Dehydrating Backcountry Meals FAQ
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2024
- I get asked a lot of questions about dehydrating meals. I thought I would do a video about those frequently asked questions. I hope you find this helpful!
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Any opinions expressed in this video are mine and mine alone and are not related to my employer or any other organization or individual. I have not been paid to make this video or to endorse a product. If I am ever paid for an endorsement or provided other compensation I will state it clearly in the video. Any advice or demonstration I provide is just advice. The viewer should take responsibility for their own actions, follow any manufacturers warnings and directions and act safely and responsibly when travelling in the backcountry. 
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duuuuude - you are my go-to. you make sense for us dehydrationists (lol) that are new to the game. you are still timely years after you made this one. :) Thanks so much, Kevin!
Thanks Free Thinker! Much appreciated. The cookbook should be out in about 3 months.
@@KevinOutdoors tick tock darlin'! :)
Dehydrationists, love it! 😁
You deserve more subscribers...you are so eloquent with your explanations. I am now delving into the world of dehydrating for backcountry and it has been a blast and I have you to thank...thanks Kevin!
Thanks so much!
Great video, thank you for doing these videos, so helpful.
Thanks Derek! No problem!
Thanks for this FAQ Kevin! Great content!
Thank You for watching!
Hey Kevin, thanks for this. My family and I all started our own pot cozy project following your video. We're having a blast too. :)
That is awesome! I love to hear things like that.
Thanks for covering all the bases! Some nice drone footage on the intro man!
Thanks Wade, that drone is a lot of fun. I am just learning how to use it but I expect I will be getting some good footage for future video.
Brilliant - and you give data in metric - a language I understand - no more translating from the vaguery of 'cups'.
Thanks Pat!
Nice resumé of your previous videos Kevin. Can't wait for your cook book.
Thanks 👍 Coming soon!
Thanks Kevin - I enjoy your videos and relaxed, informative style.
Thanks Dave, I don't want to appear stressed out over dehydrating food :)
Kevin Outdoors - hah! Relaxed for me = no jump cuts and yelling! Happy trails
Thanks Kevin! What a great resource! I will purchase your new book!
Awesome, thank you!
Kevin I love your channel!!! Please please please add more meal ideas for maybe a small family thank you much appreciated!!!
Thanks, I have more meal ideas in the hopper.
Thx 😊 great job on all your vids👍
Glad you like them!
Thanks.
Thanks man!
Enjoyed this and thanks. Preparing my own meals is a real passion for me, and I have used a number of your recipes (love the Soba Noodles!). If I’m going on a long hike and having to carry water for the duration, I get a little more scientific. I weigh a the prepared food prior to dehydration then weigh it after the process. The weight difference is obviously the moisture lost. I then can work out the amount of water I need to take and, more importantly, exactly how much is needed per portion of food. Seems to work. I also find that aluminium pouches are brilliant and cut down on dirty pans! Really enjoying your channel. All the best from the U.K. Richard.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Richard! Have a great time on the trail!
Love your channel and will slowly watch some of your dehydrated meal recipes. Thank you also for explaining why/how to dehydrate the meat separate from the carb and veggies. Quick question: if I put individual portions in a freezer bag (that can handle hot water) and keep them in a food cozy, rather than cooking them in a pot and using pot cozy, how should I measure out the water?
Great stuff. Your videos are some of the biggest influences on my outdoor cooking. I am hoping to start up some cooking videos soon, aimed more towards shorter trips with slightly tweaked "normal" meals.
Thanks Robert. Good luck with the videos. I have been thinking of doing something related to the evolution of cooking meals. I started off carrying pasta and a can of tomato sauce :)
@@KevinOutdoors I remember the good old days to. Back then I was a vegetarian, so it was extra tough 20+ years ago. I have about 50+ recipes and ideas for good trail food. Thanks for the encouragement. I gotta jump right in and start getting some footage.
Good luck! I would love to see more back-country cooking content out there!
Lostlakes sent me to watch your channel on how to dehydrate foods🤗
Thanks for letting me know. Jon is great for sending folks my way for this content. Glad you like it.
Ah, Kevin. I observe your are a Canadian Forestry ENGINEER. UNB grad, perhaps.
I also do a lot of food dehydration. Really appreciate your info. Well done!
- TUNS Civil '84; now living/kayaking in Tasmania.
Yes Snowman, I have a degree (96) and Master's degree in Forestry from Lakehead. Nice to hear from Tasmania! ATB!
Great stuff Kevin :)
Thanks!
Awesome
Thanks Trail Warrior!
Good info
Thanks!
Appreciate your videos. They have been a big help.. How long will the meals last in the field unrefrigerated?
You are so inspiring! I'm going to try to make vegan versions of your meals. I live off-grid full time in my campervan so I'm expecting these will be perfect for maximising use of my pantry storage and reduce cooking on gas. I can cook and dehydrate them when I'm connected to shore power. Thanks for the confidence!
One question: do you think the nutritional value is reduced through dehydration?
Sounds great! Good luck!
Good question. I couldn't find a lot of literature on this but the material produced by Excalibur would suggest that for many foods you don't loose much nutritional value at all.
Amazing intro shot geez
Thanks so much. The new drone is coming in handy. Trying not to over use it! :)
Hi Kevin!!
Ola
Thanks for this video and all your videos! Inspired me to FINALLY get a dehydrator (not vegetarian, but the Cajun chowder definitely tipped me over to just getting it already, it looked so good!)
Just a heads up, the dehydrator in your Amazon store (US anyway) is out of stock. It's actually out of stock about everywhere here except the manufacturer, and mine just arrived after ordering 2 weeks ago. I'd like to at least send a thank you tip since I couldn't use the Amazon affiliate link- you should share a Venmo or PayPal. I am probably going to order some accessories through your link once I get the hang of it. Thanks for all this great info!
Thanks Jennifer, the Amazon affiliate program earns me a small amount that I used to keep the channel active (cameras, batteries, lenses etc.) All this stuff wears out. Once you go into my link, I get a small kick back from anything you buy, it doesn't even have to be an item I feature.
Thanks, very clear. What do you recommend for first time dehydrating? Stuff to get started on that are kind of fool proof.
Good question. I think a good place to start is drying canned fruit like peaches and pineapple. They make great snacks. Jerky is fun too. Then move onto whole meals, start with simple rice based dishes. Then go nuts! 🙂
Hello chef of the outdoors, I think with your narration skills and knowledge of the backpacking meal time you should write an ebook for those who like to learn the ins but moreover the outs of backpacking meal times...
Thanks, I have a backcountry cookbook on they way. Probably January now. I'll have a channel update as soon as I get a day that isn't windy :)
How do you judge the sufficient dehydrated weight of food per serving
Great Info. Thanks.
What am I doing wrong with my hamburger meat? When I rehydrate, I can cook it as along as I want, there are still a lot of hard pieces in it. It ruins the whole meal.
I am not sure, how are you preparing it? I recommend the boiling method that I feature in one of my videos. If you are boiling it and then dehydrating it and it is still hard to rehydrate, I would guess that you are drying it too long. Good luck.
@@KevinOutdoors Thanks for the answer. I didn't know that you could dry it to long. I looked it up, the meal was actually prepared with ground turkey. Everything was cooked together and than dried. I guesss I will try it again with less time.
Have you ever tried freezerbag cooking to rehydrate your meals? I hate having to clean my pot.
Hi Papp, yes I have but I don't like the plastic-y taste. For me cleaning the pot is a small price to pay. But everyone has different preferences. On a longer trip I also don't want to pack out a dozen or so wet plastic bags with bits of old food.
Brilliant video, do you cook mushrooms and onions before dehydrating them.
Yes I do, they can be dehydrated as is but onions will stink up the whole house if you don't saute them first. :)
How does the cost of a homemade dehydrated meal compare to the common store bought options? Great videos, by the way. Thanks for sharing with us.
Good question Matthew, I would say that these meals are just marginally more expensive than the meals you make at home. There is a big difference if meat is added but I would guess that a single meal for one is between $2-5. While the store bought options are usually more than $10, and often in the $15 range. It is all the same ingredients as home but there is the added electrical cost of dehydrating.
Can the dehydrated meals mixes in a food saver bag be stored in a bucket with an oxygenater? I lack freezer space, but love the idea of doing this for camping. (Or sending a few to my son who is in the Army. He could have some of his favorite meals rather than some of those MRE’s.)
Yes it should be no problem. I just keep them in the freeze for peace of mind. One of our freezers quit on us about a year ago and now my meals are in a tub beside our one working freezer. They all look fine and I will use them this season.
I’d love an update after you cook them.... thanks for such a quick reply...💕
Good video & info. Sub'd.
Thanks, much appreciated! More food videos in the planning. I would make one a week if I had time :)
Of the vids of yours that I've watched you present the info really well, from paddling technique (that Hoop, aka Wintertrekker, liked) to popcorn eating. Your channel is going to grow.
Thanks Rick! Glad you have sampled a number of different videos on my channel. Hoop is personal friend of mine although we haven't connected in a bit. Glad you like his channel too. I appreciate the support!
Great video Kevin!
Do you have many failures with your vacuum sealed bags? I've tried vacuum sealing, but the dried food has so many sharp corners that the bags puncture either immediately or after a few days of bouncing around in my food bag. I tried double-bagging, putting the food in a parchment envelope, nothing seems to improve the failure rate. I went back to using plain old ziploc bags.
I have had the same experience. When I first got my sealer it came with good quality bags and failures were rare. I can't find good quality vacuum bags any more. I have tried many brands and can't find good heavy thick bags. The parchment envelope helps but you are right the bags can still fail.
Sometimes you can line the bag with just some simple paper towels, even 2 layers thick if possible before vacuum sealing. I even double bag meals when it is really important for the vacuum seal to hold. The bags even from Food Saver are not that great and fail in my freezer with my frozen meat pretty often. If I take uncooked meat out with me I always double vacuum bag.
Great advice Robert. It still bugs me that I once had quality bags that rarely failed. I wish I could find good quality bags again.
@bccanoe after pressure cooking up peas or beans with ham, I'll blend it up, dehydrate it then powder the 'bark' Super easy to seal up. No bumps. Plus, rehydrating powdered bean concoctions is really fast. I hope that helps.
What's your all-time favorite outdoor meal? Do you make it any differently for conoeing compared to hiking?
Three answers for the price of one question...
1) the easiest and most reliable and usually comes on every trip: Beef and Rice (also includes spinach, onions and tomatoes)
2) my favourite most unique and very similar to non dehydrated: Soba Noodles
3) my new invention and almost favourite: Lasagne - shown in some of my trip videos but no video on that one yet. I have shot most of the cooking footage but haven't shot the dialogue yet.
And, yes. I sometimes cook very differently on a canoe trip vs a backpacking trip. Backpacking I am always looking to reduce weight. Always! On a canoe trip I am often willing to carry more. I tend to bring a few fresh items on the first few nights of a trip. Then I will rely on a combination of dehydrated meals or a partial meal that is dehydrated to go with freshly caught fish. Check out my recent Quetico series to see some meals of that flavour.
Great Videos! What do you sauté your onions in? Oil? I’m trying to figure out how to sauté vegetables without using some sort of oil or fat that will go rancid! - Thanks!!
You can use ghee aka clarified butter. Milk proteins are removed. Ghee is shelf stable indefinitely.
I do use a little oil but that isn't the safest method. I find if I keep the total fat content to less than 2% I get very good results. But, any fat can go rancid so it is a better practice to saute in a low fat stock or water.
But ghee can't get wet or it can also spoil. I would add ghee in the rehydration process and not in prep before dehydration.
I know this is an old video but maybe you will see this question.. Since you rehydrate in your pot instead of a freezer bag, how do you clean out the pot in bear country?
I try and apportion my meal so there are no left overs. When I am done the meal I wash with a small amount of hot water and a drop of biodegradable soap. I'll dump the dishwater out away from camp and then I will rinse again.
@@KevinOutdoors Thank you for the information...
With a good pot cozy, can't you use it to simmer food? It's not as fast as using fuel, of course, but a lot of foods can simmer at lower than boiling temperatures. I do this when cooking food with several pots and only one boiler anyways. Boil up the buckwheat (or what you have), set it aside and then do the main dish in my pan, and then perhaps give the pot a second heating and let it all get done before I eat. It gets to be a bit of juggling but it works.
Thanks Harald. Things don't simmer for very long in a pot cozy. They don't generate their own heat only help retain it. What I am getting at is that on a longer backpacking trip it is more important (for me anyway) to keep my pack weight down. So, I strictly only bring only one pot meals that only require re-hydrating. This saves on the amount of fuel I need to carry. On a canoe trip where I am not as concerned about weight I will bring more and heavier pots and will actually cook meals in the field rather than just re-heating them.
@Kevin Outdoors Well, I'm not an ultralight guy. Save weight, yes. Be able to enjoy myself while I'm out there? Yes why do I even go? It's not a competition of how far I can walk, at least. (Last trip, which admittedly was short, I got to test out my new axe.)
Which means I like to think and experiment in dried foods. Wok? Yes it works if you have a wood fire and plenty of fuel. Burgers? Haven't tried yet but it would be fun.
The problem with fats going rancid, by the way, depends very much on access to air. Fats react with oxygen over time to make fatty acids, and it takes very little fatty acids to destroy the taste as this is strong stuff (And butyric acid, which naturally occurs when butter reacts with oxygen, is known as the worst smelling chemical compond in existence.) But no access to air, no fatty acids. So vacuum packaging, along with cooling, should work well here.
Great comments Harald. I am not an ultralight hiker either. But reducing weight is always important to me. Thanks for the comments.
I got your book. There are very few notes on serving sizes per recipe. Very difficult when shopping/ planning. Also how much should I put in a daily serving by weight. Please advise!!
Hey thanks for picking up the book. No there are no notes on serving size per recipe although most are based on a family size meal and will feed 4-6 people depending on appetites'. Instead, there is a section on 'Meal Planning' and 'Right Sizing Meals' (p50). It explains how many calories a person might need based on activity level, age, and sex and you can figure out a good meal size that keeps you full and minimizes waste in camp. I don't expect anyone to go through all that detail so I also provide basic meal size guidance based on the dry weight of food. If you are a young (~25), large male (as I was back in the day) and you are very active on a trip your dry meal weight will likely be about 150g. Now that I am older (50) my meal size has shrunk to 125g. For my wife, a smaller older female, her meals are about 100g dry. Most people's ideal meal size will fall within the range of 100-150g (dry). I hope this helps.
@@KevinOutdoors Thank you Kevin!! I really like the meals in your book! Your explaination really helps! So if you are making a 150g meal, for example the beef stroganoff. How much of the 150 would be the meat(protien)? We are planning 2 weeks in Quetico and 2 in BWCA. Almost back to back. A few days in between. Thank you again for the quick response!
@@sugarhollowhoney For any meal I would follow the amounts in the recipe but if you are going by proportions, I normally add 1/3 meat by weight.
I never thought of adding a dessicant packet. Do you make or buy?
You can re-use them as Harald suggests or you can buy them in bulk on Amazon. On a shorter trip (
Absolutely makes sense!
Some people use oxygen sequestering packets. They consist of iron pellets that rust and in the process use up water and oxygen.
What size pot do you rehydrate in? I have a 750 ml cook pot. The one you use looks bigger.
Yes, I often use 1L or 1.3L pots. Most ultra-lighters use smaller pots. I like to have room to stir my meals without spilling them.
@@KevinOutdoors Thanks
Is it an issue to add salt in the meal before dehydrating?
No not really. I add considerable salt when I make jerky, it helps pull out the moisture.
Can you over dehydrate food? Add the same amount of water that you remove I would think?? Weigh it before you dehydrate and after. YES?NO ?
Good question, not really. The goal is to remove as much moisture as possible and when the water is all gone the food will stop dehydrating. You can dry food too fast though, and develop something called case hardening. If you dry food too fast the outside will dry and harden and will then restrict the inside from drying properly. I think that is what happens when people say they have 'over dehydrated' something.
@@KevinOutdoors Thanks Kevin.
If I had to guess : lighter, lasts longer , doesn't smell aka doesn't attract predators?
Yes I would say all of that is true.
Ok, so the fat thing again. If your going to dry and put in the freezer, you must be able to keep it good for a month or so, and would keep for a few days on the trail easily, right? Like if I was prepping for a trip in particular, or if it was vacuum sealed there should be no problem with it going rancid, right? Like this taking out all the fat must be for long term storage.
Jim, I think it all depends on what you are making. When I make jerky I cut away as much fat as I can but there is always some left behind. My jerky keeps well and for a long time in a ziploc bag. I don't usually make meals for specific trips so I don't concern myself making meals of different preservation quality for different trip lengths. I just make a big batch of whatever and store my meals in the freezer. When I go on a trip I just pull out what I need. So I don't prepare meals differently for short vs long trips. I just try and make meals that will last a long time. If I am going on a short trip I might simply bring fresh produce.
Kevin Outdoors Yes I understand, but I was asking your opinion on if I was to make a meal like that, with fat included, do you think after say 1 month in the freezer, and a few days in the canoe, do you think it would be ok?
Thanks for the clarification. Sorry I am cautious giving advice about how long people's food will last. The freezer time is irrelevant. Overnight in the freezer or 4 months are essentially the same thing. I would not store a thawed dehydrated fatty meal for any longer than I would leave it on my kitchen counter, half a day max? I have had comments from folks who dehydrated canned stews and other fatty meals and they spoiled very quickly.
Kevin Outdoors Really? That's quite interesting. Thanks.
Can you recommend/ vouch for an affordable dehydrator? What dehydrators do you use?
I use a Nesco dehydrator. In my opinion it is the best value. There are cheaper models on the market but they lack some important features. There should be a link to my dehydrator in the description. There are also many more expensive models out there but the Nesco is just as good or almost just as good.
Kevin Outdoors thanks for the reply! I saw some worrying reviews on Amazon for Nesco, but it’s good to hear your experience has been positive. Digging your channel man 👍🏼
@@Beastman59 No problem. I have owned three of them. The first one was simple but lasted for years before eventually burning out. The other two are going strong. Try to get one with a thermostat and make sure you get extra fruit roll trays if you are going to be making 'wet meals' like stews.
Kevin Outdoors thanks for the tips dude, are the fruit roll trays the ones you put your beans, tomato’s and corn mix on for that noodle dish? Ive been making ramen with a variety of ingredients for backpacking, even better if I catch a fish or find some wild onion to put in. I want to step up my food game for my trip next month, your method will be a game changer. Gonna pick up a dehydrator now.
Good luck Ben, I haven't had any complaints yet! (fingers crossed). Yes I almost always use 'fruit roll trays' I believe that is what Nesco still calls them. I think other manufacturers call them 'drying sheets'. Just make sure the ones you get are the right size for the dehydrator. They add a bit to the price but like I said I almost always use them. If you intend to do this for a long time then they are a great investment.
i have tried dehydrated foods and the consistency is not good at all, i prefer freeze dried, taste and consistency is 100% better
Freeze dried is generally better but a lot pricier. Some really good meals can be made with 100% home dehydrated food.
I got a dumb question (lol) but can u dehydrate a whopper
Ha, no.
Are you one of those frog followers?
No, I don't thinks so.
Fat is tasty😛
it is!