Freeze Drying Lemon & Lime Slices

Freeze drying lemon & lime slices. 30 hours dry time.
This is part of our Freeze Drying The Alphabet from A to Z series.
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Before buying a freeze dryer, perhaps research to find out more about the downside of the machine; some people have problems with their machine and it's big and heavy and hard to return!
When trying to decide what to freeze dry you can start by asking why.
Start by asking yourself this question. Why are you freeze drying food? Knowing this should help you decide what you should freeze dry first.
I'm freeze drying because:
Just to freeze dry leftovers?
You want to make your own food for camping/backpacking?
For if/when the SHTF?
For a short term emergency?
You have your own garden and want to freeze dry the food?
You love Costco but don't have a family of 6?
You are good at finding the food sales but only have 1 freezer?
When you cook homemade chili just for yourself you make 10 gallons? Because you have 3 full freezers and are worried about power outages?
If I knew then what I know now, I would have freeze dried things in a different order. Or maybe not, because I started freeze drying because we had 3 full freezers, I was thinking of getting another one, and I decided I should buy a walk-in freezer instead. I started looking into walk-ins and realized they were expensive to buy (even used ones) AND expensive to own and operate. Then I found out Harvest Right was making home sized freeze dryers. One of my first thoughts was "I like Mountain House!" I have used their food for backpacking almost 45 years and we even kept some in our travel trailer, for just in case.
Freeze dried food will stay fresh for many years and be ready and waiting when you need it.
We do videos showing how we are using our Harvest Right Freeze Dryer to freeze dry food for long term storage. (We have the medium size machine that we got in August of 2017) We talk about how to load and unload the freeze dryer, how to know if the food is dry, is it better to freeze dry raw food or cooked food, and do a few taste tests. Freeze dried food is also great for prepping or just for camping and snacking!
Music: Night Snow by Asher Fulero

[@noplacelikehome9116]

My mouth is watering watching you test the finished product. lol Thanks for sharing the alternate cutting results!

[@mimiashford5544]

LOVE how you get RIGHT into what you're doing instead of a lot pre-talk... VERY helpful and something I've been considering since we use so much citrus but was thinking freeze drying might make them lose all their flavor. Now I'm going to be doing a big batch of my own based on your video. THANK YOU!

[@SchoolReports]

Great! Just keep in mind that citrus seems to take a long time to REALLY get all the way dry, probably because of the cellular structure.

[@papasmurf9146]

Nice experiment with the cut direction.

[@avibhatt2013]

Thank you, good idea to try cutting them different ways!

[@jerrysmith372]

Good to know - thanks Dan. I have going, 20 pounds of potato's (Before pealing) I diced and blanched - so far it's been 26 hours. (large dryer) I expect it to be at least 48 hours total. I plan 1 and 1/2 gallon of lean sausage gravy for the next batch. (home made) I have to have my biscuits and gravy during SHTF.

[@vincentwhitehead]

Homemade all natural candy!

[@anthonykenny2631]

Thank you very much!

[@kathybray7156]

Very clever

[@michellevogelsang3746]

This was beautiful, sir. Thank you

[@SchoolReports]

Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@russrasmussen9514]

Looks good I'm getting ready to do lemons I'm going to leave the peel on good stuff in the peeling

[@fielddesign]

Thank You so much for the time you took to explain some of this to me. While I understand what you said the differences are in the many variables there are. It would give us a guide on how to set up our equipment. You do a great job in showing us how to prepare the product but I believe many viewers question if they are sitting up the freeze dryer correctly. I started to look at all your videos, there is value in all of them. If you do find time to put a list like that together I would love to be on the mailing list or I'll be watching for it on KZbin. One of my big questions is if a batch comes out cold or wet how much more time do you put it in for. I guess what I'm looking for is a "guide" and haven't found one yet. I understand the MANY variables. Thanks again and Merry Christmas.

[@SchoolReports]

I'll work on some kind of list. Procrastination is what I do best. If a batch comes out with any moisture (hasn't happened in a long time for my batches) the way I figure out how much more time to give it is, I guess. The food should never be wet; it should be dry or ice. I look at how much ice is in the middle of the food item, look at how much final dry time it's already had and guess how much more it will need, and then give it another hour or two. Example: stew dried with a final dry time of 10 hours and there is 1mm thick ice in the middle of just one piece on one tray, I'd probably give it another 3 hours and then recheck. #1 Don't overload the machine. I would try to keep the medium machine to a maximum of 6 or 7 pounds of water per batch. (I have done 11 lbs. It took a long time and I won't do that again) #2 Don't make the food on the trays too thick (height not viscosity) If you do, you may have to run the batch twice. (throw sister under the bus here) #3 When in doubt, add extra final dry time.

[@lauradougherty887]

Have you ever tried making marmalade from the citrus peels and juice after rehydrating? Just curious. I'm thinking it may have the flavor but not the chunks.

[@SchoolReports]

I've never made marmalade. In the past I have made many hundreds of jars of jam, but not marmalade. I would think (after looking up the recipe) that marmalade would work from freeze dried components, and the chunk-ness could be anything desired by making sure to freeze dry those sizes. I may have to try making marmalade.

[@TearDrop455]

Also, how long do the lemons and limes take in freeze dryer. Thanks

[@SchoolReports]

Sorry, I don't have a good answer for you. I've considered telling people, when asked "how long did that batch take?" that it takes 32 hours. (maybe 24 if they have the new machine?) And then explain that if you adjust the conditions just right, that every batch COULD be run in 32 hours. Otherwise it's kind of like asking how long does it take to go from point A to point B. The only good answer is: That depends... Citrus takes longer to freeze dry than some other items because of the cellular structure; juice vesicles and membranes. It will need extra time in the freeze dryer.

[@bc24roxy4]

Curious as to how the zest turned out? Figured it has lots of oil. I just got a large bag if lemons from neighbor and was thinking I'd freeze dry them rather than just put in freezer Thanks for the video

[@SchoolReports]

I thought they lost a lot of the zesty goodness, but they were okay. Might have to use double amount in a recipe. I might try drying at a lower tray temperature next time and see if that helps. Overall, storing in the freezer may be a better choice if I have space. Zest doesn't that a lot of space.

[@ghermansizer]

What do you use your freeze dried lemon & limes for & your favorite use for them? I've freeze dried oranges that we eat like chips. With the peel still on too.

[@SchoolReports]

We have used them crushed and in drinks and recipes calling for lemon or lime. Mostly I did these because I needed "L" for my "Freeze Drying The Alphabet."

[@fielddesign]

Like your videos, thanks for the time you put into this, could you note freeze, dry and total time it would help us newbes feel better if we at least knew we were on the right track ✨🎄God Bless

[@SchoolReports]

Sorry in advance because this is probably way more than you wanted, and at the same time, not at all what you wanted. In general, mini marshmallows and shredded hash brown potatoes are fast and pineapple and citrus are slow. I'll try to make a list of relative dry times, from fast to slow. It might be worth the time to note the freeze time and the final dry times I use for a batch and I can try to add that to the videos. I don't worry about the total times anymore because I don't find it useful; the freeze time and final dry times depend mostly on food type. I set the freeze time and final dry times for every batch, depending on the food type, using the custom cycle menu. The main dry cycle is automatic, with the exception of being able to skip to the end of it. (it is 30 hours, and it auto skips when it thinks it's dry enough) Even if I load the freeze dryer the same way, with the same amount of the same food, for two consecutive batches, the total time can still be a few hours different. All I can do is generalize about total freeze dry time because there are so many variables to the dry times; type of food, water content, sugar content, temperature of the food, ambient temperature, how much food in a batch, more than one kind of food in a batch, food volume, how tight it's packed, thickness on the tray, how well it contacts the tray, how porous the food is, how the food was sliced (this made a huge difference with citrus and pineapple), how clean the vacuum oil is ( if it's an oil pump), and I'm sure there are more.

[@AddictOfLearning]

@@SchoolReports great info and definitely makes sense. Have you come across issues with "over" drying or is that not possible?

[@SchoolReports]

​@@AddictOfLearning I haven't experienced anything I could see as over drying. But I don't know what to look for and I'm not sure if it's possible without ridiculous times. The temperatures are low and it's a near vacuum so I don't think heat or oxygen should be problems.

[@AddictOfLearning]

@@SchoolReports Good to know. Thanks for the reply

[@user-sy7ck3ln6o]

Can you make this saveable so I can save to my playlist? TIA

[@SchoolReports]

Sorry, I have no idea what is meant by this. As far as I know that's not a thing I have control over. I had someone else ask almost the same thing 2 weeks ago, I didn't do anything but by the next day they said they were able to save it. - It must be a KZbin thing.

[@debbiedesigns]

My lemons are colored as I expected, but most of my lime slices turned brown. Any idea what would cause that? Thank you for the wealth of knowledge that you share!

[@SchoolReports]

Did they turn brown during the freeze drying?

[@debbiedesigns]

Yes@@SchoolReports

[@SchoolReports]

I need to do limes again! I haven't had that happen yet. One thing you could try would be to prefreeze them and precool the freeze dry. (if you didn't already do that and this seems unlikely to be the issue) You could also try lowering the tray temperature a bit, maybe 110ºf (or lower) It will take longer to dry at the lower temperatures. The only other thing I can think of right now (currently my #1 guess) is that it might have been something to do with the ripeness of the limes - over or under. I just don't know because, fortunately I haven't seen this yet. 🤣 I have to apologize for many of my older videos. Even I hate to look at them! They may be okay if you already know about freeze drying. In my focus to keep them very short, most of my older, shorter videos are almost devoid of information! I tried hard to keep the videos down to less then 10, no matter what I had to cut out!

[@debbiedesigns]

@@SchoolReports I did pre-freeze, so maybe the ripeness then. You have NOTHING to apologize for on your videos; you are doing a great service and giving people confidence to embark on this adventure. I appreciate the no-nonsense, information-filled approach. I check out a couple of other channels too, but yours is my go-to. Much appreciated!

[@SchoolReports]

@@debbiedesigns Thanks. Good to hear you pre-froze them. To me that leaves my #1 guess, something about the ripeness, and/or the tray temperature during drying. I think the default temp on the newer machine is 125ºf and maybe that's just to high for the limes you had. No matter what though, keep in mind the foods like citrus, blackberries, blueberries, etc, foods that have these little juice bags (drupelets in blackberries or juice vesicles in oranges) will require more freeze drying time and very careful checking and attention to detail to make sure they are very, very dry.

[@TearDrop455]

What is that handy tool to remove the rind?

[@SchoolReports]

We have two different peelers, one from Tupperware and one from Pampered Chef. Both of them are from maybe 20 tor 30 years ago. (or older) I found ones that look like them and put links to them in the description.

[@anthonyw5188]

Thanks for sharing. I'd think the lemons and limes would also work well as a base for a drink mix if you powdered them up. Currently we are wrestling with our tomato harvest. To date we haven't found a good way to reconstitute them, so we are just powdering everything we freeze dry. Any chance you've got a tomato rehydration video in the wings?

[@SchoolReports]

Most of the fresh tomatoes that we've freeze dried from our garden, we've made into sauce before drying. Sauce rehydrates great, slices don't. We've always made many gallons of sauce by cooking it down until it's very, very thick, so it was an obvious next step to just keep doing that then freeze drying it. Now, on to slices of tomatoes. We have freeze dried slices of tomatoes AND used them in sandwiches. We started with a tomato variety that is the meatiest and least watery, like a sauce tomato. For us, the key to making it work for a sandwich is to NOT rehydrate the slices; we just put the slices on the sandwich dry. The slices absorb some of the Miracle Whip but don't get soggy, while adding a great tomato flavor. (Except on my daughter's sandwich, where they absorb some of the mayonnaise. Where did we go wrong in her upbringing?)

[@anthonyw5188]

@@SchoolReports LOL! I think our issue is we planted fairly "watery" breeds of tomatoes - we'll definitely check into some other varieties and see how they rehydrate. Thanks for the reply - best regards.

[@EricBraun100]

I tried this with lemon slices cut widthwise. Even though they looked dry, the next day the slices were slightly bendable. So that means some residual moisture was still in some of the cells. I like the idea of cutting them lengthwise to cut open the cells so they dry easier. I set the dryer with 10 extra hours of dry time. I guess that wasn't enough. To be honest this machine doesn't work as well as I thought it would, although it is good still

[@SchoolReports]

Yep, the machine is stupid, it has no idea if the food is really dry. It only knows if the temperature and pressure profile meets what it has been told (in programing) means that the food is dry. For some foods it's not even close; I've had it be off by 10 or 20 hours. It doesn't bother me because I expect it. For citrus, most of the time, I've gone to just putting it through a blender instead of drying slices; much faster and it breaks the cell structure open. This is my personal guideline about dryness: 🤣 #1 Never trust the freeze dryer or a spot check moisture meter to tell you if the food is dry! Do a dry check using a scale to make sure it's dry before bagging and storing. #2 Don't overload the freeze dryer. I try to keep the medium machine to a maximum of about 8 pounds of Water Weight per batch. (I have had 11+ lbs of water. It took a long time and I won't do that again) #3 Don't make the food on the trays too thick (height, not viscosity) If you do, you may have to run the batch twice. #4 When in doubt about dryness, add extra final dry time. #5 Never trust the freeze dryer or a spot check moisture meter to tell you if the food is dry! Do a dry check using a scale to make SURE it's dry. #6 NEVER trust the freeze dryer or a spot check moisture meter to tell you if the food is dry! IT CAN'T KNOW! Do a dry check using a scale to make SURE it's ALL dry before bagging and storing. I've heard from too many people that thought their food was dry, only to check again a short time later and find out it wasn't, and now it has gone bad.

[@EricBraun100]

@@SchoolReports Ty for the tips. One thing I've done a couple times is finish off the slices (🍊 and 🍋 in my case) in my dehydrator for 1 to 2 hours. Shrinkage is not really a factor because the general shape is locked in being mostly dry. Thanks again. Happy drying!

[@SchoolReports]

@@EricBraun100 Interesting! I didn't know that dehydrators could get the moisture levels that low. I thought they only got it down to 5 or 10% moisture levels.

[@EricBraun100]

@@SchoolReports well I don't know the exact numbers on moisture %. I'm in Canada, it's winter, quite dry air. If I had to bet on it, I'd say moisture can go as low as 1% In a dehydrator. Pièces will crack and snap, not bend. It's debatable. Some slices I finished off this way we're jared and days later they still don't stick to the glass, still very crispy. In a hot humid summer, this may not give as good results.

[@robertjstrand]

Good observation!