Richard Stromberg

Wow I just read the original post...my typos are epic. As no one fried the floor... as for the milk paint recipe I have no idea. I was stripping the paint off not painting them.

I once had a lover that called me her beautiful monster.

[quote=Jim Guinn]There is no time like the present! I pulled the trigger and ordered a Medium HarvestRight Freeze Dryer this morning with the Premier Pump. https://harvestright.com/product/home-freeze-dryer/
[/quote]c.f. opp I would strongly suggest calling and upgrading to a large!!! Ibhad a medium and sold it at a loss to upgrade to the large and do not regret that for a second! Also I ordered mine with a standard pump and will soon be upgrading to a oiless pump this was done so that I would have a BACKUP pump.if you didnt order a second set of trays I would recommend that becuse if you prefreze the trays it cuts about 10+ hours off the time the frezedryer is working and this increases productivity by a load and a half a week... Don't get the silicone mats. They are not any easyer to clean than the trays and decrease the heat transfer from the rack to the food. I had them with the medium and did not order with the large. When I do want a liner I use parchment paper. If you get a large roll of parchment paper and cut the roll in half it fits the trayswithout all the waste. The large dryer has 5 trays instead ot 4 and they are aproxamently 30% larger each...the large DOS not use much more power than the medium...as the pumps are exactly the same for both machines. Good luck! Facebook has many freze Drying groups for getting recipes and advice.

D Nikolls wrote:Interesting..

That money would buy 2 huge chest freezers, a bunch of canning jars, build an enormous dehydrator, and leave some to start a root cellar..

Very different end results I would expect; Richard, can you comment on the food quality vs frozen, canned, and dehydrated foods, rather than commercially freeze-dried?

freezers break down... Power goes out.... And food last only a few years AT BESTbefore going stale.glass jars last century...but the lids are only rated for 18months. And there is the issue of botulism. Dehydrated food is aproxamently 50% as nutritious as fresh while frezedried claimed well over 90%. As for the root caller I highly recommend building one. This is the BEST tool for LONG TERM storage. Other thing would work for storage of less than 2 years. We can a lot... I make jerky. Being diversified is a huge advantage in a bad situation.

Mathew Trotter wrote:Damn. I've kinda wanted one for a while to supplement my other food preservation, but $75 a month is steep. The only reason we have grid power is because our solar setup isn't enough to run the well pump. We had to disconnect the solar this past month and our electric skyrocketed to $280.

We'll be upgrading the solar when we build the house. If we can produce enough to power one of these things, then maybe I can justify it. But if I'm producing a surplus every year, I also don't know that I really need to be able to store food for 20 years...

if you price the frezedried food that is comercialy available and then look at the ration size and then conpare that to the benifits of putting your own garden back and any lean meat that you want ant herbs that stay fresh for years... Then price each meal at $8-$10 pre serving for a 4-6 oz serving.... Then the $2-3 per FULL meal packaged that will keep MORE than 20 years... It is a no brainer. If you have access to power. And can get the frezedryer it will quickly pay for its self.think about having a magical deep freze that keeps a a month of meals for 20 yearsfor the one time expense then it is cheep insurance against bad times.

R Scott wrote:I always daydream about one, but recently my wife saw one on a channel about herbs that she follows and now she REALLY wants one.

It would be off grid, so I would probably have to run it from a generator much of the time.  Good thing inverter generators are quiet and efficient.  But it would be worth it for what she wants to do.

it takes 24-48 hours for a batch.... If I wanted to run one off grid I would only try if I had micro-hydro that was epic in size.