What is the worst tasting thing after you freeze dried?
For me, it's potatoes, but that could also be partially because I got sick after eating them and sometimes when you eat something when you're coming down with something that makes you sick, you lose the taste for it even if it isn't related.
Potatoes take on a very different taste and texture. I tried re-hydrating them, which usually takes much less water than you'd think, and then frying them. They soaked up an unbelievable amount of oil and while they did brown up it was more like burning than browning and didn't have that fried potato taste.
We've predominantly used it to preserve produce, mostly from the garden. One of the first things we tried was cabbage, which worked out OK. I made fried cabbage with it and it tasted about 75% as good as fresh cabbage, but definitely had a slightly different flavor and lost some of the crunch.
Freeze drying works for a lot of vegetables, and it's been my experience that you get better results if you blanch them in hot water first. Green beans being a prime example where otherwise they're tough, almost like leather, even if you cook them extensively. Putting them in something in a crock pot to slow cook works pretty well, though, except for the potatoes which either didn't hydrate properly and were solid in the center or turned to mush and acted like a thickener.
Most fruits work pretty well too. Unlike dehydrating, they tend to swell up and get a cotton candy like texture. Apples and pears are delicious. Bananas are popular, but my wife who likes them dehydrated didn't like them freeze dried, though a friend of ours loves them that way.
Other vegetables, like onions, peppers, etc come out fine and work well to be added to any sort of dish. The onions especially may give more of the flavor rather than being like pieces of onion.
Several factors will influence how long something takes to freeze dry, including the ambient temperature, whether your starting with something at room temperature or frozen, moisture content etc. You will want to time the drying process so that it finishes at a time you can remove it. You can't really over dry it, but you don't want the cycle to finish at 3am so you may need to add time once it gets close to finishing.
I would recommend the oil free pump. A friend of ours also has a freeze dryer and when they ordered theirs the oil free pumps were back ordered and Harvest Right sent them an oil one for free ($$) while they waited on the oil free pump. He said it was a real pain to strain the oil after every batch.
The appliance is pretty loud, and we keep ours in the garage. As I said, ambient temperature plays a roll and it was adding several extra hours until we put a window AC unit in the garage which made a real difference.
survivalblog.com
