First Freeze Drying!

My family went berry picking Saturday morning. 

We saw rain off in the distance, but didn't take it into account for our picking plans. Oops. 

It poured right as we pulled up to the berry farm and continued for 45min. Hailed briefly too. There were plenty of ripe berries out there, but most of them were soft and we had to sort through them all. Note to self, berry pick earlier in the season. 

G and I took home about 15lbs of berries. We ate some fresh; the rest were for the freeze dryer! 

The first batch the booklet recommended was slices of bread, just to make sure the unit works correctly and to absorb the factory smells. 

It takes a long time, but it did work. I loaded the trays with halved strawberries. 

I still had berries after loading the unit, not enough for a second batch, so I dehydrated the rest. 

Both turned out great! 

To store them, I put them in glass jars and vacuum sealed the lids. The freeze dried strawberries got an oxygen absorber in their jars. I don't know if it's necessary with the vacuum sealing, so I'm doing an experiment. I put a small amount in a jam jar and vacuum sealed without an oxygen absorber; the rest have them (I didn't want to wreck our whole batch in case my prediction is wrong). 

The strawberries took over 24h to freeze dry. The booklet said you can load trays with fresh items or freeze them for 48h first, which saves a little time. I wonder how much time it actually saves. It seemed to take forever for the unit to freeze the berries and get to the actual drying stage. Our next batch is mulberries which are prefrozen.