Dehydrating Meals for Back Country Bow Hunting (Backpacking/Hiking) 

Thank you!

Thanks Brandon. I just bought a freeze dryer and will be doing a similar video for that, along with some differences between dehydrated and freeze dried. Thank you so much for the feedback and kind words.

Thank you, Kaitlin! Let me know if you find something you like!

Thank you.

​@@MichaelMiddletonTBH please make more of these!

Thanks Timm!

Awesome! Thank you!

Great questions, Alan. Most of the recipes I modified from regular recipes for that meal. Heather's Choice makes a chower, and Chef David has a recipe online, so I borrowed the concept and added ingredients that I feel like will work. These 6x9 packets are about right for the amount of food for each meal, with enough volume to add water to heat. As for volume in the pack, food typically takes up quite a bit, especially on a week or longer hunt. I have a large pack that works well. On this trip, I don't think we'll be away from camp or vehicle for more than a night or two, so we shouldn't have any issues. Thanks for always watching and commenting, Alan!

Precooking allows it to rehydrate more quickly in the field (rather than having to use extra fuel to fully cook them.

I use a large Cabela's brand dehydrator, but any dehydrator (or even oven) will work. Of course, the more precicely you can control temps, the better. If I'm going to be storingfor longer term (primarily individual ingredients), I will typically vacuum seal. I usually put the backcountry meals together a few days (or maybe a week) ahead of my trip, so I don't usually vacuum the meal pouches (although I may seal them with a heat sealer (my wife's flat iron worked before I got an actual sealer.) Since I made this video, I've purchased a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer and now mostly make freeze dried meals instead of dehydrated.

I ordered them from Amazon (I can't find the actual link anymore). They were listed as BPA free.

We live in a pretty humid environment, so I typically store dehydrated meats (like jerky) in the freezer and they can last over a year (freezer burn is the biggest culprit here, but it normally doesn't last more than a few months before we eat it.) That said, I now have a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer that pulls more of the moisture out of other foods. Properly stored (cool, dark environment with O2 absorbers) FD foods can last 20+ years.

LOL! We actually had a chef that cooked all our meals for us, so we didn’t have to eat any of the meals I put together!

Mostly for the lean, organic protein that I know exactly where it came from and how it was handled (as opposed to buying possibly foreign beef from a store that I have no idea how it was processed.) Knowing how to hunt, process and store food is also a valuable skill to have in order to avoid food shortages and inflationary pressures that we've seen across the world (even this country) the last couple of years. From where do you get your food?

@@MichaelMiddletonTBH Not to mention directly funding wildlife conservation and preservation efforts. There are many animals who starve or perish in wildfires, droughts, etc. Hunter’s only harvest what can be culled from a population to ensure future successful generations in species. Hunters put more care, thought and money into the health and preservation of species than any other group of individuals.

@@pimpjuice1994 excellent points!

@@MichaelMiddletonTBH I buy my food from the market, same as most people. As you suggest, one can't know where it came from or how it was processed, but that's life in the modern world. Some people can grow their own food, which is obviously better, but it's also possible to buy organic food and animal products that are humanely handled. I just never understood why someone would go out and hunt animals with powerful weapons. It seems disengenuous to pack all your backpacking food you bought at the market, which you don't know how it was handled, just so you can go out and hunt animals, and rationalize it by saying you want food that you know how it was handled. C'mon. If it's really about catching your own food, like a caveman, then i don't have any problem with that, but armed with a crowwbow, you're no caveman.

@@John-eq8cu First, I don't use a crossbow. So you're ok with not knowing where your food comes from? "Organic" meat probably isn't as "humanely handled" as you may think (Don't take my word for it...look it up.) Have you ever been to a feed lot? Have you ever been to a commercial slaughter house? Did you know that the majority of beef sold in the US is raised in South America or Australia (it can even be labeled "product of the USA" since it's typically reprocessed at a facility in the US before it's sold.) Did you know that Congress exempted beef from "County of Origin" labeling requirements in 2016? Why? That said, I still buy food, including meat, from the market, as well. The majority of the meat my family eats comes from venison, wild hog, dove, duck and fish that we kill/catch, but we supplement with beef, pork, chicken, etc. from the store. I process and butcher the animals, myself. I ground, mixed and smoked 100# of venison/pork (store bought) sausage (link, pan, dried, etc.) a couple of weeks ago. We will grind additional meat for burgers, tacos, spaghetti sauce, chili, casseroles, etc., and we make plenty of stews, roasts and other culinary masterpieces! Getting back to this video, all of the ground meat in these meals was lean venison that I killed, cleaned, processed, butchered, ground and dehydrated (lean venison dehydrates better than beef.) I also took dried sausage (that I made) and venison jerky (that I dehydrated). Most of the other ingredients in the backpacking meals consisted of home dehydrated, inexpensive vegetables and canned fish from the market. I haven't been much of a gardener, but we purchased property a couple of years ago and have also started learning to supplement our vegetable consumption from our home garden. We also have free range laying hens and gather about 3-4 dozen eggs per week. I hunt, garden, raise chickens, etc, in part, to help offset the cost feeding my family, as well as to prepare for uncertain disasters and events. I'm no "doomsday prepper", but I think it's important to prepare for short term emergencies, and just as importantly, have skills and knowledge to handle longer term situations. We live on the coast, so being without power for an extended period due to hurricanes is a realistic threat. During the Texas freeze last year, we were without power for days, and it wasn't safe to travel to get groceries or food. (All of that was compounded by the fact that grocery store shelves were mostly empty due to the weather and already lingering supply chain issues from Covid 19.) Look at the news today. Inflation has already been skyrocketing for most foods. Fertilizer to grow crops and feed for livestock continues to rise, which will impact meat costs and supplies. Supply chain issues are still lingering, and will only get worse. Did you see the trucker protest in Canada the last couple of weeks? You can expect something similar here in the US soon. Russia's inevitable invasion of Ukrain WILL cause fuel prices to go up even higher, further increasing transportation costs for everything. Price increases across the board will be passed along to the consumer. I honestly don't even want to consider the impact that potential Russian cyber-warfare could have on us, even here in the US, but it's a real threat that could disrupt our "normal" way of life. I realize I'm not going to change your stance on hunting (I'm not even trying to), but I bet you'll pause to think about some of my words a few times over the next days, weeks and months as these issues continue to play out and your grocery bill continues to rise. (Hopefully, our market shelves will still remain stocked, even if higher in price.) Thank you for the discussion. Feel free to reply, but I likely won't get into a back-and-forth debate. God bless.