Beginner’s Guide to Freeze Drying

Looking to know more about the Harvest Right freeze dryer? This home freeze-drying machine makes it easy to create freeze dried food at home! Here is my personal review of the Harvest Right freeze dryer after FIVE YEARS of using it non-stop!

After many years of waiting, dreaming, and drooling, I finally purchased my own Harvest Right home freeze dryer. I had originally shared my review after a few months of using the home freeze drying machine.

However, after 5 years of using it for a ton of different foods, I wanted to update my review of this freeze dry machine for all who are interested in buying their own freeze dryer for home use!

✅ This is the best home freeze dryer on the market! And it’s on sale! 

The Harvest Right Home Freeze Dryer

If you’re new to freeze drying in general, here’s a quick overview of how they work and how the process of using one goes.

First, freeze-dryers use extremely cold temperatures (-40° F) and a vacuum to remove 99% of the moisture from a given food. This works because it allows the ice to change directly from a solid into a vapor without passing through the liquid phase.

In turn, the food them becomes shelf-stable for about 20-25 years with proper storage. Until recently, this process of freeze drying was only available to large corporations and operations. Then along came the Harvest Right home freeze dryer!

Overview of the Freeze Drying Process

What does it look like to actually use a freeze dryer? Here are the general steps!

1. Prep – Add your food to the provided trays and place the trays into freeze drying unit.
2. Freeze – Hit the START button and the unit drops the temperature to -50°F to thoroughly freeze the food.
3. Vacuum – Once the right temperature has been achieved, the attached vacuum pump automatically kicks on and starts to pull the water out of the food (via lyophilization).
4. Finalize – The humidity monitor checks the level of water still in the food and shuts down automatically when the food is fully freeze dried.

If that sounds easy to you, well you’re right! It’s super easy!

Which Freeze Dryer We Purchased & Would We Do It Again?

Many people have asked which Harvest Right freeze dryer we purchased and if we would stick to that size. So let’s look at those two questions quickly before moving on.

• What Size Freeze Dryer Do We Have – We purchased the medium freeze dryer unit with the premier pump (oil) and have found it to be a bit too small for our use. With a garden and 2 families using the unit, plus each cycle taking up to 48 hours, I wish we either had a second one or the large size! As for the pump, I don’t mind filtering the oil – however, I do plan on upgrading to the oil-free pump eventually.
  
  My advice is to go with a size larger than you think you need, and if it’s between being able to get the larger size and purchasing the oil-free pump – go with the larger size!
• Would We Do it Again – Without a single hesitation. Not only has the freeze dryer been a great source of fun (freeze dried gummy bears or cookie dough anyone??), but it’s also been a perfect companion to my canning and dehydrating efforts. While you can dehydrate and can many foods, there are some that do not do well under those conditions. And many of them are perfect for freeze drying (such as raw meat, milk, leftovers, and more). I’ll talk more about that later, but the bottom line is, yes, we have zero regrets about our freeze dryer!

Best Tips for Freeze Drying Food at Home

For the most part, the Harvest Right freeze dryer will work without much help from you. But there are a few tricks that will help make it run more efficiently.

• Don’t Over Fill – If you’re used to dehydrating, you might also be used to really packing the unit full of food. With a freeze dyer, it’s best to not over fill the machine, as ice buildup inside the machine (from the water being removed from the food) can become too much and cause the food to not fully dry. Filling the trays fully can be done with fruits, vegetables, and candy, but foods with a higher water content like milk, yogurt, mashed potatoes and so on must be added in a thinner layer.
• Pre Freeze – For those higher water content foods, pre-freezing them can help the freeze dryer work more efficiently too. It won’t have to work as hard to freeze the food, and the cycle will finish much faster!
• Clean the Oil – While many people say you can go 25 cycles without cleaning your oil, the machine will run better if you clean it at least ever 5th cycle. It can be a pain to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really not too bad and will help the machine last longer and work better if you do.

If you follow me on Facebook, you’ve seen the many videos I’ve done since getting my own freeze dryer. There are many items, both whole foods and prepared items (casseroles, desserts, and more) that I have freeze dried live on my Facebook page!

Here are a few of the items I’ve freeze dried so far!

Home freeze dried raw milk, bananas, strawberries, peaches, apples, avocados, gummy bears, cheese, and chocolate chip cookie dough. They are all stored in clean, air tight mason jars with a silica pack to ensure the humidity from the air doesn’t lessen the lasting power of the freeze dried food.

How to Freeze Dry Food {VIDEO}

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR OWN FREEZE DRYER!

Is Buying a Home Freeze Dryer Worth the Money?

For 5 years the cost of the Harvest Right freeze dryers stopped me from making a purchase. I knew that I wanted one, but I couldn’t seem to justify the cost.

While many freeze drying enthusiasts use store bought freeze dried food to show savings, my family (and most families, I would say) doesn’t use freeze dried foods on a regular basis. So for me, those comparisons fell flat.

Sure, if we were doing a lot of survival prepping (we prep plenty, but not with store bought dried food), or hiking and camping, then it would make sense.

But what I really wanted to know was would a freeze dryer provide a savings for my regular food budget?

Turns out, yes! Owning a home freeze dryer saved me thousands of dollars in the first year, and I know it will continue to do so for years to come!

Real World Savings Examples:

We buy food in bulk when we can, but there are many items that have to be purchased on a weekly or monthly basis due to their shelf life and preservation method options.

Apples

• Consumption Rate – We eat about 5 pounds of apples each week. I know this. And while I could can them, I would have to use sugar to do so, and that kind of defeats the purpose of eating an apple! So we buy apples each week, or every few weeks, depending on the season and how fresh they are.
• Seasonal Pricing – Some weeks apples are $1.79 per pound, and some weeks they are $3.49 a pound. That’s a big difference!
• Freeze Drying – With the freeze dryer, I am able to buy apples in bulk at the lowest price and freeze dry them for a healthy, no sugar snack later on.
• Savings – Yearly savings on apples alone is $440 if I buy them in bulk at the lowest price.

Bananas and Strawberries

Add to our 5 pounds of apples another 2 pounds of bananas and 1 pound of strawberries a week and we spend a lot on fruit each week! Here is how we save money on those items as well.

• Savings on Bananas – Bananas at their lowest are $0.42/lb and $0.72/lb at their peak. Purchased at the lowest price and freeze dried, I will save $31.20. Plus, I’ll never worry about my bananas going bad again!
• Savings on Strawberries – Strawberries are cheap during the spring and early summer at $2.50 a pound, but reach $5.00 a pound during the off season months. Purchased at the lowest price and freeze dried, I will save $130.00 on strawberries!

Raw Milk

My family can’t consume processed dairy, and the closest raw dairy is a 4 hour round trip from my house.

Normally, we travel once a month to get 5 gallons of dairy, keep one in the fridge, freeze the rest, and thaw a gallon as needed. It’s a pain to say the least.

• Additional Costs – Add to that the cost of having to drive to the dairy each month ($25 in gas + lunch = $45), plus the space cost that milk consumes in my freezer, and it really starts to add up!
• Yearly Batches – Now, I can get all my milk in 2 yearly batches, freeze dry it all for powdered milk, which takes up a fraction of the space, is shelf stable, AND saves me all that time and money I was spending going to the dairy every month!
• Freeze Dried Savings – That’s another $450 saved!

In one year we’ve saved over $1,000 on just 4 items!

Not only is the freeze dryer already saving us a ton of money, but it’s saving us a lot of time as well (4 hours a month saved on one item!)

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR OWN FREEZE DRYER!

Is a Freeze Dryer Worth it if I Grow My Own Food?

Yes!!! Here’s how I’m using my freeze dryer to preserve my garden fresh produce.

• Pumpkin Pie Filling – While I do a lot of canning, there are some items that I don’t can under the current safe canning practices; for example pumpkin pie filling. Normally, pumpkin pie filling can only be frozen for use later on. The problem with that is that I only have so much freezer space! So I have been freeze drying all my pumpkin pie filling!

I take all the fresh pumpkins from my garden (usually around 75+), cook and puree the pumpkin, then fully make the filling (with eggs, sugar, spices, and everything)… then freeze dry it!

Once it’s fully freeze dried, that pumpkin pie filling is shelf stable, and only requires water to be ready to pour into a pie shell and bake!

Other garden fresh produce that isn’t really suitable for canning can also be freeze dried, such as

• fresh carrot sticks for crunchy snacking (instead of canning them for soups or roasts)
• squash and zucchini flour for baking
• butternut squash
• avocadoes
• berries preserved without sugar
• watermelon
• cantaloupe
• herbs
• onions, and more.

For me, being able to add an additional preservation above and beyond canning, freezing, and dehydrating is a must have on our homestead.

Being able to preserve fresh milk and other dairy products, fresh meat (raw and cooked), as well as fruits and vegetables that don’t can well, frees up my freezer space and allows me to fully utilize my entire harvest!

We also take our fresh eggs that can’t be water glassed, or water glassed eggs that are at the year mark on the shelf make freeze dried eggs for extended life!

I like have shelf stable food products over constantly relying on a freezer to stay functional!

Is Freeze Drying Better than Canning or Dehydrating?

I know there is a lot of talk about freeze dryers being the end all be all of food preservation, and I agree that the shelf life of freeze dried food is far greater than that of canning or dehydrating.

However, I think each one has its place in your home!

• Canning – Canning allows us to create delicious jams, jellies, and pie filling. As well as pour and heat soup and stews (among other things).
• Dehydrating – Dehydrating allows us to make fruit leather, raw crackers, sprouts, and more.
• Freeze Drying – And freeze drying allows us to preserve left-overs, dairy products, raw and cooked meats in their original form, fresh veggies and fruits, and more!

Like I said, I think they all have their place and I plan on using each for the foreseeable future!

Canning versus Freeze Drying:

While both options are great for different things, let’s look at some of the big differences between these two food preservation methods.

• Shelf-Life – Canned goods usually last for 2-5 years, while freeze drying lasts for up to 25 years with proper storage methods.
• Texture – Canning cooks the food and changes the texture. Freeze drying (for the most part) keeps the original food texture in place when either eaten from a freeze dried state, or when rehydrated (depending on the food).

Dehydrating versus Freeze Drying:

Just as canning has its place, so does dehydrating. I much prefer dehydrated raisins over freeze-dried grapes! But let’s looks at the differences again.

• Water Removal – Dehydrating uses heat to remove the water from your food. This causes a change in texture and color, and it only removes “most” of the water.
• Shape and Shelf-Life – Freeze drying however, maintains the shape, color, and texture of the food (with the exception of gummy bears and the like), and removes 99.7% of the water! This level of “dry” means that bacteria growth is prohibited for much longer than with dehydrating!

Watch me Rehydrate a bunch of freeze dried foods!

Common Questions

Ready to learn more about the specifics of this Harvest Right home freeze dryer? Have questions about the operations of this home freeze drying unit? You’re not alone!

After 5 years of using and talking about our freeze dryer, here are the most common questions and comments that I’ve gotten about the process.

Is it hard to set up the unit?

Not at all! It was ready to use in about 15 minutes of set up. Super easy!

How large is the freeze dryer?

Currently, there are four different unit sizes, I have the medium unit which measures 30” tall, 20” wide, and 25” deep.

Does it have any additional parts?

Yes, the freeze dryer main unit hooks up to a vacuum pump that sits to the right, and has a drain hose that routes off the left/bottom. This is included in your purchase. You may choose to purchase a different pump style later on, we never have, but you might!

How much does it weigh?

Over 100 pounds. Oomph! I would highly recommend knowing where you want it so that it can be placed as soon as it is delivered! You’re not going to want to move this around all the time.

Does it have a warranty?

Yes, it comes with a 1-year Limited Warranty. We haven’t had any issues, even 5 years later, but it’s good to know if there is an issue Harvest Right will help with it!

How much does the Harvest Right freeze dryer cost?

These home freeze dryers range in price from $2,295 to $4,995, depending on size and exterior finish. You can also put your desired unit on layaway for just $250 and 0% interest! Find out more about how the Harvest Right layaway program works! (click “Layaway” in the menu at the very bottom of the page)

What are the power requirements?

This freeze drying unit uses a standard 110 volt. You’ll want to avoid having your freeze dryer on the same circuit as other heavy load appliances, as this may trip the breaker!

Can I run this freeze dryer if I’m off grid?

I believe you can and here is why!

This unit runs as follows:
– Freeze cycle: 320 Watts or 0.320 Kilowatts 9 hour freeze cycle @ 320 watts
– Dry Cycle: 850 Watts or 0.850 Kilowatts 15 hour dry cycle @ 850 watts
– Defrost Cycle**: 800 Watts or 0.800 Kilowatt 2 hour defrost cycle@ 800 watts

Which means that if you’re using solar power, you would just need to time the cycles right so that you would be starting the 320-watt low power freeze cycle at night on full batteries. That would then allow the heavier cycles to run during peak sun hours the next day.

**The defrost cycle is optional, and I never run it. Instead, I just wait for the ice to melt and it’s usually done in a few hours on its own. This would likely be if you were running the unit in colder temperatures, but we are at about 75ish inside all year.

How much food can you freeze dry at a time?

The medium unit (seen in my videos) can hold 6-10 pounds of food at one time. For storing, the dried food then becomes about 4 quarts in volume, or 1.5 to 2 #10 cans.

Can you freeze dry more than that?

No. The reason is that during the freeze drying process, ice builds up on the walls of the freeze drying chamber. Attempting to freeze dry more than 10 pounds of food will result in the ice build up getting too thick for the unit to work properly.

How do you know when the food is finished?

The freeze dryer unit has a digital panel that will tell you what phase the process is in at any time, it will also tell you when the final dry time (7 hours) has started and includes a countdown which you can see below! Once the final dry time has finished, you will hear an alert beep to let you know the food is finished! Easy!

What types of food can be freeze dried?

Almost anything can be freeze dried! Including: fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products, full meals, desserts, bone broth, and more. Freeze drying, unlike canning, is safe for pasta and grain based dishes as well!

Is there anything you can’t freeze dry?

Generally items that are mostly sugar or fat cannot be freeze dried. Sliced fruit and most desserts are just fine, however, you can’t freeze dry things like honey, solid chocolate, or jams/jellies.

And you can freeze dry items like bone broth, milk, cheese, and cream cheese (which all contain fat), but items such as butter that are PURE fat cannot be freeze dried.

Can you mix foods, or can you only freeze dry one thing at a time?

Yes, but I would group like items on the same tray. Keep fruits together on a tray, veggies on another, meat on still another… and so on. I’ve also found that placing stronger flavored items on the upper shelves and milder items on the lower shelves helps keep flavors from mixing.

How should I store my freeze dried food?

IMPORTANT: As SOON as the freeze dry cycle is complete, check to make sure that the food is completely dry (if not add more time as shown in the manual), package the food in containers that are moisture and oxygen proof.

This would include mylar bags, mason jars, and tin cans. A silica packet (moisture absorbing packet) is “recommended”, but I would say it should be required! Here are the silica packets we use!

Tips for Where to Keep/Run Your Freeze Dryer

While the recommended temperature range for operation is 35-90° F, the most efficient temperature range is between 50-75° degrees F.

We keep ours in the kitchen, but the laundry room would also work. However, I would recommend against keeping the unit on a porch or in a garage.

The reason for this being that as the temperature rises where your freeze dryer operates, so does the amount of time it takes to finish each batch of food. This happens because in hotter operating temperatures it becomes more difficult to reach the extreme cold required for freeze drying.

Likewise, where you want to avoid extreme heat, you want to avoid extreme cold! Don’t operate the unit below freezing as this may cause the water within and below the compressor to freeze and destroy your freeze-drying compressor.

What About the CONS of Owning A Freeze Dryer?

I have to say, the cons for owning your own freeze dryer are pretty slim for me, but here they are!

1. It has a kind of grating (but not loud) noise during the drying phases. This is really only an issue if you are keeping the unit in your kitchen, like I am.
2. You have to change the oil frequently. In order to keep the unit running well, you have to filter the oil and add it back to the unit after 5-10 runs. The process is simple, but necessary! It only takes about 15 minutes total, and most of that time is hands off. I skipped this once and it drastically increased my dry time!
3. It’s heavy? I guess this could be a con… but we don’t plan on moving it, so it’s not that big of a deal. However, I wanted to include it!

Like I said, my personal opinion is that none of that is worth missing out on the joys and benefits of having a freeze dryer of you very own! I hope you agree!

What if I have additional questions?

You can call Harvest Right directly! They have an amazing Customer Service team and are always happy to help.

I had a question about my unit, even after reading the entire manual. But I was so excited to get started that I didn’t want to page through the internet for the answer. So, I called them up, was connected to a rep in about 15 seconds, and had an answer within another 30 seconds!

Fabulous support and they can help you with questions, as well as getting any replacement parts you might need. They also offer a no interest layaway plan and a no-hassle return policy… though I can guarantee you’re not going to want to send it back!

CLICK HERE TO ORDER YOUR OWN FREEZE DRYER!

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