How to make freeze dried dog treats, and the raw meat question
Single ingredient treats are simple to make and keep for a long time. The part most guides skip: freeze drying does not kill pathogens in raw meat.
Category Freeze Dryers
Home freeze drying, honestly costed.
How to freeze dry candy: what works and what comes out chewy
Sweets with air or water in them puff. Hard sugar and anything mostly fat does not. A chewy batch almost always means the cycle stopped too soon.
How to freeze dry eggs, milk and cheese at home
Eggs and milk work well. Cheese depends on the fat content, and butter does not work at all. Fat is the variable that decides almost everything here.
Oil or oil-free freeze dryer pump: the five year cost compared
An oil pump is cheaper to buy and needs oil changes. An oil-free pump costs several hundred more and asks nothing of you. Over five years the totals are closer than either sales pitch suggests.
Freeze dryer will not pull vacuum: what to check, in order
Nine times out of ten it is the drain valve, the door gasket or tired pump oil. Work through them in that order before you suspect the pump.
Where should you put a freeze dryer?
A utility room is the usual answer. The machine needs a room that stays roughly between 10 and 25 C, air around it, a socket of its own and a floor that will not carry vibration into the bedroom.
How loud is a freeze dryer?
Loud enough that nobody puts one in a bedroom. Two things make the noise, the vacuum pump and the compressor, and they run for most of a day and a half.
What size freeze dryer do I need? Capacity by household
Size the machine to what you would realistically process in a week, then check the pump, the tray area and the noise. Those four decide how much you use it.
How much electricity does a freeze dryer use per batch?
About 7 to 11 kWh per batch on a medium home unit, or roughly 0.9 to 1.6 kWh for every hour it runs.
How much does a freeze dryer cost to buy and run?
Small units start near €1,600, medium ones run €2,200 to €3,000, and large ones pass €4,000. Then add a pump, bags, absorbers and the electricity.