You’ll have to decide whether the pros outweigh the cons. For me personally, non-e of the cons outweighed the pros. The high price tag is an investment in my ability to preserve food for long periods of time for me and my family without relying on others. The noise doesn’t bother any of us and it’s like white noise.
With that said, I’m married to a woman who puts me to shame with her mechanical maintenance abilities, so after a couple of struggles with changing the oil she now has it down to an art.
Racquel Ruetz Albert was quick to respond to my inquiry about the delivery of our harvest right freeze dryer.
After it’s processed, I weigh the tray again and subtract the ending weight from the beginning weight. That tells me how much water to add for reconstitution. I like to write on the mylar bag or jar lid how much water to add so I don’t have to guess when I am ready to reconstitute the food.
•Control of the amount of time a material is held at the ultimate freeze temperature before the drying cycle is started.
The unit can also connect to and communicate the freeze dryer cycle data to a nearby PC through an ethernet cable.
Hopefully I said that in a way that makes sense! As well, does it matter which port is used as "in" and which as "out"?
After buying our freeze dryer I was naturally curious as to how it "knew" when something was done, since batch times varied so much depending on what was being processed. Watching the cycle times didn't seem to tell me anything at first -- especially without a thermometer to tell me what was happening inside -- until I finally caught on that applying heat to the frozen food affected the vacuum, which provided the measure of how dry the food had become.
A couple of other points: There are obvious and easy improvements that could be made, such as using a container with a dispensing faucet (think of a lemonade jar, for example). Also, for the technically savvy, Automóvel-mechanic-type person who may be wondering about it, there is an anti-backflow seal that has to be removed from the oil filter, but that can be removed by cutting through it and pulling it out with needle nose pliers, which is easily done.
Another emerging trend is the production of environmentally friendly and energy saving freeze dryers. Manufacturers are trying to lower the carbon footprint of their machines by introducing more energy efficient and sustainable devices.
Thirdly, I like to know what is in my food. When I process my own food, I know what is going in it. Also, I like to grow my own produce so when I freeze dry that, I know exactly where my food came from and how it was grown. Some commercially freeze dried foods contain preservatives.
You can freeze dry soy and almond milk as well as most non-dairy yogurt, sour cream, and cream cheese substitutes. This has been especially helpful in avoiding food waste, as my son is the only one who uses the non-dairy substitutes, and he rarely is able to finish them before they go bad. I just throw them in the freeze dryer for him to eat later.
The next way to save money is to watch Harvest Right's more info website for seasonal sales and promotions. Sometimes, patience pays off in the form of significant discounts.
It's hardly the most exciting GoPro video for sure, and some may think it's about as interesting as watching a tree harvest right Canada grow, but if you really want to see the Harvest Right "in action" in order to understand what's happening (not that there's much to see), this provides a "speeded-up" way to do that!