I made 16 trays of Fiesta Beef. It is so delicious! I wanted to stretch the beef a little bit more so to my 7 pounds of grd beef I added 10 cans of black beans and a #10 can of corn. I also added some taco seasoning to the chili powder. It is awesome. I love you videos.... all of them. Very encouraging and stimulating!
Absolutely wonderful video! Good presentation of the recipes. Was easy to stop the video and copy them down. Thank you for showing us how to get the fat out of our ground beef!!!! I absolutely hate rinsing it it and this method looks very successful! Again thanks! I feel so inspired that I am going to take 18 pounds of ground beef out of the freezer and make 12 recipes of the Fiesta beef and 12 recipes of the sloppy Joes! I can hardly wait to get started! I always learn from you. Again thanks so much!!!!
I look forward to all of your videos. TY I usually buy lean ground Turkey at Sam's Club and freeze dry it raw. However, cooked turkey Sloppy Joes is worth trying...
Animal fats ( saturated fat ) do not go rancid very fast. Seed and vegetable oils do. Lard and tallow used to be used to preserve meat in, by submerging it in the fat. Also people seem to be obsessed with it lasting 25 years. It doesn't really need to last that long. A few years should be plenty. I would rather can the meat than to throw away the fat.
@@Philat4800feet There was a mexican lady who used to make tacos before the health department shut her down. Absolutely loaded in crisco. So fatty you went into a food coma after just eating 4, but boy were they good. Cheap too. like less than $5 for a complete meal.
If you ever get access to venison, it freeze dries very well, no fat and it rehydrated instantly, good video good looking recipes too thanks for sharing
Funny story with venison. I hunted on a 15000-acer property of oats and wheat for years. I thought that's what venison tasted like. Then I got one that ate nothing but Sagebrush. After that I can't eat venison again.
@@Philat4800feet kind of like baking a carp on a wooden board throwing away the carp when it is baked and eating the board, I couldn't survive without my deer meat, all in how it is processed and cooked.
Such a helpful video! Ingenious, effective way to press out the fat and then so smart to do a final press on paper towels! I have a couple of questions but won't bother you with them since today we had a major breakdown similar to the first time.
@@Philat4800feet Hubby smiled in appreciation when I read him your reply. Your response means a lot to both of us. Our FD is acting somewhat similar to the last breakdown when hubby had to replace the relay board and the pigtail. This time, it froze up about 9 hours into the process but kept acting as though it was drying. All food was burned. We immediately emailed the tech, who helped us last time, and included pics of the frozen screen, damaged food, and included all data files since the repair 3 weeks ago. He kindly responded immediately and sent the newest software version 5.1.23 and asked us to then run a test batch. [Edit Addendum: test batch developed yet a new kind of problem 5 hours into the process. We're requesting a phone call from management to discuss completely replacing the machine.] In the meantime, I'd like to ask a question about your video. I have stainless steel colanders identical to yours. WHERE DID YOU FIND/PURCHASE THE INNER BOWL YOU USE TO PRESS OUT THE FAT IN THE HAMBURGER? IT'S A PERFECT FIT FOR THE COLANDER! I'm a bit worried you're going to say you've had it for years (because it resembles one we were given for our wedding nearly 50 years ago). Many thanks!
@@nanmaco I sincerely appreciate your taking the time to send a note. The supervisor said - from the many documented problems in the 2 months with our new machine - that Harvest Right would replace it. Harvest Right treated us very fairly and as efficiently as possible. Kind regards!
Sounds like this would need some reconstltulituting using beef bone broth, or beef broth. I don't always use tomato sauce of some sort. I cook almost entirely from scratch. So I don't use mixes except what I make myself.
For the sloppy Joe’s, did you reconstitute the meat after you freeze dried it, or just mixed in the sauce with the FD beef to reconstitute? You didn’t heat it before you put it on your bun. Then you freeze dried the sloppy joes after you mixed it up? Is that the same thing you did with theFiesta Beef? Maybe I need to watch it again, cause I might have missed something. 😊 thank you for this video. Can’t wait to try both recipes. I am a little concerned about freeze drying meat, or meals containing it. Do I have to Freeze dry any meat that contains fat prior to making the meal? So another words I can’t just freeze dry my leftovers if I haven’t removed the fat from the meat first?
1-The sloppy Joe I ate was right out of the fry pan-Hot 2-The fiesta beef was fully cooked before freeze drying 3-Don't be worried about freeze drying meat. Either cooked or raw. Trim what fat you can and cut it up in 1/2" slices or smaller. Just follow standard food safety once the meat (raw) is reconstituted. Civilizations have been storing dried meats for thousands of years and we're still here. 4- Freeze dry your leftovers. Easy-peasy.
One step I add after straining fat from the cooked hamburger is to transfer the meat to a pot of almost boiling water. I stir it for a minute or so then strain through a colander. This removes any residual oil/fat from the meat. Not as healthy as with the fat in it but you can reheat/reconstitute with beef tallow.
I rinse the burger with hot water in the colander and it removes a lot of the fat. When I load my trays I put a double layer of paper towels on the trays and it freeze dries very well.
@@Philat4800feet Agree on the grease issue. We had to have work on our pipes due to that after about a decade. Which isn't bad, but still no point in unnecessary expense. I throw all my cooking fat into a 5 gallon bucket and then later take the grease that forms and throw it in gasoline to run my flamethrower. I also use the grease as flux for cleaning lead for bullet casting and in a homemade backyard torch. It's obviously full of bacterial that will get you sick if you eat it, but surprisingly it doesn't stink or anything so storing it is no problem and is a handy fuel source.
Another great video Phil. Thanks. One thing I would like to see in your videos is the # of freeze dry hours it takes to fd..??? And yes I understand freeze drying times vary by location, conditions, weather, etc, but not that much. It would give an idea (guesstimate) when planning a run especially since you tend to over fill your trays. I haven’t fd any meats yet just vegetables and puréed foods. In fact the last two batches of puréed foods I did didn’t fd completely. There were pockets of wet on each tray and I know it was because I over filled them (like you show) but the previous batches were fine because I kept the food beneath the top of the rim. Anyway I didn’t feel comfortable keeping that batch so threw them away. So Phil….how long did it take to fd those over filled trays of ground beef? Tip: place a damp kitchen towel under your bowl and it won’t slip.
My batches are not traditional. I prefreeze, rotate and "stir" my trays, wrap my shelves in foil, and remove trays when they dry and spread-out food that isn't. I'll try to keep track.
Wait, you rotate and stir in the middle of the drying process? I had no idea you could open the door. Im not sure I understand how you wrap your shelves in foil. And how does that help? I have been pre-freezing my food in my regular freezer prior to freeze drying.
@@debbiebrugman4543 Check out schoolreports. He stops his drying process, weighs each tray and puts them back into the FD for 2 or more hours to continue freeze drying. He then reweighs the trays to see if they lost more weight. If yes, they're not done and he puts them back in to continue freeze drying. Weighing everything has been a game changer for us. Phil has some really good info and so does Dan at schoolreports. I've watched all of their videos - some several times over. Good luck. So sorry you had to toss your batch.
@@Philat4800feet Phil, I watched the video where you wrapped the shelf assembly in aluminum foil, I then tried it in my machine, the decrease in drying time is incredible, wow. I ended up buying a 2 x 2 piece of 30ga? sheet aluminum, cut and bent it to hug the shelf assembly on the bottom and the sides, no more dealing with torn tinfoil. It might not work for someone pre-freezing in the FD. However, this will most certainly void any manufacturers warranty, if applicable.
I am assuming what you ate on camera was not freeze dried ? I did not see you rehydrate it ? After removing fat and freeze drying, if its too dry, have you ever thought of a way to add back fat when rehydrating ?
Fry your burger, drain. Then simmer in beef broth, skimming fat 1,2,3,4 times until fat is gone from the top of the liquid. Cook down until liquid is almost gone. Hardly any fat left in the meat!!
4.99 a pound is high today bro. Here i can get 10 pounds of 85% for 2.89 a pound... I brown it, drain it, rinse it with hot water, and freeze dry it. Not much fat or flavor. I plan to rehydrate it with beef broth for flavor..
What has happened? Feed was $3.25 / 100# Today is $17.98 / 50# Hay was 50 to 75 cents a bale Now it is $9.00 a bale Gas was 16 cents a gallon. Now is $3.50 - $4.00 a gallon
When I started working at K-mart in 1978, I thought how great it was that I was making $3.85 per hour, my car insurance was $20 per month, and rent was $55.00. In other words, we're both getting old.
Government spending and printing is what happened. Steal your wealth without a tax. That's why so many people are in stocks, real estate, and precious metals. You need most of your money out of cash in order to not lose value over time.
I wonder why some sites say you can cook up spaghetti and meatballs or meat sauce or chili or whatever, and even though they say fat doesn’t freeze dry well and fat can make the food go rancid, they go ahead and cook meals up as usual, and freeze dry it. That’s without removing all the fat like you have before adding other ingredients. This is confusing to me. Some also say you can freeze dry the ground beef raw. This doesn’t make sense to me, and is conflicting info. I trust what you are doing here, cause meat is too expensive to end up throwing out food that’s gone bad, after all the work and expense. You did say that you can use fresh hamburger or reconstituted hamburger for the sloppy joes. Did you mean Raw hamburger or freeze dried burger prior to making up the sloppy joes? If you use raw burger for the recipe, and then cook it prior to freeze drying, you can’t get the grease out. Sorry for the questions but I just want to get it right.
The key to long term food storage is to remove moisture. When raw hamburger (or any meat) is cooked two things happens. 1- the fat becomes a liquid and will separate from the meat. 2- The moisture in the fat will evaporate. Bacteria needs moisture to survive and to multiply. When I cook with hamburger (sloppy Joes), I cook it well and drain the fat before adding other ingredients. Raw hamburger, or any meat, can be freeze dried, but the shelf life will be limited because of the trapped moisture still in the fat. There is a process where freeze dried meat will be irradiated to sterilize the meat. Fats and oils can be reduced by increasing the surface area. If I'm cooking with a fatty food like sliced bratwurst I'll add rice or potatoes. The oils will transfer to the other ingredients making moisture evaporation greater.
@@Philat4800feet thanks! I think I’ll stick to cooking and freeze drying the meat prior to making up the meal, just to be safe for long term storage. For shorter term it sounds like getting all the fat out isn’t as big of an issue, as long as the moisture is removed in the freeze drying process.
@@Philat4800feet Of course this is dependent on context, but do you have any guess as to how long raw fatty meat would actually last? The longest I have had mine was a year.
For those of us on a septic system all that rinsing water must be captured and removed from the house. This method will make getting rid of the fat so much simpler. Catching and carrying a 5 gal bucket full of the rinse water outside to despose it is the pits!
