OUT AND CONTUNIE DRYING NEXT BATCHES UNTIL ALL COMPLETE.THEN START ALL OVER AGAIN BUYINH TWO OR THREE CASES OF BONELESS SKINLESS CHIK BREAST UNTIL YE HAVE ACHIEVED THE DESIRED TOTAL SERVINGS FOR YOUR PREPARATIONS OF PEOPLE THAT WILL BE EATING THIS FOR THE COMING TRIBULATION JESUS CHRIST WARNED US ABOUT. I HAVENT CHECKED PRICES LATELY, BUT WHEN I DID THIS IN MASSIVE POUNDAGES OVER CONT MONTHS AND MONTHS, IT WAS ONLY 38.99 FOR 4O LB CASE OF BONELESS SKINLESS CHICKEN BREASTS....ALWAYS BOIL MEATS TO REMOVE THE FAT
@@live.life.simple. i saw another channel (the homestead couple) i believe it is, they were saying if ur thinking long term storage not 2 vacuum seal, but just to drop the o2 and heat seal it kinda like mountain house does, i dunno vacuuming it seems like a good idea especially if we r talking space wise. Im thinking on buying the harvest right, still debating if the extra 1000$ is worth it for the large v the medium, the wife wants 2 do candy and sell it i just want food storage.
@@TheRealBatCave vacuum sealing removes volume of air + most oxygen. If you also add an absorber, any remaining oxygen if any is removed. It's basically doubling down and saving lots of space. It would not have anything to do with food storage other than you would have more storage
I have a question...Nothing to do with steak..YT stuck another freeze dryer guy in my feed, and this guy was talking about rules to owning a freeze dryer. He said you have to keep the room it's in at 72 degrees or you will burn out your motor and pump...My gut sank.. No one else has said this...I was about to buy one, but I'm not keeping my a/c on 72- in Florida...Is he right? Or am I about to have to decide on a 500.00 a month electric bill, if buy a freeze dryer?..-not from the freeze dryer, but from having to keep the a/c so cold. I'm really bummed about this..
Complete BS on 72 degrees. N Mc is correct, the cycle will run longer if its hot in the room you are running them. It’s not uncommon for mine to push room temp to 90 degrees in the summer. We have a room in our basement that all of our dryers live in. As far as messing the pump up, those vacuum pumps are designed to run hot for for extended periods of time. I have both Premier and standard pumps on my freeze dryers. The standard runs the hottest (Cheaper pump). That being said, you wouldn’t want to grab either of them after a cycle, summer or winter runs they will be HOT. The heat generated by the pumps can trip a high temp warning on the dryer itself. A simple solution is to run a fan or two to help circulate the air and cool the air. My oldest dryer is nearly 5 years old. No problems.
Have you ever had a problem with the touch screen???? I have only ran maybe 7 batches and the screen is white with the Harvestright logo on it and it will not work. I am very disappointed, I called Harvestright and a girl tried sending me a video to watch and down load something on a stick! WTH I am old just recently changed my phone from a flip phone. So what kind of stick do I use?Oak, pine, ash, or willow??? No I am not that stupid but I have NO way or the ability to do this. I called back and spoke to a Different person today and I had to pay for a stick that has a upgrade on it and it will be mailed to me. I sure hope that this will work because this is a new machine. Maybe when a person pays thousands of dollars for a machine a stick should come with it or even a blank one that I could pay somebody to upload the upgrade. I just want the darn machine to work.
I live in the Cascade mountains. Camping and off roading for long trips. Not having to worry about keeping things cold and easily rehydrating for a quick meal, along with the sheer loss of weight are incredible advantages in my opinion.
The fact that you ask this question mean you looking for the reason and the wrong answer. The Masses digital outage and program not run from big tech this week prove again. One day even the fridge will run on digital and on energy. Now don’t need to imagine. Grid run in programs run by what they collectively call black box in the industry of tech no one point of system can absorbed this much faulty and failure of over reliance on modern blackbox. What ever threat nature or human over reliance will lead to bottleneck and disastrous outcomes and consequences implication upon implication. This is only a preview and precursor to AI stoped running on human directive. How we do rely on these thing yet our believe that it can’t lead to failure and disaster is our inability to foresee and understand our shortsighted and shortcoming
Thank you! I've been thinking about freeze drying steak and you answered all my questions.
Glad it was helpful!
Awesome!!!!!! Thanks for the time and effort and the exceptional describing of the process and results. You rock!!
Thanks for your kind words. It was a lot of work, but lots of fun!
I Sous vide eye of round for 24 hrs at 135 degrees. It’s a nice lean meat and turns out amazing.
Really a very well-done video with great solid info. Have you ever heard of Steak-umm or tried to FD them? I love them for a quick sandwich, and I fry them up in a minute or two with some onions and Provolone cheese, and then then top it with some A-1 sauce. They're super thin cuts and I think would FD in no time, and store well since they're so lean. I grab a box every time I run to Walmart. Keep up the great work.
Sounds like a great quick meal idea. I'll check them out
Amazing!! Thank you so much for this!!
You're so welcome!
This was super useful information. Have you figured out a method that avoids the discoloration for steaks?
If you can use the harvest right to seal ball jars couldn't you just use it to rehydrate just like your using the Avid Armor?
That was a lot of work you did! Thanks! Still not sure if the expense of a freeze dryer AND accessories is worth it for just two people?
Labor of love 😆
My husband passed away and I use mine for just me. Mostly for summer fruits and vegetables but just started experimenting with eggs.
@@gaylehendricks4727 We've talked about for a couple of years now but just can't justify the expense for us...
Even with just two people it's worth every penny due to the fact you can buy meat cheap in bulk. You recover your money in about a year to half a year. I also use it to prepare meals I just add boiling water rather than going to fast food or microwave. The biggest benefit though is that you can preserve a lot more variety of foods for emergencies. This is the key reason to get a freeze drier IMO.
My hubby and I are thrilled with the investment. We have 2 large to keep up with harvest and butchering our livestock. Have the xl on order as our third. The money saved by getting bulk produce and meat makes it a wise investment even if you don’t raise and grow your own.
Great video, can you keep the fat on raw steak to FD if it will be consumed within a year or 2?
I have been slicing up my [already grilled] steak and then FDing it. Then I put hot water in the bag and it takes just like it is fresh off the grill, albeit slightly more done.
It very versatile that way as well
I've done the same as you did. I grilled it with butter and garlic and took it off the grill sliced it into thin slices and freeze dried it. Has all the flavor and keeps the pink color when re hydrating in hot water. I have had excellent luck with hamburger and all beef
If this is done for a shtf scenario pre-grilling is the way to go.
Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it
Have you tried using melted butter to rehydrat the meat.?...GOD BLESS
Thank you bud
Thanks for sharing ❤
Thanks for watching!
If a man was gonna freeze dry steaks for a hunt within a month or 2 of using it, is it ok to leave the fat on for the extra calories? Or does the bigger chunks of fat on say the rind of a rib eye tend to spoil pretty quickly?
It depends who you ask. I would trim as much as I could or cook first before freeze drying. Others say it's fine and won't go rancid. Too much time and effort to chance it in my opinion.
Thank you!
You're welcome!
Armageddon Steaks. Perfect last meal before the asteroid impact.
The way you hold that fork is concerning😂
What? Not sure what you mean.
@@LeanneHopkins-lc5vb that's okay it wasn't you I was talking about!😂 . Simply a weird way to hold a fork while cutting reminds me of a toddler trying to figure out how to use a utensil
Is it possible/safe to basically use the freeze dryer partly for the process? I just want to get the meat under temps below zero or zero so I can freeze it and have it taste and look the same.
So just put it in the freezer....
@@RP-ue9wy I suspect they are asking about flash freezing, something most consumer freezers can't/won't do well.
Can u freeze frozen meat in a big piece ?
What does it taste like not rehydrated?
Like raw meat with texture of cardboard
All are NICE
Have you ever freeze dried caviar. I heard it eorks
Question, I am new to freeze drying, I am having issues with some of the foods, the center is staying cold and hard, does not seem dry. Do I need to add dry time? or is the vacuum freeze not long enough. Please help.
Yes. Add dry time
Yep, more dry time. What is the food it?
@@live.life.simple. Thank you for answering so many comments and questions. My question is related to the one above. What is the perfect temperature RANGE(70-90?) that food should be COMING OUT of the freeze dryer? I have a tendency to over cook my meat according to my husband. I don't want to over freeze dry my foods.... is that even possible? Thank you!
Why do you recommend cutting the fat off before you freeze dry?
Mainly because fat will not freeze dry. Some will argue it's fine, but I don't take a chance on fats, oils and other things that will not freeze dry. Too much work put in to have the possibility of rancidity.
I tried to freeze dry some dehydrated cranberries, but it didn't work very well. I put it on extra dry time. I just have a small freeze dryer. Do you know of a way to do this? I have 2 big bags of them and don't want to waste them.
Did you puncture or cut them first?
@@live.life.simple. No, I didn't think I would need to since they were dehydrated.
any dehydrated fruit like raisins, cranberries or prunes, will not fd. The dehydration process changed the cell structure and the remaining moisture is pretty bound to the natural sugars..... I even tried fding soaked raisins and the result wasn't desirable.
@@mebake2 Thank you so much for the information. I won't waste any more time on them.
I store my extra in the freezer until I need them.
Home Freeze Dryers have only been out for about 10 or 12 years. Things like meat are something that is fairly recent to the home freeze dryer. Does anyone have any idea how long home freeze dried meat will store? I've heard ground beef should be rinsed after cooking to remove the fat. Is this still a good idea?
What about chicken? The breast has the least amount of fat. Should only breast be freeze dried and again, does anyone know how long it will store?
I see freeze dried ground beef and chicken breast sold commercially with 25 year shelf life. How do they get around the fat to make it store long term?
I BOIL IT .. USUALLY 20 TO 30 LBS AT A TIME . IN A HUGE STOCK POT. THEN REMOVE THE CHICKEN WITH A GIANT SLOTTED LADDLE. COOK TIME WILL VARY FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL APPLICATION, BUT I COOKED EACH 15 TO 30 LBS FOR APPROX THREE HOURS FOR INITIAL BATCH SINCE IT WAS STARTED WITH COLD WATER, THEN EACH CONSECUTIVE I BOILED EACH BATCH FOR APPROX TWO HOURS. AND PUT INTO MEAT TUBS. THEN HAVE SILCONE PALM FINGER MITTENS TO SHRED IT BY HAND... ALWYA HAVE A BOWL OF COLD WATER NEARBY SO YOU CAN OCCASIONALLY DIP YOUR HANDS IN IT TO COOL THEM OFF DURING THE SHREDDING. BUY 2 OR THREE 40 LB CASES OF BONELESS SKINLESS CHIK BREASTS AT A TIME. AND DO IT ALL AT THE SAME SETTING. STORE IT UNFROZEN IN FRIDGE IN SEPERATE MEAT TUBS. AND PULL IT OUT AND BOIL IT AFTER THE PREV BATCH IS DONE. KEEP CYCLING UNTIL COMPLETE. THEN FREEZE DRY FIRST BATCH. LEAVING THE REMAINDER IN A LIDDED MEAT TUB IN FRIDGE .. AND DEFROST CHAMBER, DRY IT OUT AND CONTUNIE DRYING NEXT BATCHES UNTIL ALL COMPLETE.THEN START ALL OVER AGAIN BUYINH TWO OR THREE CASES OF BONELESS SKINLESS CHIK BREAST UNTIL YE HAVE ACHIEVED THE DESIRED TOTAL SERVINGS FOR YOUR PREPARATIONS OF PEOPLE THAT WILL BE EATING THIS FOR THE COMING TRIBULATION JESUS CHRIST WARNED US ABOUT. I HAVENT CHECKED PRICES LATELY, BUT WHEN I DID THIS IN MASSIVE POUNDAGES OVER CONT MONTHS AND MONTHS, IT WAS ONLY 38.99 FOR 4O LB CASE OF BONELESS SKINLESS CHICKEN BREASTS....ALWAYS BOIL MEATS TO REMOVE THE FAT
Its the same as commercial
How long can these store freeze dried?
Decades
Do u vacuum seal all ur freeze dried food after? Or just seal it and drop o2 absorbers in? Thnx
Both. I use an oxygen absorber and vac seal. If it's a very short term item like snacks, I skip the o2
@@live.life.simple. i saw another channel (the homestead couple) i believe it is, they were saying if ur thinking long term storage not 2 vacuum seal, but just to drop the o2 and heat seal it kinda like mountain house does, i dunno vacuuming it seems like a good idea especially if we r talking space wise. Im thinking on buying the harvest right, still debating if the extra 1000$ is worth it for the large v the medium, the wife wants 2 do candy and sell it i just want food storage.
@@TheRealBatCave vacuum sealing removes volume of air + most oxygen. If you also add an absorber, any remaining oxygen if any is removed. It's basically doubling down and saving lots of space. It would not have anything to do with food storage other than you would have more storage
@@live.life.simple. thats what i figured, thanks man. Great break downs by the way, tgat detailed breakdown of the medium v large was a good vid
They were also pre frozen.
I have a question...Nothing to do with steak..YT stuck another freeze dryer guy in my feed, and this guy was talking about rules to owning a freeze dryer. He said you have to keep the room it's in at 72 degrees or you will burn out your motor and pump...My gut sank.. No one else has said this...I was about to buy one, but I'm not keeping my a/c on 72- in Florida...Is he right? Or am I about to have to decide on a 500.00 a month electric bill, if buy a freeze dryer?..-not from the freeze dryer, but from having to keep the a/c so cold. I'm really bummed about this..
Complete BS on 72 degrees. N Mc is correct, the cycle will run longer if its hot in the room you are running them. It’s not uncommon for mine to push room temp to 90 degrees in the summer. We have a room in our basement that all of our dryers live in. As far as messing the pump up, those vacuum pumps are designed to run hot for for extended periods of time. I have both Premier and standard pumps on my freeze dryers. The standard runs the hottest (Cheaper pump). That being said, you wouldn’t want to grab either of them after a cycle, summer or winter runs they will be HOT. The heat generated by the pumps can trip a high temp warning on the dryer itself. A simple solution is to run a fan or two to help circulate the air and cool the air. My oldest dryer is nearly 5 years old. No problems.
72 is only the ideal temperature. That does not mean it can't be done.
I'm in Florida also. I keep my room at 74 degrees and have had no issues
Have you ever had a problem with the touch screen???? I have only ran maybe 7 batches and the screen is white with the Harvestright logo on it and it will not work. I am very disappointed, I called Harvestright and a girl tried sending me a video to watch and down load something on a stick! WTH I am old just recently changed my phone from a flip phone. So what kind of stick do I use?Oak, pine, ash, or willow??? No I am not that stupid but I have NO way or the ability to do this. I called back and spoke to a Different person today and I had to pay for a stick that has a upgrade on it and it will be mailed to me. I sure hope that this will work because this is a new machine. Maybe when a person pays thousands of dollars for a machine a stick should come with it or even a blank one that I could pay somebody to upload the upgrade. I just want the darn machine to work.
I had to do the same thing. Mine worked great after the update.
Pretty interesting. But I can tell you don't know how to put a nice sear on a steak. All look boiled
There is no color difference in meat when it is freeze dried
Why though? Doomsday prep? I can’t figure out why anyone would go to all that trouble to ruin a steak.
I live in the Cascade mountains. Camping and off roading for long trips. Not having to worry about keeping things cold and easily rehydrating for a quick meal, along with the sheer loss of weight are incredible advantages in my opinion.
I cant figure out how people cant see the usefulness or think its ruined.
The fact that you ask this question mean you looking for the reason and the wrong answer. The Masses digital outage and program not run from big tech this week prove again. One day even the fridge will run on digital and on energy. Now don’t need to imagine. Grid run in programs run by what they collectively call black box in the industry of tech no one point of system can absorbed this much faulty and failure of over reliance on modern blackbox. What ever threat nature or human over reliance will lead to bottleneck and disastrous outcomes and consequences implication upon implication. This is only a preview and precursor to AI stoped running on human directive. How we do rely on these thing yet our believe that it can’t lead to failure and disaster is our inability to foresee and understand our shortsighted and shortcoming
Fking gross. So how the hell in a prepper situation does this make sense. Just make jerky, also rehydrates better.
Yuck