1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:01,898 So I bought a freeze dryer. 2 00:00:02,138 --> 00:00:03,144 It’s quite sublime. 3 00:00:03,184 --> 00:00:07,915 And in this video I intend to tell you all about the process of freeze drying. 4 00:00:07,915 --> 00:00:16,202 Then, of course, I’ll show you the parts of this machine and explain how they work together to turn ordinary ice cream into astronaut ice cream— 5 00:00:16,202 --> 00:00:19,065 and it’s not just a dry subject, it’s cool, too. 6 00:00:19,065 --> 00:00:21,458 And it will leave you gasping for air! 7 00:00:21,458 --> 00:00:23,945 But first a friendly word of warning: 8 00:00:23,945 --> 00:00:28,571 unless you want to absolutely wreck your YouTube recommendations, 9 00:00:28,571 --> 00:00:38,323 do not, under any circumstances, click on any recommended videos you may see next to this one about freeze drying or freezer dryers. 10 00:00:38,323 --> 00:00:43,467 You will open quite the rabbit hole which, unless you’re big into the prepper community, 11 00:00:43,467 --> 00:00:44,959 ya might regret! 12 00:00:44,959 --> 00:00:52,239 And on that note, it makes me wretch a little bit whenever I say it out loud but I do know that I am an infl- 13 00:00:52,239 --> 00:00:53,593 [shudders] 14 00:00:54,473 --> 00:00:56,001 An influen- [nearly barfs] 15 00:00:56,001 --> 00:00:58,268 oh I hate it so much - 16 00:00:58,268 --> 00:00:59,874 An influencer. 17 00:00:59,874 --> 00:01:04,891 But I’m really not about people wasting their money  so I’m gonna come right out of the gate and say 18 00:01:04,891 --> 00:01:08,077 you should almost certainly not buy one of these. 19 00:01:08,077 --> 00:01:11,316 And to be clear, not because it’s a bad product! 20 00:01:11,316 --> 00:01:15,163 This is not - I have relatively few complaints about this thing. 21 00:01:15,163 --> 00:01:23,323 It works reasonably well and honestly I think it’s actually pretty remarkable that it’s a product you can buy and have in your home. 22 00:01:23,323 --> 00:01:26,684 But it’s just way too expensive to be a rational purchase, 23 00:01:26,684 --> 00:01:31,469 and if I didn’t have this job where I get to tinker with cool stuff and make videos about it all, 24 00:01:31,469 --> 00:01:37,557 I know with certainty that I would absolutely regret spending the money I spent on this machine. 25 00:01:37,557 --> 00:01:39,079 I won’t bury the lede, 26 00:01:39,160 --> 00:01:46,000 this was nearly $3,000 which is way too  expensive for what I think is mostly a toy, 27 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:51,960 and if you’re earnestly looking to store large  amounts of food for long-term safe keeping, 28 00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:57,483 I think you’ll find much wiser and much less  irritating ways to spend your money — 29 00:01:57,483 --> 00:01:58,982 and time. 30 00:01:58,982 --> 00:02:00,703 But we’ll get to that later. 31 00:02:00,703 --> 00:02:03,297 First, what is freeze drying? 32 00:02:03,297 --> 00:02:07,068 Also known as lyophilization or cryodesiccation 33 00:02:07,068 --> 00:02:13,260 it’s a process of removing moisture from, well, technically anything but most normally food. 34 00:02:13,260 --> 00:02:18,411 And we do it not just because it does funny things to food - though that’s certainly one of the reasons - 35 00:02:18,411 --> 00:02:23,694 but also because it prevents spoilage for incredibly long periods of time. 36 00:02:23,694 --> 00:02:27,062 Food spoilage typically happens thanks to one of two things: 37 00:02:27,062 --> 00:02:36,182 oxidation of fats and oils can turn some foods rancid, and since there’s oxygen in our atmosphere that tends to happen with time. 38 00:02:36,182 --> 00:02:38,355 But more pertinent to freeze drying, 39 00:02:38,355 --> 00:02:44,224 just as you and I gotta eat, the world’s microorganisms like bacteria and mold do, too. 40 00:02:44,224 --> 00:02:48,031 And they’ll happily chow down on the same foods we eat, 41 00:02:48,031 --> 00:02:54,033 decomposing them in the process and in many  cases leaving that food unsafe for us to eat. 42 00:02:54,033 --> 00:02:59,812 Those microorganisms, though,  don’t just need food to stay alive; they also need water. 43 00:02:59,812 --> 00:03:08,077 So if you can remove enough moisture from a food product, you’ll end up with food that’s simply too dry for those microorganisms to exist on - 44 00:03:08,077 --> 00:03:10,760 and so, it doesn’t spoil. 45 00:03:10,760 --> 00:03:13,927 Now there are plenty of ways to make that happen: 46 00:03:13,927 --> 00:03:19,385 you’ve probably seen food dehydrators which turn fresh fruit and vegetables into… 47 00:03:19,385 --> 00:03:21,205 dried fruit and vegetables. 48 00:03:21,205 --> 00:03:26,950 And once dried, that food is much more resistant to spoilage from microbial growth. 49 00:03:26,950 --> 00:03:33,322 But that process uses heat, and adding sufficient heat energy to dehydrate foods in our atmosphere 50 00:03:33,322 --> 00:03:41,348 ends up changing the molecular structure of some food components which alters not only the nutritional value but also the taste. 51 00:03:41,348 --> 00:03:44,743 Now there are plenty of food preservation techniques out there. 52 00:03:44,743 --> 00:03:45,765 There’s canning, 53 00:03:45,765 --> 00:03:51,034 there’s home canning (though personally I find calling that canning to be somewhat jarring), 54 00:03:51,034 --> 00:03:52,262 there’s curing, 55 00:03:52,262 --> 00:03:53,004 there’s pickling, 56 00:03:53,004 --> 00:03:53,724 there’s fermenting, 57 00:03:53,724 --> 00:03:55,084 there’s freezing, 58 00:03:55,084 --> 00:04:00,440 and a lot of other stuff which we don’t have time for but  most of those techniques end up doing something 59 00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:04,954 which messes with the flavor, structure,  and nutritional content of the food. 60 00:04:04,954 --> 00:04:12,570 In many cases it does pretty cool stuff - a lot of preservation techniques impart unique flavor profiles that we actually like! 61 00:04:12,570 --> 00:04:18,391 And there are endless cultural traditions out there which stand the test of time on flavor alone. 62 00:04:18,391 --> 00:04:26,960 But if you’re looking to preserve food without actually affecting its flavor or nutritional content, well your options are limited. 63 00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:29,720 That is, of course, unless you do a little cryodesiccation.   64 00:04:30,160 --> 00:04:32,496 You know about dry ice, right? 65 00:04:32,496 --> 00:04:38,375 Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide, and it has a peculiar quirk. 66 00:04:38,375 --> 00:04:40,343 It doesn’t melt into liquid. 67 00:04:40,343 --> 00:04:45,468 Instead it sublimates directly from the solid form into the gaseous form. 68 00:04:45,468 --> 00:04:54,643 That’s why we call it dry ice - it’s ice (though, extremely cold ice) which can’t get anything wet because it doesn’t melt. 69 00:04:54,643 --> 00:04:56,761 It just shrinks. 70 00:04:56,761 --> 00:05:00,523 Now, usually, you can’t get water to do that. 71 00:05:00,523 --> 00:05:02,080 Water is wet - 72 00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:04,636 or, or does it make things wet? Are we settled on that? 73 00:05:04,636 --> 00:05:11,060 Anyway, frozen water doesn’t sublimate into water vapor, it melts into liquid water. 74 00:05:11,060 --> 00:05:14,122 Don’t take my word for it, just watch this ice cube. 75 00:05:14,122 --> 00:05:16,614 See. It’s melting. 76 00:05:16,614 --> 00:05:20,121 Except… this isn’t always the case. 77 00:05:20,121 --> 00:05:21,770 Wet ice… 78 00:05:21,770 --> 00:05:27,921 uh, ordinary ice - frozen water, will actually sublimate in certain conditions. 79 00:05:27,921 --> 00:05:33,908 If the ambient temperature surrounding some mass of ice remains below the freezing point of water, 80 00:05:33,908 --> 00:05:39,055 ice will slowly sublimate and transition directly to the vaporous form. 81 00:05:39,055 --> 00:05:48,080 This is probably not a perfectly scientifically correct way to explain it, but it’s similar to how liquid water will evaporate slowly and disappear 82 00:05:48,080 --> 00:05:50,898 even at cool room temperatures. 83 00:05:50,898 --> 00:05:56,551 Solid water actually does the same thing - and you’ve seen the effects of this yourself. 84 00:05:56,551 --> 00:06:04,271 Freezer burn, where food stored in the freezer for a long time develops dry spots, is the result of sublimation. 85 00:06:04,271 --> 00:06:08,890 The moisture in that cut of meat or whatever just… sublimated away. 86 00:06:08,890 --> 00:06:18,033 And if you’ve got a bin of ice in the freezer and noticed that over time the ice cubes seem to shrink, that’s also sublimation in action. 87 00:06:18,080 --> 00:06:21,986 You probably noticed, though, that the process is very slow. 88 00:06:21,986 --> 00:06:27,560 It can be sped up, which if you live in cold parts of the  world like I do and you drive a car,   89 00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:29,210 you might have actually noticed. 90 00:06:29,210 --> 00:06:36,210 Drive at high speed on a very cold day, and over time little bits of ice stuck to the windshield end up just… shrinking until they disappear, 91 00:06:36,210 --> 00:06:46,123 and that’s sublimation happening - helped along by the huge volume of air which keeps flying past that ice as you drive. 92 00:06:46,123 --> 00:06:49,995 But there’s a way to make it happen even faster than that - 93 00:06:49,995 --> 00:06:53,089 expose ice to a vacuum. 94 00:06:53,089 --> 00:06:55,984 Which brings us back to the freeze dryer. 95 00:06:55,984 --> 00:07:02,664 This thing may look like a cross between a tiny washing machine and a piece of lab equipment but it’s not just looks. 96 00:07:02,664 --> 00:07:11,449 The huge rubber ring on the front of this machine engages with the plexiglass door to form an airtight seal, and that door is very thick. 97 00:07:11,449 --> 00:07:21,386 In fact it’s so thick that it is strong enough to withstand the roughly 1,500 pounds (or 680 kilograms) of force the atmosphere is gonna exert on it 98 00:07:21,386 --> 00:07:25,450 when this here vacuum pump sucks all the air out of the chamber. 99 00:07:25,450 --> 00:07:28,887 Because all this thing is is a vacuum chamber. 100 00:07:28,887 --> 00:07:31,182 But it’s also a freezer. 101 00:07:31,182 --> 00:07:37,742 If we look inside, we’ll find that a compressor and fan-forced condenser live in the bottom of the machine, 102 00:07:37,742 --> 00:07:45,537 and this arrangement of parts is a very typical setup for small, self-contained refrigeration units you might find in a commercial kitchen. 103 00:07:45,537 --> 00:07:53,901 But the evaporator - the part of a refrigeration circuit that gets cold - is integrated into the walls of the vacuum chamber. 104 00:07:53,901 --> 00:07:58,557 Now, that could be seen as just a practical way to make a freezer - 105 00:07:58,557 --> 00:08:05,554 if we ignore the whole “it’s also a vacuum chamber” part, this might as well be a weird take on a chest freezer. 106 00:08:05,554 --> 00:08:09,323 It’s just on its side and a cylinder rather than a box. 107 00:08:09,323 --> 00:08:15,128 But specifically for freeze drying, it has a practical purpose, too, which I’ll explain later on. 108 00:08:15,128 --> 00:08:22,449 The basic process this machine uses to freeze dry things begins simply by freezing whatever you want to freeze dry. 109 00:08:22,449 --> 00:08:29,352 When you start a cycle using its touch-screen interface, it turns on the condensing unit and begins cooling the chamber. 110 00:08:29,352 --> 00:08:34,032 The actual stuff you intend to freeze dry has to be placed on these trays 111 00:08:34,032 --> 00:08:39,746 which are sized just right to fit within the rack structure sitting in the middle of the chamber. 112 00:08:39,746 --> 00:08:44,266 That rack structure is more than meets the eye but hold that thought for now. 113 00:08:44,266 --> 00:08:50,574 You can choose to let the machine itself freeze the items on the tray, though that takes it quite a while. 114 00:08:50,574 --> 00:08:53,607 In my experience something like 6 hours. 115 00:08:53,607 --> 00:08:59,030 So it’s generally better to pre-freeze everything in an ordinary freezer first. 116 00:08:59,030 --> 00:09:02,000 That speeds up the freeze drying process. 117 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:04,979 It still takes a lot of time to freeze everything and, uh, 118 00:09:04,979 --> 00:09:10,000 it's kinda awkward to fit these in some freezers but generally it's better to do that. 119 00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:16,533 The machine has a temperature sensor attached  to that rack structure so it can determine the temperature in the chamber and, 120 00:09:16,533 --> 00:09:20,224 to some extent, the contents in the trays. 121 00:09:20,224 --> 00:09:25,791 Being made of thermally-conductive aluminum and also  being in physical contact with these trays, 122 00:09:25,791 --> 00:09:29,972 that sensor’s reading will be influenced by the temperature of the food. 123 00:09:29,972 --> 00:09:35,401 And once it has reached the target freezing temperature, the machine starts a timer. 124 00:09:35,401 --> 00:09:39,528 Both the target temperature and that timer’s length are customizable, 125 00:09:39,528 --> 00:09:47,203 but currently I have the machine set to a zero Fahrenheit target (that’s -18 celsius, typical freezer temperature) 126 00:09:47,203 --> 00:09:51,328 and the extra freeze timer is set for 90 minutes. 127 00:09:51,328 --> 00:09:58,186 Once those 90 minutes are up, all of the moisture  in whatever you’re trying to freeze dry will have frozen solid. 128 00:09:58,186 --> 00:10:06,339 And the machine’s next step is to switch on the external vacuum pump by energizing the power outlet on the back of the machine. 129 00:10:06,339 --> 00:10:13,376 This vacuum pump is quite a beast and can evacuate the air in the chamber very quickly. 130 00:10:13,376 --> 00:10:21,542 Generally within a minute the pressure drops below 2,500 millitorr which is about 0.05 psi. 131 00:10:21,542 --> 00:10:26,765 And for context, the atmosphere is 14.7 psi at sea level. 132 00:10:26,765 --> 00:10:34,634 From here on out, the machine will keep the vacuum pump running continuously and it will keep the compressor running, too. 133 00:10:34,634 --> 00:10:39,849 And now, the frozen water in all of the food begins to sublimate. 134 00:10:39,849 --> 00:10:45,415 Except… remember that whole thing about how  sublimation is a really slow process? 135 00:10:45,415 --> 00:10:46,812 Well, it is. 136 00:10:46,812 --> 00:10:54,605 The vacuum conditions inside the chamber will speed it up but it’s still gonna take forever if all we do is let the machine sit. 137 00:10:54,605 --> 00:10:58,940 So - here’s where that strange rack situation comes into play. 138 00:10:58,940 --> 00:11:04,404 The racks are not just supporting the trays, they also contain heating pads. 139 00:11:04,404 --> 00:11:11,647 Bonded to the underside of each shelf (including the top piece) is a roughly 150W heating pad. 140 00:11:11,647 --> 00:11:19,015 And, once the machine has reached a target pressure, it energizes those pads to heat the food in the chamber. 141 00:11:19,015 --> 00:11:26,177 Now this might seem counterproductive - we just froze everything, why would we heat it back up? 142 00:11:26,177 --> 00:11:32,594 Well, under a vacuum frozen water behaves like dry ice does in our atmosphere. 143 00:11:32,594 --> 00:11:37,571 It doesn’t melt, and so we can actually warm up the food 144 00:11:37,571 --> 00:11:45,898 and that added energy means the water molecules in that food are vibrating more vigorously which speeds up sublimation. 145 00:11:45,898 --> 00:11:54,837 The machine switches those heating pads on and off to maintain the tray  temperature at roughly 130 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 55 Celsius. 146 00:11:54,837 --> 00:12:00,548 It feels really weird that doing that doesn’t melt the water in the food, but it doesn’t! 147 00:12:00,548 --> 00:12:06,453 Here’s a timelapse of the machine freeze drying ice and you’ll notice that it’s not melting, 148 00:12:06,453 --> 00:12:08,557 it’s just shrinking and disappearing, 149 00:12:08,557 --> 00:12:15,861 leaving just a trace of dust - that dust being the minerals  which were dissolved in the water - behind. 150 00:12:15,861 --> 00:12:18,784 And now it’s time to touch on something I said earlier. 151 00:12:18,784 --> 00:12:22,226 The compressor runs through the entire process, 152 00:12:22,226 --> 00:12:27,418 which means the whole freezer part of it is still working to cool the walls of the chamber 153 00:12:27,418 --> 00:12:32,501 despite the fact that we’re heating the food and there’s effectively no air in there. 154 00:12:32,501 --> 00:12:34,713 What’s going on with that? 155 00:12:34,713 --> 00:12:39,506 Well, for physics reasons which I don’t understand and won’t even try to explain, 156 00:12:39,506 --> 00:12:50,616 the sublimated water vapor which is freed from the food we’re freeze drying is attracted to coldness and will deposit itself on the cold walls of the chamber. 157 00:12:50,616 --> 00:12:57,199 I would have thought the vacuum pump ends up sucking most of that water out but that is apparently not how it works - 158 00:12:57,199 --> 00:13:05,197 most of it just redeposits on the cold walls and so you get quite a lot of ice buildup as the cycle continues. 159 00:13:05,197 --> 00:13:08,991 Aside from the bit of frost that formed at the beginning of the cycle, 160 00:13:08,991 --> 00:13:15,111 all that ice used to be the water inside the food that we’re freeze-drying. 161 00:13:15,111 --> 00:13:18,974 Here’s a fun fact, while those heaters do speed this process up, 162 00:13:18,974 --> 00:13:21,410 it still takes forever! 163 00:13:21,410 --> 00:13:29,877 This machine has typically spent at least 16 hours  in the “drying” step of the process before it determines that it’s done. 164 00:13:29,877 --> 00:13:31,817 It is not fast. 165 00:13:31,817 --> 00:13:37,350 However, once its cycle is complete the machine will move on to extra dry time - 166 00:13:37,350 --> 00:13:43,268 another step you can change the length of, if you like, and you might need to as I’ll explain later. 167 00:13:43,268 --> 00:13:47,334 Uh, but once that timer is done… well it’s done. 168 00:13:47,334 --> 00:13:55,009 The machine very faintly beeps at you to kind of get your attention but all it does is turn off the heaters and the vacuum pump. 169 00:13:55,009 --> 00:13:59,113 The refrigeration circuit will continue to  run until you acknowledge that it’s done - 170 00:13:59,113 --> 00:14:05,412 and I believe that’s just to make sure none of the ice  which forms on the walls melts and gets on your freeze-dried stuff. 171 00:14:05,412 --> 00:14:12,385 Once you decide whether you want the machine to defrost for you or not (I’ll explain that later) it shuts down, 172 00:14:12,385 --> 00:14:16,910 and it’s up to you to open this drain valve and let air back into the chamber. 173 00:14:16,910 --> 00:14:21,905 [hissing] Once the pressure is equalized, you can open the door and remove the product. 174 00:14:21,905 --> 00:14:29,154 The end result of this process is food which has  everything it used to have in there except water. 175 00:14:29,154 --> 00:14:38,148 All the water is gone, but the proteins, starches, sugars, flavor compounds, everything else is still there and relatively untouched. 176 00:14:38,148 --> 00:14:44,119 Most foods end up shrinking slightly, and some foods really do not survive the process all that well, 177 00:14:44,119 --> 00:14:47,560 but for the most part you end up with strange results. 178 00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:54,419 The food (this used to be watermelon) becomes almost weightless, and the texture is radically different. 179 00:14:54,419 --> 00:15:04,153 But it’s still the same food, and if you eat some you’ll discover  that it tastes exactly like you’d expect but the mouthfeel is radically altered. 180 00:15:04,153 --> 00:15:08,917 And in many cases, it’s so wrong that the food is quite unappetizing. 181 00:15:08,917 --> 00:15:10,052 But. 182 00:15:10,052 --> 00:15:15,829 That food is now shelf-stable for up to 25 years. 183 00:15:15,829 --> 00:15:20,329 It takes special packaging considerations to attain that extreme longevity - 184 00:15:20,329 --> 00:15:29,756 mainly you need completely airtight packaging with an oxygen absorbing packet thrown in to make sure it doesn’t oxidize, so do not take that as gospel. 185 00:15:29,756 --> 00:15:32,032 And at the risk of getting ahead of myself, 186 00:15:32,032 --> 00:15:39,300 I think this process is a little too variable to actually guarantee that the end result will be safe for anywhere near that long. 187 00:15:39,300 --> 00:15:43,226 But food preservation is not why I got this machine. 188 00:15:43,226 --> 00:15:48,590 I just wanted to play around with a freeze dryer  and see what sorts of strange foods I could create with it. 189 00:15:48,590 --> 00:15:55,491 And after literal months of tinkering, I’m afraid that most of what I’ve done is ruin a lot of food. 190 00:15:55,560 --> 00:16:00,000 And in hindsight, that probably shouldn’t be surprising. 191 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:09,746 Given the mechanism in play here, I think it’s fair to describe the process of  freeze drying as accelerated freezer burn taken to completion. 192 00:16:09,746 --> 00:16:15,274 You forget about something in the freezer for a couple years and when you dig it back up, the edges are all crinkly and gross and 193 00:16:15,274 --> 00:16:18,401 that’s literally what this machine does to food. 194 00:16:18,401 --> 00:16:21,432 But all of it, all the way through. 195 00:16:21,432 --> 00:16:28,807 Sometimes the end result is legitimately interesting, and plenty of fruits are strangely delicious once freeze-dried, 196 00:16:28,807 --> 00:16:31,284 like strawberries or pineapple. 197 00:16:31,284 --> 00:16:35,970 I’m surprised how much I like freeze dried cantaloupe [crunch] 198 00:16:35,970 --> 00:16:37,709 It's got a nice crunch. 199 00:16:37,709 --> 00:16:43,391 And freeze dried kiwi fruit was another smash hit - though quite sour. 200 00:16:43,391 --> 00:16:48,287 But most other things you freeze dry end up being rather unpalatable 201 00:16:48,287 --> 00:16:55,055 and so require further work to reconstitute into something  less gross if you actually want to eat it. 202 00:16:55,055 --> 00:17:01,913 Take, for example, and I apologize in advance to  the vegetarians and vegans watching, meat. 203 00:17:01,913 --> 00:17:05,894 This is freeze-dried sliced ham. 204 00:17:05,894 --> 00:17:11,672 In its current state, it is nearly weightless, has a rough texture, and is quite brittle. 205 00:17:11,672 --> 00:17:15,203 You can snap pieces of it off quite easily. 206 00:17:15,883 --> 00:17:17,700 If you just eat this, 207 00:17:17,700 --> 00:17:19,461 which I have, 208 00:17:19,461 --> 00:17:21,347 it’s disgusting! 209 00:17:21,347 --> 00:17:26,372 The dried meat has a quite off-putting gritty texture and to make matters worse, 210 00:17:26,372 --> 00:17:32,138 it eagerly absorbs the saliva in your mouth and so it’s kinda like you’re eating damp sand. 211 00:17:32,138 --> 00:17:35,673 But what makes it even stranger is that it tastes exactly like ham. 212 00:17:35,673 --> 00:17:42,164 It’s just a viscerally confusing experience and I can’t describe it any other way than just wrong. 213 00:17:42,164 --> 00:17:48,595 This here is a meal from McDonald’s which I threw  in the freeze dryer because my morbid curiosity got the better of me. 214 00:17:48,595 --> 00:17:53,038 It’s just your standard two cheeseburger meal but with some McNuggets, too. 215 00:17:53,038 --> 00:17:56,563 And the end result is incredibly weird. 216 00:17:56,563 --> 00:17:59,417 Give this container a good whiff... 217 00:17:59,417 --> 00:18:01,891 and it smells like the inside of a McDonald's. 218 00:18:01,891 --> 00:18:04,068 Get more specific... 219 00:18:04,068 --> 00:18:07,424 and you can make out the smell of the ketchup and onions on the cheeseburger. 220 00:18:07,424 --> 00:18:12,452 But the cheeseburger itself is now a rock-hard disc of misery. 221 00:18:12,732 --> 00:18:18,951 And now, you will get the pleasure of watching my actual reaction  to eating some of this food for the first time. 222 00:18:18,951 --> 00:18:19,536 ♫ soft jazz ♫ 223 00:18:19,536 --> 00:18:24,543 Alright! I lied a little bit, I have already tried the fries and they are… 224 00:18:24,543 --> 00:18:27,671 [loud crunches] 225 00:18:27,671 --> 00:18:28,760 umm… 226 00:18:29,600 --> 00:18:33,682 well, it’s something like a shoestring potato chip 227 00:18:33,682 --> 00:18:37,865 but is does taste like a McDonald’s French fry and it’s a little too brittle. 228 00:18:37,865 --> 00:18:40,414 So, not great. 229 00:18:40,414 --> 00:18:42,263 But I haven’t tried anything else. 230 00:18:42,263 --> 00:18:45,683 Let’s see what a freeze dried McNugget is - 231 00:18:45,683 --> 00:18:47,320 oh that’s unpleasant. 232 00:18:47,320 --> 00:18:48,431 Uhoookay. 233 00:18:48,431 --> 00:18:49,570 [cronch] 234 00:18:49,570 --> 00:18:50,525 Augh. 235 00:18:52,645 --> 00:18:56,929 [confused crunching] 236 00:18:56,929 --> 00:18:58,167 Ope, there it is! 237 00:18:59,207 --> 00:19:02,441 It took a while for the flavor to come through. 238 00:19:02,441 --> 00:19:04,955 It’s a McNugget! 239 00:19:04,955 --> 00:19:07,456 But it’s, like, powdery. 240 00:19:07,456 --> 00:19:08,541 Not great. 241 00:19:08,541 --> 00:19:11,284 Um, and let’s just… 242 00:19:11,284 --> 00:19:13,332 I don’t know how I’m gonna do this. 243 00:19:16,370 --> 00:19:18,111 I don’t really even want to do this. 244 00:19:18,111 --> 00:19:21,711 [extremely uncomfortable cronching] 245 00:19:25,830 --> 00:19:30,000 [more confused crunching] 246 00:19:32,984 --> 00:19:36,272 [confusion intensifies] 247 00:19:37,712 --> 00:19:40,366 I mean it tastes like a McDonald’s cheeseburger! 248 00:19:42,445 --> 00:19:44,582 It really does, but it’s… 249 00:19:46,062 --> 00:19:47,177 WRONG! 250 00:19:47,177 --> 00:19:49,835 It is not a good experience. 251 00:19:49,835 --> 00:19:56,208 So what can you do to reconstitute your freeze dried food into something not gross? 252 00:19:56,208 --> 00:20:03,886 Well, the most obvious thing is to add water but depending on how you do that, it can be weird. 253 00:20:03,886 --> 00:20:09,873 Perhaps the most surprising thing I accidentally discovered had to do with the ham. 254 00:20:09,873 --> 00:20:15,990 I thought the most logical thing to do was of course use a steamer to make some delicious steamed hams. 255 00:20:15,990 --> 00:20:19,400 But when I put the sliced ham into the steamer, 256 00:20:19,480 --> 00:20:24,276 within moments it started getting darker and by  the end of just 5 minutes in there, 257 00:20:24,276 --> 00:20:29,627 it had cooked further and become the consistency of jerky. 258 00:20:29,627 --> 00:20:39,360 It was also pretty tasty, I won’t lie, and so I guess I discovered a really odd roundabout way of making jerky from store-bought ham. 259 00:20:39,360 --> 00:20:43,628 But to get the ham turned back into the regular ham it used to be, 260 00:20:43,628 --> 00:20:47,942 well simply soaking it in water for a while kind of worked. 261 00:20:47,942 --> 00:20:51,616 But it got unfortunately soggy in the process. 262 00:20:51,616 --> 00:20:59,306 Like, I imagine if I had left the not-freeze-dried  ham in a bowl of water for a half-hour, it would have been a similar result. 263 00:20:59,306 --> 00:21:04,275 I have yet to test this, but I do want to try getting one of those cool mist humidifiers 264 00:21:04,275 --> 00:21:10,426 and leaving the freeze dried product in the stream of mist for a while to see if that might be more pleasant. 265 00:21:10,426 --> 00:21:17,280 I will almost certainly be doing more stuff related to this on Connextras - so be sure to subscribe to that channel if you haven’t already. 266 00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:21,114 Another thing I haven’t yet tried  steaming is a steamed ham - 267 00:21:21,114 --> 00:21:26,289 but I do have this freeze dried steamed ham handy so let’s do it! 268 00:21:26,289 --> 00:21:28,167 (It’s an Albany expression.) 269 00:21:28,167 --> 00:21:30,769 Okay let’s steam a steamed ham. 270 00:21:30,769 --> 00:21:32,735 I got out my simmerstat box. 271 00:21:32,735 --> 00:21:35,692 I bet you didn’t think this was gonna come out again but no! 272 00:21:35,692 --> 00:21:36,908 I’m using it right now. 273 00:21:36,908 --> 00:21:43,411 And, I’m turning the heat down to about medium because I want to leave this at a pretty low heat. 274 00:21:43,411 --> 00:21:47,176 I hopefully don’t want to cook it any further like what happened with the ham. 275 00:21:47,176 --> 00:21:49,692 I’m putting in the one that I already took a bite out of. 276 00:21:51,771 --> 00:21:53,733 And we’ll throw in one of the nuggets, too. 277 00:21:56,892 --> 00:21:59,033 How long should I leave it in there for? 278 00:21:59,033 --> 00:22:01,669 No idea! But I’m gonna try ten minutes. 279 00:22:01,669 --> 00:22:03,966 So… tick tick tick tick. 280 00:22:03,966 --> 00:22:05,069 It’s been ten minutes! 281 00:22:05,069 --> 00:22:07,650 Except I threw in some fries, I forgot about that. 282 00:22:07,650 --> 00:22:09,700 I’ll give them a little more time. 283 00:22:09,700 --> 00:22:11,482 Ooh I drip - agh! 284 00:22:12,802 --> 00:22:16,597 I dripped some water on the McNugget. Let me just, uh… 285 00:22:17,557 --> 00:22:19,063 okay that does not bode well. 286 00:22:19,063 --> 00:22:20,931 It’s still... stiff. 287 00:22:20,931 --> 00:22:24,066 It’s still stiff, but.... 288 00:22:24,066 --> 00:22:28,193 Oh. Oh no it’s not… it’s not good. And it has cooked further. 289 00:22:30,512 --> 00:22:31,648 Ooh boy. 290 00:22:31,648 --> 00:22:37,356 I mean I think it’s better than it was but, um, it has cooked further. 291 00:22:37,356 --> 00:22:38,962 I’ll turn that off. 292 00:22:40,322 --> 00:22:41,704 I’ll grab one of these fries. 293 00:22:43,344 --> 00:22:44,983 Oh that’s awful. 294 00:22:44,983 --> 00:22:51,908 I now have that set to low so this should barely simmer at all, um and we’ll see if that makes a difference. 295 00:22:53,788 --> 00:22:58,440 Okay there’s 10 minutes of steaming at very low. 296 00:22:59,320 --> 00:23:01,370 I did it again, why did I do that? 297 00:23:01,370 --> 00:23:04,154 I’m just making a mess over here. Okay! 298 00:23:09,673 --> 00:23:10,860 Um… 299 00:23:12,739 --> 00:23:14,029 hmm. 300 00:23:15,389 --> 00:23:17,188 Nope, this is still pretty dry. 301 00:23:17,188 --> 00:23:24,585 So, uh, it hasn’t cooked further so maybe if I let this go for like an hour it would turn into… 302 00:23:24,585 --> 00:23:28,440 or turn back into what I expect out of a chicken McNugget. 303 00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:30,964 Which is not much, to be clear! 304 00:23:30,964 --> 00:23:34,721 But, um, steaming apparently does not work. 305 00:23:34,721 --> 00:23:35,965 Hooray! 306 00:23:35,965 --> 00:23:41,547 There are some foods which can be freeze dried  and then un-freeze-dried pretty easily. 307 00:23:41,547 --> 00:23:46,602 Something that I found actually quite enjoyable was freeze drying eggs. 308 00:23:46,602 --> 00:23:50,727 This 1 quart Mason jar has 3 dozen eggs in it, 309 00:23:50,727 --> 00:23:56,116 and I made it by using two freeze dryer trays, cracking 18 eggs into each one, 310 00:23:56,116 --> 00:24:00,674 and then I poked each yolk with a fork to  make sure the membrane had broken. 311 00:24:00,674 --> 00:24:04,320 Don’t know if that was really necessary, but I figured it wouldn't hurt. 312 00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:08,949 Then I carefully put the eggy trays in my freezer. 313 00:24:08,949 --> 00:24:14,386 I bought these lids from the manufacturer specifically for making prep easier - 314 00:24:14,386 --> 00:24:21,498 it allows you to stack the trays in your freezer and if for some reason you end up thinking a freezer dryer is a good idea, 315 00:24:21,498 --> 00:24:24,626 I would say this is a required accessory. 316 00:24:24,626 --> 00:24:31,232 But anyway, after spending the night in my freezer, I put the trays in the freeze dryer and ran a cycle. 317 00:24:31,232 --> 00:24:32,786 The next day, 318 00:24:32,786 --> 00:24:36,223 because may I remind you this process takes an entire day, 319 00:24:36,223 --> 00:24:37,990 the machine was done. 320 00:24:37,990 --> 00:24:44,179 And the end result is a much lighter tray filled with nothing but solids of egg. 321 00:24:44,179 --> 00:24:49,108 Using a fork you can scoop these up  from the tray and stick ‘em into a food processor, 322 00:24:49,108 --> 00:24:53,986 and with a little bit of food processing you end up with a very fine powder. 323 00:24:53,986 --> 00:24:58,936 It’s quite compressible, so I was able to shove all the eggs into this single jar. 324 00:24:58,936 --> 00:25:03,487 And to turn them back into regular eggs - just add water. 325 00:25:03,487 --> 00:25:10,966 I never bothered figuring out what exactly the proper ratio of powdered freeze dried egg to water is, I’ve just been eyeballing it, 326 00:25:10,966 --> 00:25:17,004 but it quite easily turns back into liquified eggs and with just a bit of stirring. 327 00:25:17,004 --> 00:25:19,269 And they cook up just like eggs do. 328 00:25:19,269 --> 00:25:28,466 I scrambled some reconstituted eggs and you would have no idea that they were ever freeze dried other than the fact that they were a perfectly uniform yellow 329 00:25:28,466 --> 00:25:32,641 thanks to how thoroughly scrambled they become from the food processor. 330 00:25:32,641 --> 00:25:37,644 Which, fun fact, the French call it a robot culinaire. 331 00:25:37,644 --> 00:25:39,554 How delightful. 332 00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:42,760 Another actually-kinda-useful-for-food-preservation-thing   333 00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:43,765 is this. 334 00:25:43,765 --> 00:25:48,811 This used to be a half gallon of whole milk, but now it’s powdered milk! 335 00:25:48,811 --> 00:25:56,011 This was made using the exact same process as the eggs,  however it’s harder to turn this back into liquid milk. 336 00:25:56,011 --> 00:26:04,251 I’m pretty certain that’s because this is whole milk and much of these solids are milkfat which doesn’t really like mixing with water. 337 00:26:04,251 --> 00:26:11,593 But I wanted to try this specifically because powdered whole milk is a surprisingly hard product to find in my area, 338 00:26:11,593 --> 00:26:16,836 and I don’t normally keep milk in the house because it spoils too quickly for how I use it. 339 00:26:16,836 --> 00:26:23,361 Though perhaps the difficulty in getting this to dissolve in water explains why  nonfat powdered milk is more common. 340 00:26:23,361 --> 00:26:28,961 Anyway, it will turn back into milk when mixed with  water it just takes quite a lot of mixing and, 341 00:26:28,961 --> 00:26:34,340 since it’s milk, mechanical aids can end up frothing it so… it’s tough. 342 00:26:34,340 --> 00:26:40,480 Speaking of freeze drying liquids, though,  another thing I did was freeze dry some brewed coffee. 343 00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:46,898 Instant coffee is really just dehydrated coffee, but most instant coffee is awful. 344 00:26:46,898 --> 00:26:55,025 So, since I have this high-tech anything dehydrator,  I figured I’d make my own instant coffee - but with a twist. 345 00:26:55,025 --> 00:26:58,925 I froze the coffee as I prepare it with cream and sugar, 346 00:26:58,925 --> 00:27:04,606 so the end result should be truly instant coffee exactly how I like it. 347 00:27:04,606 --> 00:27:07,349 The process was basically the same for eggs and milk, 348 00:27:07,349 --> 00:27:15,205 though the end result out of the freeze drier is truly almost weightless and if it weren’t for the sugar I’d be afraid of drafts in the room. 349 00:27:15,205 --> 00:27:19,578 But you just load it into a food processor and turn it into a powder. 350 00:27:19,578 --> 00:27:24,181 This is the result which I haven’t tried yet - let’s do that now! 351 00:27:24,181 --> 00:27:26,156 Okay this will not be scientific. 352 00:27:26,156 --> 00:27:36,415 I just used the scale here and tared it with this empty mason jar which then suggests there’s 43 grams of coffee powder in here. 353 00:27:36,415 --> 00:27:43,419 I’m not 100% confident that this is four or two mugs. I don’t remember. I think it’s only two. 354 00:27:43,419 --> 00:27:49,053 Because of the sugar in here, I’d be really shocked if I only had 10 grams  of sugar and milk fat. 355 00:27:49,053 --> 00:27:52,539 So I’m gonna put half of this in that mug, we’ll see what happens. 356 00:27:52,539 --> 00:27:55,071 I’m not bothering to wait until this gets to a boil. 357 00:27:59,629 --> 00:28:03,678 [stirring] 358 00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:07,609 So it’s dissolving pretty well, 359 00:28:07,609 --> 00:28:16,280 it hasn’t completely dissolved perfectly but this does (other than the froth) look very much like how I brew my coffee and, uh,   360 00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:20,343 it doens’t have that acrid smell that most  instant coffee really does for me 361 00:28:20,343 --> 00:28:21,716 so let me give it a taste. 362 00:28:22,676 --> 00:28:24,344 Be mindful of the spoon. 363 00:28:30,702 --> 00:28:32,265 This is very good! 364 00:28:32,265 --> 00:28:35,892 This is effectively how I take my coffee in the morning. 365 00:28:36,372 --> 00:28:38,208 I’m gonna call that a success! 366 00:28:38,208 --> 00:28:43,424 Yeah it’s got - for whatever reason the froth that’s forming on here… 367 00:28:45,743 --> 00:28:51,520 it almost - it almost has a whipped hot chocolate consistency on the top but it’s very good. 368 00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:55,084 Am I going to actually make a bunch of this for future use? 369 00:28:55,084 --> 00:28:56,408 No. 370 00:28:56,408 --> 00:28:58,233 But now let’s change gears. 371 00:28:58,233 --> 00:29:02,556 The main reason I bought this thing, aside from making a video, 372 00:29:02,556 --> 00:29:06,730 was to try freeze drying whatever seemed like it might be fun to freeze dry. 373 00:29:06,730 --> 00:29:13,340 But I learned pretty quickly that a lot of stuff just… doesn’t really work. 374 00:29:13,340 --> 00:29:17,829 I knew some of that going into this - I didn’t just buy a freeze dryer, 375 00:29:17,829 --> 00:29:21,714 I did some research into what can and cannot be freeze dried, 376 00:29:21,714 --> 00:29:27,215 so I knew that things with very little moisture  content and high fat content just don’t work. 377 00:29:27,215 --> 00:29:31,396 Chocolate, for instance, just ends up melting once the heaters turn on. 378 00:29:31,396 --> 00:29:33,280 Same goes for butter. 379 00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:39,004 But there were also a lot more duds than I figured would be the case. 380 00:29:39,004 --> 00:29:41,682 In fact it’s been mostly duds. 381 00:29:41,682 --> 00:29:49,786 The very first round of freeze drying I did included all sorts of stuff, some of which I just thought would be funny. 382 00:29:49,786 --> 00:29:56,077 For instance, I wanted to freeze dry a Twinkie just because that idea was hilarious on its face. 383 00:29:56,077 --> 00:30:00,065 Sadly I never got around to making freeze dried refried beans. 384 00:30:00,065 --> 00:30:07,281 But anyway, much of that first batch just didn’t actually do anything or was completely ruined. 385 00:30:07,281 --> 00:30:11,595 The Twinkies just became rock hard and impossible to eat. 386 00:30:11,595 --> 00:30:16,933 The cream filling of the Oreos melted and the cookies just turned stale. 387 00:30:16,933 --> 00:30:20,716 Little Debbie oatmeal creme pies had the filling become a powder 388 00:30:20,716 --> 00:30:27,064 and the oatmeal cookies parts turned into the consistency of a cracker crossed with an old ginger snap. 389 00:30:27,064 --> 00:30:35,155 None of that was any good so anything close to a pastry is apparently never going to come out of a freeze dryer in a good way. 390 00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:38,152 That round also included various fruits: 391 00:30:38,152 --> 00:30:45,152 canned pineapple and peaches in addition to a fruit cocktail were done mainly because I already had some on hand and I was lazy, 392 00:30:45,152 --> 00:30:50,501 but I also bought some cut melon and prepped that for the freeze dryer. 393 00:30:50,501 --> 00:30:53,899 And I learned some interesting lessons rhere - 394 00:30:53,899 --> 00:30:56,501 the peaches freeze dried perfectly. 395 00:30:56,501 --> 00:31:02,902 The pineapple mostly did, but over time it became clear there was still some moisture left in it. 396 00:31:02,902 --> 00:31:13,249 And the melon - well it seemed like maybe it was dry, but after a few days in a mason jar well it became clear it was rotting. 397 00:31:13,249 --> 00:31:15,033 The smell was awful. 398 00:31:15,033 --> 00:31:22,478 That was on me, though, the instructions for the freeze dryer  make it pretty clear that you don’t want any product over the tops of the trays 399 00:31:22,478 --> 00:31:25,880 and that melon was very much over the tops of the trays. 400 00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:27,200 It was just too big. 401 00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:30,311 Which leads me to my next little lesson. 402 00:31:30,311 --> 00:31:33,654 Dealing with these trays is just kind of annoying, 403 00:31:33,654 --> 00:31:39,195 and freeze drying liquid products is just… not really fun. 404 00:31:39,195 --> 00:31:46,897 The easiest way to do it is to put the empty trays in the freeze dryer then pull them out just enough so you can fill them in-place, 405 00:31:46,897 --> 00:31:50,601 and then slowly push them back in and start the cycle. 406 00:31:50,601 --> 00:31:55,646 And actually - I do have to call out a really clever design feature here. 407 00:31:55,646 --> 00:31:59,223 You’ll notice that the machine is leaning back somewhat - 408 00:31:59,223 --> 00:32:05,053 that’s to allow water in the vacuum chamber to drain when it defrosts at the end of the cycle. 409 00:32:05,053 --> 00:32:14,034 But the racks for the trays are leaning in the opposite direction to perfectly cancel that out so the actual trays remain level. 410 00:32:14,034 --> 00:32:16,023 That’s really good thinking. 411 00:32:16,023 --> 00:32:25,623 Still, dealing with liquids is irritating and means you’re asking the freeze dryer to do the initial freeze which makes the already very long cycle even longer. 412 00:32:25,623 --> 00:32:35,403 So I thought I’d be clever and order some ice cube trays with  silicone bottoms and make ice cubes out of whatever liquids I wanted to freeze dry. 413 00:32:35,403 --> 00:32:39,303 So I made ice cubes of egg, milk, and coffee. 414 00:32:39,303 --> 00:32:40,924 This was a mistake! 415 00:32:40,924 --> 00:32:47,741 Probably through some combination of being too tall and not being in solid physical contact with the trays, 416 00:32:48,101 --> 00:32:55,539 once the machine had finished it turned out that the center core of every ice cube still had ice in it. 417 00:32:55,539 --> 00:32:57,636 So the eggs and milk? 418 00:32:57,636 --> 00:33:00,325 Very ruined, definitely not safe to eat. 419 00:33:00,325 --> 00:33:01,789 And the coffee? 420 00:33:01,789 --> 00:33:06,603 Well I guess I could have made coffee with it but I ended up just sending it down the drain. 421 00:33:06,603 --> 00:33:10,369 Honestly that was a real bummer, I really hoped this would be easier. 422 00:33:10,369 --> 00:33:15,815 But, sure enough, liquid product in direct contact with the trays is what you have to do. 423 00:33:16,301 --> 00:33:19,238 And lessons just kept on happening. 424 00:33:19,238 --> 00:33:23,825 During one freeze drying session where I tried such things as black olives 425 00:33:23,825 --> 00:33:25,384 (weird but okay), 426 00:33:25,384 --> 00:33:26,631 dill pickles 427 00:33:26,631 --> 00:33:28,089 (not good), 428 00:33:28,089 --> 00:33:28,867 carrots 429 00:33:28,867 --> 00:33:30,640 (surprisingly disgusting), 430 00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:31,785 yogurt 431 00:33:31,785 --> 00:33:33,478 (more weird than anything else), 432 00:33:33,478 --> 00:33:35,692 balls of seasoned and cooked rice 433 00:33:35,692 --> 00:33:36,924 (disappointing) 434 00:33:36,924 --> 00:33:41,807 and other stuff I’m sure I’ve forgotten I had some lemon and lime slices in there. 435 00:33:41,807 --> 00:33:47,456 Those came out perfectly and aside from the pucker factor made for an interesting little treat. 436 00:33:47,456 --> 00:33:56,346 So later on, I was doing some other fruits and stuff and decided to put in both some sliced tangerines and mandarin oranges. 437 00:33:56,346 --> 00:34:01,855 And for some reason neither of those actually dried to completion. 438 00:34:01,855 --> 00:34:06,656 Everything else in there came out fine, but the oranges did not. 439 00:34:06,656 --> 00:34:09,269 They had a good deal of their moisture removed, 440 00:34:09,269 --> 00:34:16,845 but after storing them in a Ziploc bag, by the next day that bag had condensation on the insides and the fruit had turned into mush. 441 00:34:16,845 --> 00:34:21,192 I can only assume the sugar content of this is just too high or something. 442 00:34:21,192 --> 00:34:26,047 And remember how that first run of freeze drying  had a can of fruit cocktail in there? 443 00:34:26,047 --> 00:34:33,528 The grapes in that fruit cocktail ended up being really interesting, so I went out to the store and got some fresh grapes to try. 444 00:34:33,528 --> 00:34:40,749 I had assumed the skin of the grape might be a problem so I poked each and every one with a knife before freeze drying 445 00:34:40,749 --> 00:34:43,621 (I had both seedless green and red grapes in there) 446 00:34:43,621 --> 00:34:48,022 and… well they barely dried at all. 447 00:34:48,022 --> 00:34:55,538 There was some unpleasant oozing coming out the holes I made in the skin the whole time and by the time the cycle had ended… 448 00:34:55,538 --> 00:34:59,798 they were still... mostly grapes. 449 00:34:59,880 --> 00:35:04,234 So then I decided to cut the grapes in half and try again. 450 00:35:04,234 --> 00:35:09,682 Cutting grapes in half, it turns out, is really annoying but I figured that would work. 451 00:35:09,682 --> 00:35:13,477 And I think it did? But, and here comes the bad news, 452 00:35:13,477 --> 00:35:16,703 the end result was really really gross. 453 00:35:16,703 --> 00:35:19,971 Like, I don’t understand how they took on the flavors they did. 454 00:35:19,971 --> 00:35:25,421 And the grapes themselves were fine - I had some while prepping them, because of course I did, and they were delicious. 455 00:35:25,421 --> 00:35:28,120 But out of the freeze dryer they were not! 456 00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:31,027 But rather than dwell on the bad stuff, 457 00:35:31,027 --> 00:35:34,850 now let’s talk about some of the better things I was able to do with the freeze dryer. 458 00:35:34,850 --> 00:35:37,720 The most surprisingly good thing? 459 00:35:37,720 --> 00:35:39,144 Onions. 460 00:35:39,144 --> 00:35:41,770 Just raw onions. 461 00:35:41,770 --> 00:35:47,545 They leave the freeze drying process with the texture of a potato chip, so with a little salt and oil 462 00:35:47,545 --> 00:35:49,302 [cronch] 463 00:35:49,302 --> 00:35:52,477 they might as well be all-natural Funyuns. 464 00:35:52,477 --> 00:36:01,663 I tried this only because I once bought these onion chips from Trader Joe’s and the ingredients were just onions, bran oil, and salt 465 00:36:01,663 --> 00:36:06,508 and the bag was a bit cagey about the  “process” used to create them. 466 00:36:06,508 --> 00:36:11,884 So I tried freeze drying an onion and I’m reasonably sure that was the process. 467 00:36:11,884 --> 00:36:14,991 They were very similar to the product from TJ’s. 468 00:36:14,991 --> 00:36:23,042 I did do a run where I roasted some in the oven for a bit before freeze drying them and that didn’t seem to make much of a difference as far as the flavor goes. 469 00:36:23,042 --> 00:36:29,439 But I suppose one thing I do need to try now is caramelizing a bunch of onions and then freeze drying them. 470 00:36:29,439 --> 00:36:30,928 Mmm… 471 00:36:30,928 --> 00:36:37,997 I also cryodessicated various peppers: two bell, one jalapeno. 472 00:36:37,997 --> 00:36:44,186 These ended up with a similarly chip-like consistency to the  onions, though personally I found them to be less enjoyable. 473 00:36:44,186 --> 00:36:49,829 And the jalapeno - maybe I just lucked out and got a particularly spicy one, 474 00:36:49,829 --> 00:36:52,961 but that was an intense vegetable chip. 475 00:36:52,961 --> 00:36:56,814 And yes, I am a Midwesterner, and I look like this. 476 00:36:56,814 --> 00:37:01,454 I know that. But normally I like jalapenos on stuff and find them fairly mild, so 477 00:37:01,454 --> 00:37:07,825 either freeze drying really accentuates the  capsaicin or I just got quite a banger from the store. 478 00:37:07,825 --> 00:37:11,792 Many candies also do some interesting things in the freeze dryer. 479 00:37:11,792 --> 00:37:15,921 Turns out skittles - they pop like popcorn! 480 00:37:15,921 --> 00:37:19,737 They split in half and the innards puff up, and the end result? 481 00:37:19,737 --> 00:37:21,415 [a nice crunch] 482 00:37:21,415 --> 00:37:23,590 It's got a nice crunch. 483 00:37:23,590 --> 00:37:27,679 Gummy candies tend to really explode in size - 484 00:37:27,679 --> 00:37:29,448 these here were gummy bears, 485 00:37:29,448 --> 00:37:31,028 these were gummy worms, 486 00:37:31,028 --> 00:37:33,651 and these were ♫ gummmm-eeee sharks doot do do do do - 487 00:37:33,651 --> 00:37:35,506 we’ll never speak of that again. 488 00:37:35,506 --> 00:37:42,390 These are less fun to eat - I would describe the texture as almost like a candied glass. 489 00:37:42,390 --> 00:37:45,944 Dentists would definitely have some thoughts about this. 490 00:37:45,944 --> 00:37:49,513 Interestingly, though, not all gummies do this. 491 00:37:49,513 --> 00:37:56,374 I had some peach rings which I ran through here and their texture was altered slightly but they didn’t grow in size. 492 00:37:57,094 --> 00:38:02,983 And I also ran some spice drops through the freeze dryer and they were completely unaffected! 493 00:38:02,983 --> 00:38:06,160 What’s up with that? No idea. 494 00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:09,313 And then of course there’s Astronaut Ice Cream! 495 00:38:09,313 --> 00:38:13,242 I don’t have to go to the science museum gift shop anymore, I can make it at home! 496 00:38:13,242 --> 00:38:16,659 That was totally worth buying this thing. 497 00:38:16,659 --> 00:38:21,354 Anyway freeze drying ice cream is actually somewhat difficult to get right. 498 00:38:21,354 --> 00:38:27,553 The first time I tried it I just put in a few store-bought ice cream sandwiches but I put them in too early. 499 00:38:27,553 --> 00:38:31,733 The chamber wasn’t cold enough and while they didn’t look like they were melting at all, 500 00:38:31,733 --> 00:38:34,008 and perhaps they weren’t initially, 501 00:38:34,008 --> 00:38:38,959 the inside of them liquefied at some point and it was unpleasant. 502 00:38:38,959 --> 00:38:44,342 I tried some of the same sandwiches later, making sure to let the chamber get well below freezing first, 503 00:38:44,440 --> 00:38:50,528 and they came out exactly as you would expect -  actually quite a lot better than the stuff you can buy in a store. 504 00:38:50,528 --> 00:39:00,447 And later I tried just some smatterings of ice cream that I had smashed onto one of the trays which I let stay in the freezer for several hours and it came out fine - 505 00:39:00,447 --> 00:39:05,232 though the cherry filling in this did expand a little bit like the candies. 506 00:39:05,232 --> 00:39:09,017 The next question is - do I actually like astronaut ice cream? 507 00:39:09,017 --> 00:39:11,068 And the answer is… 508 00:39:11,068 --> 00:39:13,137 not really. 509 00:39:13,137 --> 00:39:16,035 I mean it’s kinda fun but it wears off pretty quickly. 510 00:39:16,035 --> 00:39:20,664 So now, let’s get back to the whole utilitarian aspect of things. 511 00:39:20,664 --> 00:39:30,231 A big selling point of these very expensive and slow machines is that they can preserve a wide variety of food effectively forever. 512 00:39:30,231 --> 00:39:33,276 And that’s essentially true! 513 00:39:33,276 --> 00:39:39,998 But I want to pick that apart because if you step back and  look a little holistically at this situation… 514 00:39:39,998 --> 00:39:44,843 I simply cannot find owning one of these to be rational. 515 00:39:44,843 --> 00:39:49,718 Maybe that sounds blunt, but if this looks like a good idea to you… 516 00:39:49,718 --> 00:39:56,624 our mental frameworks are just completely misaligned when it comes to the value of time, money, and effort. 517 00:39:56,624 --> 00:39:57,560 And also, 518 00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:00,686 at the risk of getting a little deep, 519 00:40:00,686 --> 00:40:03,994 you might be worrying a little too much about the apocalypse. 520 00:40:03,994 --> 00:40:05,901 Why do I say that? 521 00:40:05,901 --> 00:40:10,783 Firstly, just getting and using this thing is a commitment! 522 00:40:10,783 --> 00:40:17,257 It was shipped via freight on a pallet and I bought this workbench specifically for it. 523 00:40:17,257 --> 00:40:23,011 No it’s not huge but it’s very heavy - there’s a reason it’s not here on my desk - 524 00:40:23,011 --> 00:40:26,432 and you’re not going to want this in your kitchen. 525 00:40:26,432 --> 00:40:33,208 Remember how way back at the start I said its condensing unit was the same sort of thing you find in small commercial refrigerators? 526 00:40:33,208 --> 00:40:35,909 Yeah, well, this thing is loud. 527 00:40:35,909 --> 00:40:41,301 [compressor startup, followed by building drone] 528 00:40:42,141 --> 00:40:47,068 The droning of the condenser fan matches the most annoying vending machine at the bus stop 529 00:40:47,068 --> 00:40:49,950 and it will run the whole time. 530 00:40:49,950 --> 00:40:53,421 And then the vacuum pump starts up and just adds to the racket. 531 00:40:53,421 --> 00:40:56,502 [rattly, gurgly noises] 532 00:40:56,502 --> 00:41:06,084 The vacuum pump is actually a lot quieter than I expected, so that’s good, but it’s still more noise and it will not stop for at least 12 hours. 533 00:41:06,084 --> 00:41:14,356 [audio contrast between droning condenser and rattly vacuum pump] 534 00:41:14,356 --> 00:41:19,868 You’re gonna want this thing in a garage or a basement, and unless you’ve got one of those basement kitchens, 535 00:41:19,868 --> 00:41:25,446 that’s going to be annoying when it comes to the prep required to actually use the freeze dryer. 536 00:41:25,446 --> 00:41:30,363 Nextly, this process is extremely energy-intensive. 537 00:41:30,363 --> 00:41:35,184 Over a cycle the machine uses about 16 kilowatt hours. 538 00:41:35,184 --> 00:41:43,250 It varies a bit depending on what exactly you’re freeze drying but it’s been pretty close to 16 every run that I’ve tested. 539 00:41:43,250 --> 00:41:47,449 That’s about $2 worth of electricity for every cycle, 540 00:41:47,449 --> 00:41:54,371 and that same quantity of energy will power my car for three rounds trips of my commute. 541 00:41:54,371 --> 00:42:00,219 I do have a somewhat short commute (it’s about 20 miles round trip) but quite literally if I used this thing every day 542 00:42:00,219 --> 00:42:05,563 it would be using three times as much energy as my car does (during the summer months, anyway) 543 00:42:05,563 --> 00:42:08,318 and it would cost about $60 a month. 544 00:42:08,318 --> 00:42:09,644 Yikes! 545 00:42:09,644 --> 00:42:12,020 And if you’d like me to make a different comparison, 546 00:42:12,020 --> 00:42:17,351 a typical 7 cubic foot chest freezer needs just about 650 watt-hours per day, 547 00:42:17,351 --> 00:42:24,017 meaning one freeze dry cycle uses as much energy as a freezer does over 25 days. 548 00:42:24,017 --> 00:42:28,722 And to really drive this point home, this is the second-smallest unit Harvest Right sells 549 00:42:28,722 --> 00:42:32,712 and the larger machines have a NEMA 5-20 plug on them. 550 00:42:32,712 --> 00:42:38,775 That's the one with the sideways blade which will only fit into outlets like this on a 20 amp circuit. 551 00:42:38,775 --> 00:42:45,604 These things just need a stupid amount of power to run all those heaters in addition to the compressor and vacuum pump. 552 00:42:45,604 --> 00:42:50,214 Oh, and speaking of the vacuum pump, that thing needs maintenance! 553 00:42:50,214 --> 00:42:55,774 It has oil in it, and every 20 cycles the oil needs to be drained and filtered. 554 00:42:55,774 --> 00:43:00,289 Luckily they included an oil filtration system with the freeze dryer. 555 00:43:00,289 --> 00:43:02,268 And what is that, you ask? 556 00:43:02,268 --> 00:43:04,715 It’s a Brita pitcher. 557 00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:07,849 It’s literally an off-brand Brita pitcher. 558 00:43:07,849 --> 00:43:10,815 Honestly this made me laugh out loud when I saw it. 559 00:43:10,815 --> 00:43:14,932 The machine will prompt you to do that maintenance when required, 560 00:43:14,932 --> 00:43:20,361 and this company does sell an oil-free vacuum pump which does not need this maintenance 561 00:43:20,361 --> 00:43:23,626 but that’s a $1,500 upcharge. 562 00:43:23,626 --> 00:43:24,998 Yeah. 563 00:43:24,998 --> 00:43:27,622 And what about the time part? 564 00:43:27,622 --> 00:43:33,875 In case you haven’t noticed, you can’t actually freeze dry all that much food at one time. 565 00:43:33,875 --> 00:43:40,048 This company’s website claims  the machine can process 10 to 15 pounds of fresh food per batch. 566 00:43:40,048 --> 00:43:42,795 Which, to be honest, I don’t doubt at all! 567 00:43:42,795 --> 00:43:46,259 But you’re only gonna be able to do one batch per day 568 00:43:46,259 --> 00:43:54,318 and while the machine itself is mostly set-and-forget,  the prep work absolutely is not. 569 00:43:54,318 --> 00:43:55,656 It’s a chore. 570 00:43:55,656 --> 00:44:00,103 And since the trays are gonna be in the machine for the next 16 to 24 hours, 571 00:44:00,103 --> 00:44:05,682 you can’t prep the next batch unless you buy a second set of trays. 572 00:44:05,682 --> 00:44:14,602 Which I did - because even just playing with this thing for the purpose of this video was tedious enough to make a second set of trays worth having. 573 00:44:14,602 --> 00:44:24,441 And by the way, you can’t start your next batch for two hours because you need to let the machine run its tray heaters to defrost the insides and get rid of all that ice. 574 00:44:24,441 --> 00:44:25,879 It’s a lot of work! 575 00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:30,083 But then! You’re not even done when the machine is done! 576 00:44:30,083 --> 00:44:35,110 You have to package everything you just freeze dried if you actually want it to stay preserved, 577 00:44:35,110 --> 00:44:43,310 and that’s more work and time you’re gonna have to spend plus more money on whatever sort of packaging solution you want to go with. 578 00:44:43,310 --> 00:44:50,817 And of course, the company will happily sell you packaging  supplies from mylar bags to oxygen absorbing packets. 579 00:44:50,817 --> 00:44:55,507 Though to be honest their pricing is quite reasonable so I’m not actually mad about that. 580 00:44:55,507 --> 00:45:03,616 I’m just saying if you actually intend to preserve lots of food with one of these, understand what you’re signing yourself up for! 581 00:45:03,616 --> 00:45:07,468 It’s a lot of work and a huge time commitment. 582 00:45:07,468 --> 00:45:11,951 And that’s before you even consider where you’re going to put all this food! 583 00:45:11,951 --> 00:45:17,613 I do not have the pantry space for the end result of a year’s worth of freeze drying. 584 00:45:17,613 --> 00:45:24,532 And to drive the absurdity point home, let’s just compare this freeze dryer with a conventional freezer. 585 00:45:24,532 --> 00:45:27,895 It’s not a perfect comparison and I know that - 586 00:45:27,895 --> 00:45:37,371 for one thing not all food is suitable for storage in a freezer and while they can technically store food indefinitely freezer burn does damage stuff with time. 587 00:45:37,371 --> 00:45:44,633 But for the sake of argument let’s just say you had $2,800 to spend on food preservation stuff. 588 00:45:44,633 --> 00:45:47,804 You could buy this. 589 00:45:47,804 --> 00:45:53,486 Or, well, remember that basic 7 cubic foot chest freezer I mentioned earlier? 590 00:45:53,486 --> 00:45:55,684 Those cost about $200. 591 00:45:55,684 --> 00:46:04,974 They’re commodity items and you can get them for about that price from many different retailers and that size usually has the smallest dollar cost per cubic foot. 592 00:46:04,974 --> 00:46:09,211 So let’s just say we’ll get, eh, 10 of those. 593 00:46:09,211 --> 00:46:15,907 If you’re thinking you’re gonna be freeze drying food all year you definitely have some sort of bunker which can fit 10 chest freezers 594 00:46:15,907 --> 00:46:19,118 so let’s not dwell too much on where you’re gonna put all them. 595 00:46:19,118 --> 00:46:22,995 Plus you could build some shelves and stack them. 596 00:46:22,995 --> 00:46:24,352 Probably. 597 00:46:24,352 --> 00:46:32,319 Actually you could definitely just stack a few on top of each other if you know for sure you don’t need to get to anything in the bottom ones until 2028. 598 00:46:32,319 --> 00:46:38,382 Anyway, congratulations, now you’ve got 70 cubic feet of frozen food storage. 599 00:46:38,382 --> 00:46:40,409 But wait! You say. 600 00:46:40,409 --> 00:46:44,976 Freezers need electricity to function, so what if the power goes out? 601 00:46:44,976 --> 00:46:52,152 Well, lucky for you, you still have $800 left over to buy yourself a portable generator. 602 00:46:52,152 --> 00:46:55,594 You can run to your local harbor freight and pick up one of these bad boys, 603 00:46:55,594 --> 00:47:01,694 and you’ll still have some pocket money left for a gas can, a few gallons of gas, extension cords and power strips. 604 00:47:01,694 --> 00:47:08,327 And it will absolutely take care of all those chest freezers - those things only use about 80 watts when they’re running, 605 00:47:08,327 --> 00:47:14,837 so as long as they don’t all start at the exact same time and overwhelm the generator with their required starting current, 606 00:47:14,837 --> 00:47:22,439 you’re gonna have plenty of power available for all of them plus your kitchen fridge and some lights and the TV and whatever else. 607 00:47:22,439 --> 00:47:29,521 I have lived through extended power outages off a smaller generator than this so I do actually know what I’m talking about, here. 608 00:47:29,521 --> 00:47:33,847 And if I were a gambling man, I think it’s a pretty solid bet to assume 609 00:47:33,847 --> 00:47:40,206 that anyone actually looking at one of these freeze dryers to use unironically as a means to build up long-term food storage 610 00:47:40,206 --> 00:47:42,554 already has a generator. 611 00:47:42,554 --> 00:47:49,360 Again, I know the comparison to a freezer is not entirely perfect but another thing to consider about them is that... 612 00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:52,353 you just put stuff in them and that’s it. 613 00:47:52,793 --> 00:47:54,371 You’re done. 614 00:47:54,371 --> 00:48:00,605 If you’re, like, doing your own butchering and packaging then  sure, there is more than zero prep and packaging cost 615 00:48:00,605 --> 00:48:08,556 but I can all but guarantee you will be spending much, much less timestocking 10 freezers, 616 00:48:08,556 --> 00:48:16,366 especially since you don’t need to thinly slice everything to make sure it doesn’t stick up above the edges of these trays. 617 00:48:16,366 --> 00:48:19,927 Now I don’t want to sound too negative - 618 00:48:19,927 --> 00:48:25,066 this freeze dryer is truly a fine product which I would recommend 619 00:48:25,066 --> 00:48:30,302 were it not for the rather huge fact that the math just isn’t mathing. 620 00:48:30,302 --> 00:48:34,923 If your brain allows you to think it does, by all means have at it. 621 00:48:34,923 --> 00:48:40,384 But if you’ve watched this video and still think a freeze dryer is something you need in your life 622 00:48:40,384 --> 00:48:42,865 our brains work real differnt. 623 00:48:42,865 --> 00:48:48,869 I think that if somebody were to make a really small freeze dryer which only cost a few hundred bucks 624 00:48:48,869 --> 00:48:54,039 it would be easy for me to say “sure, play around with a freeze dryer, some foods are fun to freeze dry” 625 00:48:54,559 --> 00:49:01,808 but the market right now is basically just variations on this machine and the pricing is fairly uniform. 626 00:49:01,808 --> 00:49:06,660 Which makes sense, this really is lab equipment and not really a kitchen appliance. 627 00:49:06,660 --> 00:49:12,452 And honestly, that’s really what makes me so uncomfortable about this whole thing. 628 00:49:12,452 --> 00:49:18,245 They’re being sold now as if they are the next air fryer and, like, no. 629 00:49:18,245 --> 00:49:19,721 You don’t need this. 630 00:49:19,721 --> 00:49:28,031 It’s going to be a massive commitment and unless you’ve got a lot of disposable income and time, I truly think this is not a smart purchase. 631 00:49:28,031 --> 00:49:38,037 Having said that, the last things I’ll touch on before I wrap this video up are the little annoyances with this particular machine and the process more generally. 632 00:49:38,037 --> 00:49:43,803 For any freeze dryer, the seal of the vacuum chamber door is very important. 633 00:49:43,803 --> 00:49:51,433 It doesn’t need to be exactly perfect - once the vacuum pump kicks on the atmosphere does a fine job of holding that door in place. 634 00:49:51,433 --> 00:49:58,649 But the seal needs to be good enough for the vacuum pump to overcome whatever air might leak past when it starts up, 635 00:49:58,649 --> 00:50:08,032 and on this machine, the door latch and hinge design is not  that great for making sure the seal stays flat. 636 00:50:08,032 --> 00:50:12,282 It has three attachment points which effectively means it’s a tripod, 637 00:50:12,282 --> 00:50:18,195 but should you need to make any adjustment you’ll soon discover that only two of them are adjustable. 638 00:50:18,195 --> 00:50:26,206 The latch isn’t adjustable at all, at least not without bending anything,  and it doesn’t really form a very tight seal. 639 00:50:26,206 --> 00:50:28,531 And while you can adjust the hinges, 640 00:50:28,531 --> 00:50:36,519 they have a design which allows the door to move inward somewhat - which makes sense, that’s going to happen when the vacuum pump switches on. 641 00:50:36,519 --> 00:50:40,033 But it makes adjusting them a nightmare. 642 00:50:40,033 --> 00:50:43,609 Out of the box, this thing didn’t need any adjustment. 643 00:50:43,609 --> 00:50:50,319 But on that first cycle, it was fairly warm out in the warehouse and I had not pre-frozen anything, 644 00:50:50,319 --> 00:50:55,426 so it ran for more than 6 hours just freezing the food I had put inside. 645 00:50:55,426 --> 00:51:03,259 In that time, combined with the warm room, ice was beginning to form behind the rubber seal outside of the vacuum chamber 646 00:51:03,259 --> 00:51:08,737 which started pushing the seal forward and making the  contact points with the door uneven. 647 00:51:08,737 --> 00:51:14,961 So I started fiddling with the hinges and that’s when  I discovered how nightmarish this adjustment is. 648 00:51:14,961 --> 00:51:25,143 I truthfully don’t know what’s the bigger issue here - the fact that some ice forms on the outside the vacuum chamber and deforms the seal, or the weird hinges. 649 00:51:25,143 --> 00:51:30,917 I have found that always pre-freezing the trays mostly eliminates the icing problem - 650 00:51:30,917 --> 00:51:36,626 if they’re at freezer temps when you load them in, the machine only spends about 2 hours before it switches on the vacuum pump. 651 00:51:36,626 --> 00:51:43,773 And once it starts the vacuum pump, so long as the seal is good, the hinges and latch don’t even matter anymore. 652 00:51:43,773 --> 00:51:50,711 But I’m also shoving a piece of cardboard under  the latch every time I start it to make sure the seal is tight 653 00:51:50,711 --> 00:51:55,627 and I really don’t feel like I should have to do that with such an expensive machine. 654 00:51:55,627 --> 00:51:58,542 The other problem is a little more serious. 655 00:51:58,542 --> 00:52:04,376 I cannot for the life of me figure out how it determines that the cycle is complete. 656 00:52:04,376 --> 00:52:11,815 Once it moves to the drying step, the most useless progress bar I have ever encountered shows up on the screen. 657 00:52:11,815 --> 00:52:14,547 That bar will move in completely unpredictable ways. 658 00:52:14,547 --> 00:52:22,245 Sometimes it only fills up about a third of the way and then the machine decides “I’m done!” and now you’re in extra dry time. 659 00:52:22,245 --> 00:52:26,292 And other times it seems to fill up pretty normally, but then get stuck at the end. 660 00:52:26,292 --> 00:52:28,564 Like a Windows machine. 661 00:52:28,564 --> 00:52:36,105 I had presumed that the machine is probably monitoring the vacuum pressure as it turns the heaters on and off. 662 00:52:36,105 --> 00:52:43,257 My intuition was that each time the heaters switch on, the vacuum pressure goes up slightly because more water is sublimating, 663 00:52:43,257 --> 00:52:50,502 so it’s just looking for those little spikes to stop happening because when all the water’s gone, that won’t happen any more. 664 00:52:50,502 --> 00:52:56,426 But after several time lapse sessions with the gopros, it’s clear it’s not doing that. 665 00:52:56,426 --> 00:52:59,176 But what it is doing ain’t any clearer. 666 00:52:59,176 --> 00:53:07,463 On this batch, it was barely into the fifth hour of the whole cycle when it suddenly decided “Extra Dry Time! I’m done!” 667 00:53:07,463 --> 00:53:13,154 and, uh, when I saw that I literally said to it “no you are not.” 668 00:53:13,154 --> 00:53:21,457 Luckily you’re able to just bump up the extra dry time, which I did until it got to like 17 hours because I knew there was no stinking way that batch, 669 00:53:21,457 --> 00:53:26,368 which had a lot of watermelon in there, was anywhere near complete. 670 00:53:26,368 --> 00:53:33,078 This was also the batch with the tangerines and mandarins and you could tell just by looking at them that they were still bubbling. 671 00:53:33,078 --> 00:53:41,493 And the fact that the vacuum gauge was reading in the 400s when it thought it was done when on other cycles it was in the 100s when that happened 672 00:53:41,493 --> 00:53:46,664 means I have absolutely no idea what algorithm in there is running. 673 00:53:46,664 --> 00:53:53,470 I mean, on this cycle I was literally just freeze drying four trays of ice with one tray of Jell-O, 674 00:53:53,470 --> 00:53:59,358 and all the ice had completely disappeared and yet it still thought it’s not done. 675 00:53:59,358 --> 00:54:02,074 I just have no idea what it’s looking for. 676 00:54:02,074 --> 00:54:06,340 Ah, however - I must actually give it a little credit there. 677 00:54:06,340 --> 00:54:11,405 I ended this session manually because I was sick and tired of waiting for it and I wanted to go home, 678 00:54:11,405 --> 00:54:16,321 and when I removed the trays I ate a few of the Jell-O pieces. 679 00:54:16,321 --> 00:54:24,556 Freeze dried strawberry Jell-O has a crunch and taste which is shockingly similar to the Crunchberries in Cap’n Crunch cereal, 680 00:54:24,556 --> 00:54:29,180 but sadly after a few seconds the gelatin flavor comes through and ruins it. 681 00:54:29,180 --> 00:54:34,868 But anyway, some of those Jell-O pieces still had a bit of ice in the center. 682 00:54:34,868 --> 00:54:39,059 So the machine was actually right - the process was not complete. 683 00:54:39,059 --> 00:54:44,457 But it also revealed how inconsistent the process itself is. 684 00:54:44,457 --> 00:54:51,530 All of the ice cubes had completely disappeared, but the freeze-dried Jell-O apparently functioned something like aerogel 685 00:54:51,530 --> 00:54:58,084 and made an insulating layer which prevented the heaters from actually heating the center of each piece. 686 00:54:58,084 --> 00:55:06,352 I chomped on one right as I took it out and the center was  still ice cold despite the tray itself being hot. 687 00:55:06,352 --> 00:55:14,992 I find this really interesting but also a little concerning when it comes to the actual safety of the food you freeze dry. 688 00:55:14,992 --> 00:55:18,843 In fact, that whole part of this process just gives me the heebie jeebies. 689 00:55:18,843 --> 00:55:26,242 I would make sure to sample everything which I  had run through the freeze dryer to make sure it was actually thoroughly dry 690 00:55:26,242 --> 00:55:29,540 before I moved on to packaging it for long-term storage. 691 00:55:29,540 --> 00:55:32,566 I just can’t trust the machine’s judgment. 692 00:55:32,566 --> 00:55:43,321 The manufacturer clearly wants this to be a one-button set-and-forget experience - the documentation this came with is really light on details 693 00:55:43,321 --> 00:55:47,713 and I would call this a quick start guide, not an owner’s manual. 694 00:55:47,713 --> 00:55:56,439 And all it says is the machine “is measuring the removal and moisture and knows when the process is complete.” 695 00:55:56,439 --> 00:56:04,056 But I’m pretty sure a one-button experience just isn’t a reasonable expectation for this sort of machine. 696 00:56:04,056 --> 00:56:05,926 And they know that. 697 00:56:05,926 --> 00:56:10,372 They, too, suggest checking everything to be sure it’s dry and, 698 00:56:10,372 --> 00:56:17,780 for what it’s worth, you are able to put the food back in the  machine and resume the process if it’s not done. 699 00:56:17,780 --> 00:56:23,047 There is a USB input on the side so  presumably the software could be updated; 700 00:56:23,047 --> 00:56:32,016 this is apparently running version 5.4, and I will leave open the possibility that something is actually wrong with thisparticular unit. 701 00:56:32,016 --> 00:56:38,134 But I have a theory as to what’s going on and I think it’s an unsolvable problem. 702 00:56:38,134 --> 00:56:46,387 Both the manual and demonstrations of this product on their website imply that mixing products in here is fine to do. 703 00:56:46,387 --> 00:56:50,223 But… I’m a little skeptical of that. 704 00:56:50,223 --> 00:56:56,483 I have not removed the rack structure because  it would involve messing with seal which I really don’t want to do, 705 00:56:56,483 --> 00:57:04,852 so I can’t say this with certainty but I believe thee two rivets here are holding the temperature sensor for the tray rack. 706 00:57:04,852 --> 00:57:11,969 And that means it’s influenced by what is on those trays and which order you loaded them in. 707 00:57:11,969 --> 00:57:24,392 If you put trays with more stuff and/or more wet stuff on them farther from that sensor, it may think it’s done early because a lighter, drier tray was closer to it. 708 00:57:24,392 --> 00:57:34,864 I definitely know from all my testing that if the overall mass of the food on each tray varies a lot from tray to tray, the machine is more likely to be confused. 709 00:57:34,864 --> 00:57:38,998 It may end too early or it may go on a lot longer than it needs to. 710 00:57:38,998 --> 00:57:46,659 And what’s most interesting about that, to me, is that this isn’t explained at all in the machine’s owners manual. 711 00:57:46,659 --> 00:57:51,861 But truly, I don’t want to sound too hard on this product or this company. 712 00:57:51,861 --> 00:58:03,157 I actually quite like it, and so long as you’re aware of the fact that it may end the cycle  too early and you’re on the lookout for that, it’s truly a fine machine. 713 00:58:03,157 --> 00:58:11,114 And while it was hideously expensive, for what it is I think its price is actually reasonable. 714 00:58:11,114 --> 00:58:15,351 What I don't think is reasonable, though, at least in my opinion, 715 00:58:15,351 --> 00:58:18,474 is ordinary people having one of these in their home. 716 00:58:18,474 --> 00:58:23,839 It’s either a very expensive toy which you’ll probably get sick of using before too long or, 717 00:58:23,839 --> 00:58:28,545 if you seriously think this is worth having for nearly indefinite food storage, 718 00:58:28,545 --> 00:58:34,150 understand the many commitments you will  be making before you pull the trigger. 719 00:58:34,150 --> 00:58:38,170 I’ll wrap up now, but let me reiterate the commitment thing. 720 00:58:38,170 --> 00:58:45,620 You are signing up for hours and hours of tedious work to use this thing as an actual food storage tool. 721 00:58:46,220 --> 00:58:49,313 And, at the risk of getting a little spicy, 722 00:58:49,313 --> 00:58:53,991 if your spouse is trying to convince  you this is a great purchase… 723 00:58:53,991 --> 00:58:57,895 make sure they’re willing to help put in the work. 724 00:58:57,895 --> 00:59:06,041 I'm already quite confident that I would resent a partner who bought this for me and presumed I would have a fun time using it every day. 725 00:59:06,041 --> 00:59:07,370 But that’s just me. 726 00:59:07,370 --> 00:59:08,491 Thanks for watching! 727 00:59:09,251 --> 00:59:12,043 ♫ cryodesiccatedly smooth jazz ♫ 728 00:59:14,082 --> 00:59:18,125 Unless you’re big into the p(r)epper community, ya might regret. 729 00:59:18,125 --> 00:59:19,729 I said “pepper!” 730 00:59:19,729 --> 00:59:23,235 …of fats and oils can turn some foods rancid. 731 00:59:23,235 --> 00:59:26,047 And then there’s oxygen in our-- oh mck fffh. 732 00:59:26,047 --> 00:59:28,236 And SINCE there’s oxygen in our atmosphere. 733 00:59:28,236 --> 00:59:29,923 Water is wet. 734 00:59:29,923 --> 00:59:32,255 Or does it make things we - are we settled on that? Anyway, 735 00:59:32,255 --> 00:59:34,155 forovplbbbh. 736 00:59:34,155 --> 00:59:39,584 …vibrating more vigorously which speeds up the p pp p pb g p p 737 00:59:39,584 --> 00:59:40,617 [snorts] 738 00:59:40,617 --> 00:59:43,528 And I made it by using two freeze dryer frays… 739 00:59:45,727 --> 00:59:47,030 now we’re galling apart. 740 00:59:47,030 --> 00:59:48,691 [crunch] 741 00:59:48,691 --> 00:59:50,313 Has a nice crunch. 742 00:59:50,313 --> 00:59:54,382 [talking with mouth full] Gummy candies tend to really explode in size. 743 00:59:54,382 --> 00:59:57,196 These … I can’t continue that take, huh? 744 00:59:58,436 --> 01:00:00,651 So... does this make me an anti-influencer? 745 01:00:00,651 --> 01:00:05,190 I mean, it's not like I don't think the thing is cool it's just freaking nuts how they're starting to creep into the mainstream conversation. 746 01:00:05,190 --> 01:00:07,476 I mean... in my opinion. 747 01:00:07,476 --> 01:00:10,153 But it's a very informed opinion. 748 01:00:10,153 --> 01:00:12,699 Anyway, now to freeze dry those refried beans. 749 01:00:12,699 --> 01:00:14,520 And please vote.