Thank you so much for this absolutely amazing and exciting information! I’m doing Skittles for high school football games, local fairs and for holiday gift giving. This will increase my productivity exponentially!!!
Thank you for this excellent video. We will be experimenting with some skittles for gift-giving. Your method looks like it's time-saving while still achieving the puff and the crunch most people enjoy. Well done!
should be getting my med HR in a couple of days and cant wait to compare with your results. I just checked and I'm 23 feet above sea level! Thanks for posting. Happy freeze drying
Thank you so much for sharing this information. I just tried caramel M&Ms with my Skittles and they turned out great too! Taffy works well too!!! candy corn is so-so.
I've been preheating mine in the oven. I heat the oven to 175f (the lowest it'll go) then turn the oven off and put the trays inside for 5-6 min. Then do the same procedure as you showed. I have done a large bag from walmart (3lb), filled all 5 large trays and was done in 30min. Great video! now I need to go drain my oil.
I do the same thing only a bit different. I put the trays in and turn on the tray heat (takes about 10 min.) Let it get to 150 deg and sit for about 3 min at 150 to 160 then I start the vacuum and they pop within a minute. I leave the vacuum on for around 10 min or so. I get a few more that don't pop than the 2 hour way, but I just do them again in the next batch. Not enough to matter really. maybe 2 or 3 a tray up to 6 or 7. But with 20 min batch times it's worth it.
Im trying to do this with my 2016 model- no candy mode. The screen is different than yours. I went into custom mode, set freeze setting to 0.00. Heat to 150 and final dry 1 hour. Fingers crossed this works.
I shared this with a Facebook group and I’m learning that when the chamber is not being cooled, the moisture and sugars are going straight into the pump. So I won’t be trying this method now as much as I want to. But I will be trying the aluminum foil trick in the shelves.
Perhaps I can correct the issues on moisture and sugars. In the case of skittles, there is no moisture to go anywhere. There is no weight loss, from moisture or sugar, before or after going through the vacuum chamber. Sugars are not volatile until it reaches a temperature of 320 degrees. There is nothing to be concerned about. The only weight loss from the skittles is from hydrogenated palm kernel oil which can become a vapor under a vacuum and heat. The only vapor that will reach the pump is from the air, inside the chamber, at start up. Please share this with the misinformed.
If your oil went dark or cloudy after running skittles, it's due to the hydrogenated palm kernel oil releasing and mixing any irons and iron oxides (rust) within your pump with the oil. Flushing a warm pump with older oil and using low PSI air pressure will help. If it's really bad, you may need to open it up and clean it by hand. The aluminum foil trick is used to help distribute the heat throughout the shelf assembly by using the principles of thermodynamics. The bottom shelf is the coldest, followed by the top. The center are the warmest.
@@Philat4800feet would you explain how to "flush a warm pump with older oil" and what does "using a low PSI air pressure" mean?? I have a standard pump and have used Dairyland oil since 1 month after I started FD in October 2020. AFter two 21 minute skittles batches, (3 minutes heat only, then 15 minutes of heat and vacuum, then 3 minutes vacuum only) I drained my oil and it was very viscous and a very cloudy light blue (dairlyand oil is blue). No evidence of brown (iron or iron oxide residue). I drained the oil out of the pump and left the pump tilted and open (your recommendations) overnight and the oil was left undisturbed in the drain cup. Overnight the drained oil did not change whatsoever and no particulates separated and settled to the bottom like yours did. I don't know what the cloudy stuff is. I think that oil is now unusable. If I have to replace oil (not just drain, filter and reuse) after 2 batches of skittles, any cost savings with the short skittles batches will be offset by the cost of new oil. And I think I"ll have to clean out my pump and eliminate the blue viscous goo inside. Any suggestions?
I'll need to try this method. I tried the other method but it contaminated my oil almost instantly. I stopped the machine and didn't try again. I was sort of hoping they would be like cotton candy, but crunch is better than a tooth extraction chew ^_^
Sounds like your machine has iron contamination inside. Do you have the skills to remove the cover off the pump and clean the insides? see this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ydAXpKy-1zE.html
Will this method work if I do NOT have Candy Mode? (I have version 5.1.15 and scared to update version, I always piggyback my skittles and it takes hours)
I just tried this with milk duds. The instant I turned off the vacuum they deflated. Do you think it would have survived if I had first turned off the heat, and turned on freezing for a few minutes? I'm going to try it once I have more, but thought I would ask in case you've played around with it. Thanks
My ‘leaf’ icon and then pressing heater on, - temp only goes to 125 degrees. Is there a way to change this to go to 150? I went to the customize icon and the temp there will go to 150 degrees in candy mode, but I really want to do it your way Phil!😊 I’ve only had my new HR machine for one month and have lots to learn. Trying to research this question of mine, but can’t find the answer.
Even though it shows 125 degrees, will it still do the job? run a batch and see what happens. HR may have done some adjustments on the new models. The temp on the screen may not be the temp of the shelf.
Harvestright says they don’t recommend this method because it’s not good for your pump. That’s why in candy mode they have you pre-freeze for fifteen minutes before running any batches in candy mode. Can you explain why they suggest this. Thanks
The idea to prefreeze is to keep any liquids from boiling under vacuum. Any vapors or liquids entering the pump is not good for the vanes. Skittles and many other candies do not contain water, or any other type of "liquid", and therefore don't need freezing. The gram weight of skittles is pretty much the same before and after, with the exception of a fraction of weight loss from vaporized palm kernel oil which can't be frozen. Many candies do contain oils which can't be frozen at all in a Harvest Right FD. The pumps used for FD were designed for HVAC system and suck in many more contaminants than found in a FD.
I tried this and checked at 30 minutes. They were just starting to pull apart, so I put them back in. I came back just a few minutes later, maybe 5, and they were a complete mess. The inside goo had bubbled and spread out everywhere. This did not turn out to be a good experience for me.
