Canning and preserving food. Includes dehydrating, freeze-drying, etc.
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).
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.
Be sure to check resale sites, community groups etc for second hand dehydrator. They can be pricey, but you may be able to get a good one second hand. I have an Excalibur 4 tray which has been excellent for our household of two people.
Unfortunately there is a big gap in what you can dehydrate vs what you can get freeze dried. Dehydration works best in inherently low fat foods, and you can't safely dehydrate a meal that has had fat added. It's important to store the food in an air tight container to protect it from moisture and (additional) oxygen.
The shelf life of dehydrated food is also much shorter. I rotate through my food each year and even that might be pushing it. You can find guidelines online, try to stick to scientific resources like agricultural programs.
My go-to (both for camping and having emergency food at home) is chilli made in the electric pressure cooker. The chili is just beans, homemade tomato sauce (no oil), spices, veggies and textured vegetable protein. I also dehydrate rice to go with it. I've also had good luck with misir wot. Basically anything with legumes cooked in a sauce, where things are cooked until they are soft and even on the mushy side will generally rehydrate pretty okay.
I also use my dehydrator to dry out tomatoes for paste instead of trying to cook out all the water on the stove. I wish I had a larger one for this task, but that's a rather infrequent use so it's not worth getting a bigger one. We also dehydrate what comes out of the tomato mill (skin, seeds, pulp) to make tomato powder.
I haven't done a 7 day trip in a while, but on my last 4 day back country trip I brought the chilli, misir wot, oats and a variety of trail mix type snacks and we weren't hurting for lack of variety.
Thanks for your suggestions!
Do you think Devanti dehydrators are also ok? I found a deal on one with stainless steel racks 10-trays.
Storing food for 1 year sounds great already, even a few months would be ok. We would probably just eat the things at home if we can't finish it on a camping trip soon enough.
Chili and that misir wot sound pretty good. I'll have a try!
Do you have a recipe for the tomato sauce you make yourself?
For oily meals, is it actually possible to just take oil/butter/fat separately and add it to the meal when you prepare it? It's kinda interesting that lots of camping meals are low on fat because it doesn't dehydrate well, but at the same time fat can actually keep long by itself and is calorie dense, so you would think it would be good for hiking.
Do you think Devanti dehydrators are also ok? I found a deal on one with stainless steel racks 10-trays.
I'm not familiar with the brand but I took a quick look and it seems like it has two of the features which were most important to me: trays you could pull out and that didn't have a hole in the centre (i.e. circular dehydrators) and temperature control.
Do you have a recipe for the tomato sauce you make yourself?
We only make it to preserve it, so it's not seasoned at all: https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/standard-tomato-sauce/
For oily meals, is it actually possible to just take oil/butter/fat separately and add it to the meal when you prepare it? It's kinda interesting that lots of camping meals are low on fat because it doesn't dehydrate well, but at the same time fat can actually keep long by itself and is calorie dense, so you would think it would be good for hiking.
Yes, you can bring oil with you to add to meals. My brother actually cooks in the back country and he brings oil to cook with. I agree fat is good for hiking - I eat plenty of nuts.
I ordered a devanti to try, seems like it's considered an ok brand.
Thanks for sharing the sauce recipe, do you add herbs/spices/salt afterwards? What things do you like to add?
How does your brother carry oil? Some kind of lightweight, sealed container?
I ordered a devanti to try, seems like it's considered an ok brand.
I hope it works well for you! Have fun!
Thanks for sharing the sauce recipe, do you add herbs/spices/salt afterwards? What things do you like to add?
Maybe the word sauce is misleading - I preserve tomatoes this way. So instead of buying cans of tomato sauce like the one below, I just use the ones we made.
It's an very basic ingredient, not something that gets used on its own if that makes sense? It is used in both the dishes I mentioned, and I use it as a base for most bean dishes. The world is your oyster for spices - the tomato sauce is just another ingredient not something that dictates what flavors should be used.
How does your brother carry oil? Some kind of lightweight, sealed container?
I think he uses those small nalgene bottles sold at outdoor supply stores.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, it counts as preservation. It's not bullet proof. I've made jerky and it lasted forever, but then next time it only lasted a week because I didn't dry it enough.
Wow, so jerky can be tricky then? Do you need higher temperatures to dry it correctly?
You need to get the water activity low enough to where disease-causing or spoilage microbes can't grow on or in the food.
Different foods have different susceptibility to different microbes, especially at different salt levels, sugar levels, fat content, even smoke. And the size and shape and underlying three dimensional structure (muscle fibers, intramuscular fat) affects drying rates, so a process for dehydrating one piece of meat may not work as well for a different piece, and it may need more time.
Start with closely following established, safe recipes and understand what you're doing first, before branching out and trying variations.