Thank you so much for this information. I have been using my freeze dryer everyday for the last week and wondered about FD nuts. Also nut and raisin combo that I have so much of.
This is great news - ish. It’s not completely confirmation for “long term (20+ years) storage” yet it gives me hope. If you would be willing to “sacrifice” a bag of nuts every year that would be awesome. My budget is such that I cannot sacrifice any foods I freeze dry - Thank God for showing me how to pay for the freeze dryer in the first place! I am off to the races with foods my family will eat and my heart is so happy about that! THANKS FOR ALL YOU’RE DOING FOR US FREEZE DRIERS!!
I have vacuum sealed my nuts without freeze drying and opened after several years with no degradation of my nuts. So it seems if I freeze dry them once I get my freeze drier, then vacuum seal them , & then put those in mylar bags with oxygen absorbers my nuts should easily be good for at least 25 years.
"Raw" doesn't really apply to most plain nuts we can buy in the US. I ASSUME you mean plain nuts? Thanks! I love your scientific method and procedures!!! AND your videos!
I love the idea of freeze drying nuts. I cannot tell you how often I have gone to get some walnuts and found them to be stale, same with almonds. If you do not eat or use them fast enough, they tend to go bad. I often store them in the freezer, but freezer space is a premium. I assume you don't reconstitute them, just use them as is?
Thank you so much! This is my biggest worry, how do I know if my food is still safe to eat, especially meat. It this an expensive tool? Maybe I can request one for Christmas 😁 from my husband. This video is very thorough and detailed, thank you so much!
These sensors are used for working in confined spaces and they can get costly. If you remember the basics, you should be fine: No Oxygen, No Light, No Moisture, No Heat
Great vid, Phil. Did all of your oxygen absorbers go flat? From my angle they looked like what I think are Harvest Right's standard, 700cc O2 absorber, which should have theoretically been overkill. Yet they seemed to have no residual capacity? Over the last two days a friend and I opened up several mylar bags of various candies and snacks, that I had packed over 5 years ago. Some of the food items seemed to have gone slightly stale, and out of about 9 or 10 bags opened, not one of the used O2 scrubbers would warm again, even though they didn't feel very gritty. I expected them to have just a little life left, indicating to me they would have used up all the oxygen they could before 'smothering'. I'm beginning to think that mylar bags and oxygen absorbers are not the panacea many believe. I have eaten freeze-dried food myself that was in fact older than 25 years....... but that was sealed in a metal can, without an oxygen absorber even. Thanks!
@@Philat4800feet thanks for replying. Don’t think I really need the whole kit I found the sensor and tube probe thingy for about $589 or so. I think it’s a great item to have. Even if you’re a expert at freeze drying never know what can happen to stored food especially years down the road. Safe way to protect yourself and family, test it prior to eating it.
Hey Phil, great test. I make my own nut butter and so I buy a lot of nuts on sale. Would I need to do anything to freeze dried nuts to make nut butter?
@@Philat4800feet hey Phil I thought I had seen all your videos but I don’t believe I’ve seen that one. So I will look it up thank you. I absolutely love your channel, to me you’re everything freeze dried so I don’t even go anywhere else to learn techniques and technical information.
Have you ever tried raw peanuts? I'm guessing they'd be the same. Also, do the nuts seem drier or normal after FDing? I have a FDer and know that I can't do peanut butter but I could make it if I had FDed peanuts!! I would just roast and blend! What do you think?
The nuts feel the same. The oils are preserved in a zero oxygen environment. Peanuts should work...and yes you can do peanut butter: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sqH3RrtBgF4.html
Are you using the freeze dryer process, or packin and sealin with the chamber or both. Your video does not show the freeze drying process. I really am interested in this experiment and want to be sure I fully understand . Thank you.
They lasted almost three years and I believe they'll last a lot longer. In this environment they may not turn at all, but I'll keep track of them. This was the first time I tasted them.
I have wonder about the potential power interfering with the seal. You could place the powdered food into a zip lock bag and with a hole punch place a bunch of holes in the zip lock bag to allow the oxygen to escape. Then seal the bag.
Quick question... Is there any concern with the moisture from the oils of the nuts, packed with an oxygen absorber, contributing to and causing botulism in the stored nuts?
How detailed should my answer be??? Oil makes a very poor moisture source, if any. First of all, we would need botulism spores present on the nuts. The spores would need to be alive at the time of freeze drying. Any spores would be placed in a cryo-stasis condition and would need moisture to be revived, and then the population would need to great enough to do any damage. In-short the risk would be low.
@@Philat4800feet Thanks for the answer. I figured that was the case (low risk, but of course an outside possibility). I didn't realize that oil was a low moisture risk. That's kind of where my question stemmed from. I didn't know as much about the botulism spores needing to be present first. Your detailed answer, was sufficient enough to help clarify the answer to my question. I only asked because I know I was warned about packaging my popcorn kernels with oxygen absorbers, due to their moisture content (which is like 14 or 15% of internal moisture, or something like that). In fairness, they weren't freeze dried first, just the raw seeds. All I knew was that the lack of oxygen and the presence of moisture could cause botulism to develop. Thanks again for helping clarify. Keep the vids coming, sir. 🤯😄
I had the same question a few months ago, and after some research My understanding is that for the botulism to form, it needs to have 10 percent or more humidity present. Freeze drying process brings the humidity below that. I am thankful for Phil for making this video and confirming that nuts can be freeze dried safely.
We're new to freeze drying (just got our machine a month ago), but found your channel and really appreciate everything you've shared. You've saved us from making several "beginner" mistakes. We have the new software loaded on our large machine, so it automatically does everything instead of having access to some of the individual cycle times that were available on the older models. Our question is...because we have a ton of nuts we'd like to freeze dry...did you just put the nuts in as if you were running a normal batch of food to go through the normal cycles? Or did you do some customizing?? Our options would be normal mode or candy mode. Thanks!
They are used in confined space work. They are costly. If you keep to the basics: No Oxygen, No Light, No Moisture, and No Heat you should be fine. : www.amazon.com/BW-Technologies-XT-XWHM-Y-NA-CS-GasAlertMax-Confined/dp/B00ANVEQM4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=19T01GM2SNYIP&keywords=honeywell+confines+space+air+monitor&qid=1668561132&sprefix=honeywell+confines+space+air+monitor%2Caps%2C356&sr=8-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.765d4786-5719-48b9-b588-eab9385652d5
Hi, I have the same size bags with 300cc and what ever I put in the bags ..the bags do not shrink in like that. What am I doing wrong and is the food ruined? This happens quit often.
Sorry, no. My wife is required to be gluten free. I can't see any problem with doing ravioli. I've done lasagna. Could the problem be the meat inside the pasta?
@@Philat4800feet there are no safety guidelines for canning pasta so it's not recommended. One would think that if manufacturers can can ravioli so can private citizens. But, their equipment is more powerful than a pressure canner and can reach higher Temps. It's sad because that's part if a go to meal for many people. I'd rather be safe and not get botulism.
I was led to believe you could not do long-term storage on nuts because of their high fat content, apparently that's not entirely true based on your tests. Let us know in another two and a half years how they fare. Thanks
I hope freeze drying extends the life of these nuts but I have a bag of almonds that I bought in 2019 that I just opened and they taste normal too. It’d be nice to do an A/B test over the years to test how they do freeze dried vs non-freeze dried.
Can you freeze nuts? Was thinking about vacuum sealing and freezing some. 2 1/2 years is still pretty good to keep them fresh. Also, You are not actually "Freeze drying" the nuts rather using the machine to pull a vacuum. I can just use my chamber sealer and get the same result. I would like to try running some nuts through a freeze drying cycle to see what happens.
Using the chamber sealer only, will not have same results. When I freeze dried several batches of nuts, there was always some ice/water extracted thru the freeze drying process, which the chamber / any vacuum sealer by itself cannot do.
Cite the source on the walnut claim, I can't corroborate it. Pulling material from the Torah and all sorts of esoteric sources and still can't find anything on it.
Just a question? Been trying to freeze dry, did you have all the trays of nuts or just a couple of trays? Have all of my trays 5, of nuts, the machine will not move on out of freezing mode. 😢
@@Philat4800feet I am brand new to freeze drying. Have large HR. How do you put food in at lower temp? Do you open vent first? Thx! I make soup with chopped cooked chestnuts in it. My families favorite. I’m scared to try freeze drying it. Do you think it might work without exploding? Thanks!!!
@@loririchardson6744 I have all the menu functions explained on this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FJTjZcbZQLg.html at time stamp 3:32