Home Freeze Dryer

Wondering who here has a freeze dryer.  We purchased one from Harvest Right last year.  Love it!  Such a good way to long term store garden produce, leftovers and travel/camping meals.  We have done so many things from meat to candy and everything in-between .  Candy is a fun sidebar.  I love knowing that we have a stash for when SHTF.  Anyone else here have a freeze dryer?  I wasn't sure how to search it so apologies for any duplication.

Michele

Michele said, "Such a good way to long term store garden produce, leftovers and travel/camping meals.

I have read a lot about the Harvest Right and I would love to have one though I just can't justify that expense.

I never consider freeze-drying leftovers and travel/camping meals.  That is a great idea.

For others that might be considering getting one, here are some other threads that might be interesting:

https://permies.com/t/133049/kitchen/Harvest-Freeze-Dryer

https://permies.com/t/153625/kitchen/Harvest-freeze-dryer

https://permies.com/t/161946/kitchen/harvest-freeze-drying

We recently bought one.

We bought it to help us process excess home produced foods. Some of this will be for us and some as gifts.  Our little homestead is now old enough for our permaculture system to really start to produce. We are finding that something produces a huge bumper crop and we make sure to make the most of it.  This has resulted in more of a something than we can give away but not consistent  enough production to run a business on. s I find ways to preserve it instead.  Sometimes I make far more than we can consume of give away like the 10 gallons of sweet relish or 4 gallons of hot sauce.  So I will freeze dry what we can't eat or gift in a year.  

I am just starting to use it.  I am currently working on excess fruits and veggies in my freezer.  Next I will dig into the home canned goods that we are not eating fast enough.  Long term I want to batch cook meals and preserve them.  I love the idea of easy meals for when I am not feeling well.  

Shipping freeze dried food is easier than shipping glass jars of wet food to loved ones across the country.  
While we don't need the freeze dryer to keep my household fed we do worry about some of our chronically ill family members.  Also my health will continue to decline so I love the idea of easy to prepare home cooked meals on hand for my bad symptom days.