What I presume was happening was that condensation was building up on the cooling coils between the insulation and the chamber and freezing. When I finally turned the FDer off it took 3 days for the ice buildup to melt and slowly soak through the insulation and drip onto the counter.
Congratulations! You are now the owner of a new freeze-dryer; or you are ready to make the purchase! While the freeze dryer itself is a major investment in food preservation equipment, you will want to make certain you are prepared with a few other items
I do the same with mango, using freeze dried mango that is imported from Germany. Whole freeze dried strawberries enrobed in white chocolate are amazing, like strawberry malted milk balls with that great crunch in the middle.
You cannot run a good commercial kitchen without plenty of food. Commercial walk-in coolers are needed for keeping a lot of food chilled. If you’re running a very large scale operation, then a standard-sized refrigerator will not be enough.
Monitoring the FDer internal temps and once I see -40F I start the dry cycle, except for high sugar content food which I give an Em excesso hour. I'm still experimenting with Ice cream and a few fruits to determine optimal freeze time to get the best results. The cooling cycle ends up much shorter.
To protect packaged foods and organic compounds against spoiling, mold growth, color change, and loss of nutrition, use oxygen absorbers to get the residual oxygen inside the packaging to below 0.
Easy preparation. Food is prepared for freeze-drying the same way food is prepared for regular freezing. After rinsing and removing blemishes, blanch most vegetables; pretreat fruits if necessary to prevent browning; meats can be freeze-dried cooked or raw; casseroles are typically assembled from already cooked foods.
A bit of background on me - I used to work in a sold state fabrication lab (university research lab) and had a lot of hands-on work with ultra-high vacuum equipment. The pumping we do for freeze drying was what was required to just start
The shelf life of canned and dehydrated food is approximately two to three years, while freeze dried food easily lasts eight to ten times as long.
I thought an easier way to see what was happening would be to make a time lapse video of an entire freeze drying cycle. As I was about to prepare some apples for freeze drying yesterday, I thought it would be a good time to do that -- so out came the GoPro.
My husband has been contemplating cost effective alternative ways to get oil-less vacuum happening... what would the specs needed be, since I don't have a pump to look at. Hopefully I asked that in a way that makes sense.
5 Posted September 16, 2015 Thanks dsheidt. I was afraid that the AN8 fittings I could find might not be long enough to provide the space needed so that the oil could flow over the top of the filter, especially given my "disk" method of holding up the can.
In that case, think about buying online – it’s easier than buying in person. If you insist on buying in person, get all the information about the warranty before paying for anything.
A couple of other points: There are obvious and easy improvements that could be made, such as using a container with a dispensing faucet (think of a lemonade jar, for example). Also, for the technically savvy, auto-mechanic-type person who may be wondering about it, there is an anti-backflow seal that has to be removed from the oil filter, but that can be removed by cutting through it and pulling it out with needle Shop Now nose pliers, which is easily done.