Freeze dryer, worth spending the money?

[Jesse Jaymes]

I lingered for years. Had some extra money from selling a classic vehicle I wasn't expecting. Took the plunge and bought a Medium. We've not picked the unit up yet, but we are very excited about it.

It's a gamble....like my stock investments. Shit really goes to Hell.....and my wife and I, on our defensible hill with thousands of rounds of ammunition and years worth of food, propane back up generator, wood heat and hand pump for the well.........will have the ultimate "Told Ya So".

You'll know where our property starts when you start seeing stacks of Zombies.

And if it never happens....we will have some really cool Astronaut food to play with.

 

[MightyWhitey]

After you eat your first freeze dried mango slice it’ll all be worth it

 

[Flatlander5]

Ive been contemplating one of these for a while. The uses are endless. Our kids are 3 and 1 and the first thing I think of aside from hunting meals is snacks for them while traveling camping etc. There are videos comparing the cost of buying dried food vs paying to buy and then freeze your own. The machine offers a lot of versatility as long as it holds up...

My daughter is two and we lots of asparagus and halved cherry tomatoes, along with sliced peppers. I imagine the time, cost, and effort it takes to get a quart bag of freeze dried veggies is probably way more with your own machine, but at least you know what you’re eating. I will saw for a little sweet indulgence, freeze dried ice cream sandwiches are amazing.

 

[Ungainly]

If you are looking to stock up emergency/survivalist food or just really like the taste of your own meals at camp, it's worth looking into if you have the money

Just for lightweight food for the occasional trip, you are better off buying pre-packaged stuff or dehydrating food (lot cheaper and lasts for a while).

 

[MTPipeliner]

I have two HR freeze driers - use them for business. Both have had issues within the first few months of owning each one, one a bad pump and vacuum leak and another had computer chip problems.

One thing to factor into your cost analysis is the power they use, for us it’s about 3-4$/day per machine.

They also need a fairly cool room to run in, so if your house is warm you may need to do something to dissipate the heat. In the summer it takes noticeable extra AC to offset the additional heat.

I don’t backpack hunt, but it seems to me that in order to make it pencil out you would need to offset a lot of commercial meals and/or have access to inexpensive food from a garden to make it financially worth it. If you want to do it for allergy issues, variety, quality, etc that’s a different issue.