Experimenting - Tuesday

The cycle stopped before 7:00 am which meant I was able to get the trays out and samples bagged up for Hive account@stryeyz to take to work with her. I was happy to see that almost everything came out perfectly. Considering the variety of things I had in it they all came out dried save the peppers.

On the left is the greek yogurt, then tofu and beef in the middle, and the avocado and bell pepper on the right. The avocado is astounding and perfectly dried but the peppers kept some softness from the white flesh inside. Not a problem as it was more to test and see what would happen and we are just eating it sooner.

The cheddar cheese came out incredible as well and is superb to have a shelf stable form of cheese. The cream cheese came out interesting. I put it down in small spoon fulls but after the process the blops are uber crumbly and want to turn to powder.

The cream cheese looks normal but it falls to dust.

The Greek yogurt came out pretty cool. The stuff is super tangy and you can smell it through a ziplock bag. It has a kind of flaky texture to it and its tang hits quickly in the mouth.

After defrosting the machine and washing the trays I set about getting the next load ready. The first thing I cut up was the 5 tomatoes. I cut them into slices, dices, and wedges to see the difference in outcome for each.

I did not get a picture of it for some reason but the next was the pineapple. I cut it down into thinner sections and then into medium sized pieces. I filled one tray of the pineapple and am super anxious for it to come out as the stuff is super delicious freeze dried.

After the pineapple I found a head of cauliflower in the fridge and figured it was worth a shot. I cut it down into smaller pieces since it has more solidity to it than broccoli which came out super light and fluffy. I expect this to be a bit more solid and heavier once done.

We had potatoes in the pantry that I baked up Monday and had set outside to cool off. As I was tossing the pineapple peel in the chicken bucket I saw the potatoes and remembered I wanted to try them in the freeze drier. The 5 larger ones got cut into circle slices and then larger dices for the one tray.

I had the 4 smaller potatoes left and the rest of the block of cheddar. The first batch of cheese I had used a grater that ended up with smaller pieces of the cheese so instead I pulled out the regular square sided grater and did it by hand. This gave me nice fat shreds instead of thin little ones.

This cycle is going to take a while as it is 16 hours in already and not to the final dry yet.

My knee was pretty sore the past couple of days so hoping it is a bit better today. I get my bivy sack for my sleeping bag which means I will be going camping soon to give it a try. Not sure which days yet but most likely this weekend sometime.