Canning & Food Preservation

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Canning and preserving food. Includes dehydrating, freeze-drying, etc.

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jimrob4@midwest.social

Does dehydrating count as preservation? Looking for options to dehydrate food for home use and hiking. (quokk.au)

submitted 3 days ago by AloneDownUnder@quokk.au to c/canning@midwest.social

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Hi all, I recently did a 7-day hike and realised how expensive it is to buy freeze-dried food.
So i'm thinking to buy/acquire a dehydrator somehow.

Anybody have experience with what brands to look for, and what kind of food to try first?

I'm planning to use it for making food that we can prepare on a hike, preferably just by adding hot water. I also want to have some stored at home as 'emergency' meals for when we are too tired to cook!

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[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Freeze drying is a space, energy, and time suck - which is why the foods are expensive (plus being a niche).

Technology Connections did an episode on them.

Up to you whether it's worth the money & time.

For home food I find simple meal prep and freezing is a better choice (the resulting food tastes better than freeze dried too).

[–] AloneDownUnder@quokk.au 2 points 3 days ago

Yeah, freeze drying is definitely out of my budget range.
That's why i'm looking into dehydrators instead.

Freezing is not really an option when I want to take it on a hiking/camping trip.
But I've seen people sometimes take a frozen steak for the first day and prepare it in the evening when it defrosted naturally in your backpack.

Not sure how safe that is, but a nice way to have something fancy on the first night, I suppose.