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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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

100%. Basically the more you dry the longer it lasts and the cooler you can dry something the less things will get damaged by heat. It why freeze drying last so long and keeps so much nutrition. Granted it helps a lot to keep it away from oxygen as well so sealed with oxygen absorbers is kinda king. Grainds are generally dry enough that the sealing and removing air is a big deal. You could keep zip locks of oatmeal in storage buckets with oxygen absorbers. If you want to have other dried things with it though its kinda good to keep it all seperate.

[–] AloneDownUnder@quokk.au 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

With oxygen absorbers, what do you mean exactly? Like desiccants? or that's for moisture, i suppose?

We generally keep things in mason jars until we need it for a hike, then just separate it into smaller, seal-able freezerbags.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 2 days ago

yeah and that will be fine. oxygen absorbers should come up with that on a we search but yeah its a bit like dessiccants. They are not needed that is just if you want something that is going to last like over a year kind of thing. It depends basically on how dried out you get whatever and then what temp they are kept and and how much oxygen they get exposed to. like the bags and jars will limit the oxygen as it won't be refreshed as much. If you want to get fancy fats basically keep moisture and oxygen at bay which is why pemmican is basically dried foods that are powerdered and mixed with fat. Its also why stuff was just straight up packed with salt or salt solutions. It draws the plain water out and in the case of salt solutions keeps oxygen away especially if it ferments and makes co2.