I sent Harvest Right a note with a picture and they immediately shipped me a new display. Great Service again from the support team there! I think water had dripped down the front and the back of the unit and onto the display card shorting it out.
Removing the ice from between the chamber wall and the insulation (hopefully will never have to do this again)
I thought an easier way to see what was happening would be to make a time lapse video of an entire freeze drying cycle. As I was about to prepare some apples for freeze drying yesterday, I thought it would be a good time to do that -- so out came the GoPro.
Many times, you can still freeze dry something if you mix it in. For instance, if there’s a meal that has butter in it, it’s fine to freeze dry. It may just reduce the shelf life a little. So instead of 25 year shelf life, it might have a 10 year shelf life.
The pros and cons are easy to understand. In fact, there really is only one pro and it’s a huge one. Those who are willing to spend the time and money to freeze dry their own food should do so as long as they’re going to be committed.
For the price of a large home freeze dryer one can have 48 servings of premium freeze dried beef delivered to their home every month for a year with promo code “jdr“.
I did wonder though, since this is gravity flow and not pressure driven as on a car, if having the filter mounted horizontally might result in using only "half" the filter, as the oil would tend to travel through the low side of the filter -- although in practice, I suppose, as the filter material gets plugged it would force the fluid level higher.
The characteristic timeless design is as popular today as in the 50's. It was first developed by civil engineer Alvar Lennin.
Another reason to buy a freeze dryer instead of already freeze dried food is that you can choose to freeze dry whatever you want.
12 Posted September 16, 2015 You've given me an idea. I have the parts at the shop to use an actual filter head and a spin on filter. I could have a bracket laser cut and powder-coated that would hold the filter/head assembly horizontal which would allow it to completely drain and the outside of the filter would stay clean.
It appears that the ice build up inside the chamber sublimates as well as the ice in the food. Eliminate the ice and the process is faster, and less water ends up in your oil.
The only way I know to filter the water vapor out would be a cold trap. They usually use liquid nitrogen or dry ice to keep the temperature low enough that all the water condenses out. Obviously you would need a supply of the liquid nitrogen or dry ice that would probably not be cost effective for most of us. The other option to get that cold would be to use a cryocooler and build a cold trap around it. It could be done, but would be pretty expensive. I've been watching some electronics on ebay that have cryocoolers in them, but the cheapest I've seen is around $600. Still not a cheap option, but you wouldn't need dry ice or liquid harvest right nitrogen to feed it.
Control of the amount of time a material is held at the ultimate freeze temperature before the drying cycle is started.
The system records and maintains a log of the pressure and temperature during all parts of the freeze-dry cycle.