Preserving Food for the Long Haul

With the gardens being put to bed, the days getting shorter and the temperatures getting colder, I’ve been turning more of my attention indoors.

It is time for me to fire up the freeze dryer again. 🙂

We acquired this machine last year when we needed to free up a bunch of space in our chest freezers to make room for the next batch of cows we were having processed.

And I must say, I have found that purchase to be one of our best investments ever made.

Freeze Drying Meat

With the help of a friend, we used my Instant Pot & Harvest Right Freeze Dryer to cook up & preserve a whole bunch of beef & poultry in a variety of different ways last fall.

I never really used my Instant Pot before, except to make yogurt from time to time, but we put it to regular use for this purpose, and it made it so easy to cook without a stove at hand.

It was really easy.

We simply cooked the meat in the Instant Pot (seasoned & unseasoned), sopped up any excess grease, laid the meat out on the freeze drying trays & stacked the trays in the deep freezer to pre-freeze overnight. (This is not required, but it cuts back on the time used in the freeze dryer.)

And then I stuck the trays in the freeze dryer to process for roughly 24 hours. When the process was done, I transferred the dried contents into clean jars and closed them up with an oxygen absorber in each.

It was wonderful to move all that meat out of the freezer and into shelf stable mason jars (and even some mylar bags). This product stores well (in a dark, cool place) for a very long time.

When it comes time to using the freeze-dried meat, we can either eat it in its dried state as a snack like we would beef jerky (only it’s crunchier than jerky), or we can rehydrate it in hot water, and it tastes as if it was freshly cooked.

Food Production & Preservation Routine

Over the winter months I developed a regular food production & preservation routine, adding the production of bone broth & yogurt in the Instant Pot each week.

While I typically only froze the bone broth into cup-sized cubes for later use, I did freeze-dry some of the yogurt into powder and teddy bear-shaped snacks. (The yogurt was made from raw whole cow’s milk. Yumm!)

Then, as spring came around, and our hens started laying more than we could possibly consume, I started freeze drying the excess eggs (in a raw & scrambled state). And, oh my, what a treasure.

The eggs are now shelf-stable for decades. And they are super-easy to reconstitute: 2 Tbsp freeze-dried eggs plus 2 Tbsp water yields one raw egg.

I’ve tried water-glassing eggs in the past, and I much prefer this preservation method now.

Then, as our garden greens became plentiful, I began to add herbs, kale & spinach to my freeze-drying routine, and I found it to be amazingly easy — I wish I had done more.

While I think the meat, dairy and eggs are a higher value product, it sure is nice to have “fresh” greens on hand year-round.

Besides, freeze drying fresh herbs & greens like this is a much more nutritious (& colorful!) method of preservation than freezing, drying or dehydrating.

See a sampling of the finished products below:

I took a break from using the freeze dryer over the summer, but now that it’s fall, I’m looking forward to getting back into that food production & preservation routine.

Could Freeze Drying Work For You?

There are different reasons people choose to preserve food with a home freeze dryer. Mine was to have an alternate way of preserving our own meat, in particular. Preserving our own eggs like I did was certainly a bonus.

While I have no intention of selling any of the freeze dried foods I produce, except maybe pet food at some point, I can see how having a machine like this presents an opportunity to bring value to the local community.

In my opinion, I think anyone who produces their own food, be it meat, dairy, eggs, herbs, fruits or vegetables, particularly if done so either regularly or abundantly, should seriously consider getting a home freeze dryer.

I’m happy I did. 🙂

[PLEASE NOTE: The above links are affiliate links, which means as an Amazon Associate and Harvest Right Affiliate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.]