While the initial cost might seem steep, keep in mind the long-term savings and the value of preserved food. It’s an investment in self-sufficiency and food storage security. You can read my full cost analysis of the Harvest Right freeze dryer here.

Instead of buying expensive commercial freeze-dried meals which often contain ingredients we prefer not to eat, we use our freeze dryer to prep our own meals and meal ingredients.

Using the S-blade attachment makes short work of chili peppers and turmeric, while the dicing function has been a life-saver when chopping huge batches of onion, carrot and celery to make mirepoix.

I also keep an extensive vegetable garden that keeps the freeze dryer and dehydrator running almost constantly. When not in the garden or the kitchen preserving the harvest, you will find me hanging out with my German Shepherd.

So, if you do not have a 20 amp plug in your home that you can use for the dryer you will need to install one. Otherwise your circuit breakers will be tripping all the time (11). If you cannot change the system you will need a small freeze dryer. They will work with a 110 volt, 15 amp system.

Freeze dried food reconstitutes quicker than dehydrated food – Most freeze dried foods need only a couple of minutes before they’re ready to eat.

You can download the calculator in Excel format over on our Patreon page for free if you are a paid TruePrepper Patreon member, or for a low fee. We do update the calculator occasionally for updated costs, but the Excel download will give you Completa control over the formulas and all the cells.

As soon as we opened the package we could feel how flimsy the bags were compared to those provided by Harvest Right and were not convinced they would exclude the oxygen as required for long term storage.

We were looking for a reliable way to extend the shelf life of our garden produce and eggs, without compromising quality. A freeze drying machine not only preserves flavor and nutrients but also greatly extends shelf life – by up to 25 years!

Removing 80% of the moisture does ensure a much longer life for the food (if it is properly stored). But heating the food in this fashion causes it to lose approximately 50% of its nutrient value, and changes some of the baseline characteristics of the food as well.

The best freeze dryer for home food drying has several important features to look for. We used a weight scale to set ratings for these to develop the overall scores for the machines we compared.

Recent events have got a lot of people re-thinking their notions about preparedness. Those who never gave it much of a thought are beginning to think there might be something to the idea more info of having an emergency stash of food on hand.

All of our experience and the testing we do to determine the best freeze dryer is useless without listing our research sources and references. We leaned on these for the book knowledge that we paired with our hands-on testing and practical prepping experience:

Trimleaf is proud to be an official dealer of Harvest Right Freeze Dryers, renowned for its innovative home and commercial food preservation solutions.