freeze dried

We're working on our second round of freeze dried ground chuck. This time we had 13lbs of 13% from Costco, and it only filled 4 trays on the large freeze dryer. Next time, we'll buy a full 20lbs at once, brown it, and see if that fills all 5 trays. The 4 trays weren't even all the way full...

Freeze Dried cookies are a no go for storage. We've all ate hard cookies, that's what Freeze dried cooking taste like. Wasn't a fan. Look nice, but doubt they'll keep long-term and wouldn't really be appealing short-term since cookies don't have a lot of moisture to begin with.

Tart cherries taste amazing freeze dried. These are about 75% done so far @145° setting. Would have to run a full load to figure out how long a batch takes, but it appears to be north of 40 hours from what I can tell.

Bakery is amazing freeze dried. Some things do better than others. Long-term testing will need to be done. Here's some short-term retail packaging for samples. @Jared makes the best breads and bakery. This was a fun experiment in what sweets we can use for survival buckets.

Wild blueberries did well in the freezer dryer. Didn't need to poke holes in them and they got 100% dry. Great for baking. Pre frozen, they took about 30ish hours. Used 145° dry heat setting.