Tomato Slice Checkup from Batch 611 after 17 months 

Thank you! I was hoping you wouldn't mind; I've watched a few of your videos and really liked them.

Thanks for watching and for commenting! I'll try to remember to record and share the next time we cook bacon.

Those sound great for on top of a salad. Tomato croutons.

Please let us know what you think of them!

The thought never crossed my mind. Is there any reason I should take out the seeds?

@SchoolReports nope , I was told that the seeds won’t dry properly so I usually take the out and dehydrate them and cut the tomato flesh into cubes but I will try the slices again

@@kerry1963qld 🤣 No seed will dry properly unless they are given enough time. Seeds by nature are designed to hold on to their moisture so they can grow. (I'm sure you know all this, but a lot of people might read this) This is probably why some people have had issues with fresh green beans, thinking they are completely dry only to find out later they have gone bad. They didn't give them enough time for the seeds to dry all the way to the center. Dry is dry, seeds or no seeds.

@@SchoolReports Yes so true , it has been a long time since ive done slices but i will try again :) thankyou

Thanks for watching and for the comment. I have no idea what the tomato variety was. They were just a box of commercially grow tomatoes. (And they were surprisingly good. Or, it was a surprise that they were actually very good:) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-F2351166JZM.htmlsi=AoY8Fl16J8VhjwEn&t=185 Sorry to hear you're having problems with your machine. My machine is almost 7 years old now (over 660 batches), and my sister has had hers for over 1 1/2 years (over 160 batches) So far very little problems and easy to take care of. (I can list every issue if you'd like) I do think my machine may need to have the refrigerant level checked sometime in the future, it seems like it's not cooling quite as well as it did 7 years ago. It's a tough decision to buy one of these. It would be nice if all machines that arrived to your house worked first time every time. I'm actually surprised there are not more issues, considering the issues of shipping it and the 130 degree temperature swings and the multiple vacuum cycles for each batch. (The fact that that's not a thing is one of the reasons we like to buy from Costco or sold by Amazon - easy returns!) Over the years we have received a number of things that didn't work right out of the box or were missing parts, including our Mickey Mouse slow cooker, which took 3 tries before we received one that both worked AND had all the components. I don't know if Harvest Right has a higher then "normal" rate of issues with their freeze dryers. I do know that if anyone receives a 150 to 300 pound paperweight that's supposed to be a freeze dryer, they're going to be chapped! - and rightfully so! We only have 2 data points; one freeze dryer that's 7 years old (mine), and one (my sister's) that she got about 1 1/2 years ago. Both have had minor issues that we could handle with ease, but other people may have been completely overwhelmed by the same issues. I'm used to working on things; I void the warranty on almost everything I own within a very short time anyway! I just have to tear it apart. Shipping one of these big heavy things back for repairs sound like it would be a heck of a challenge. (understatement)😇 Here is the list of Freeze dryers I've heard of - listed in the order I first heard of them: (If anyone knows of any others, please add to the list) (Last update - June 2024) harvestright.com/ (The only one I've used. We been very happy with ours) All the others might be great, I've just never tried them. p4lfood.com/ "The Cube" Same machine as the 4Patriots one? (Facebook page only a few months old?) 4patriots.com/products/4patriots-home-freeze-drying-system - Maybe built by Prep4 Life? (now brings up 404 Page Not Found) stayfreshfreezedry.com/ - One person start-up import business? (Judging by the corporation papers listing a home as the Registered Address) www.cuddonfreezedry.com/products/ - Big - Probably not really a home unit. At least 20 times bigger than medium HR wmmachinery.com/products/freeze-dryer-for-home-use - Lower priced. Shipped direct from China? www.labrotovap.com/portfolio-item/large-home-freeze-dryer-lyophilizer-for-sale/ - Knockoff? Even used some of Harvest Right web page photos. www.usalab.com/freeze-dryers/ - 2 or 3 models? Do they make or rebrand. freezedryco.com/equipment/food-cannabis/ Freeze Dry Company - more commercial www.hudsonvalleylyomac.com/stratus-mp3-series-floor-model.html Hudson Valley Lyomac - not really home size units d-freeze.com/ D-Freeze - Not out yet, being built in Canada www.freezedryfood.de/en/ FreezeDry German bluealpinefreezedryers.com/ Blue Alpine Freeze Dryers - Idaho - New/Start-up - Looks very interesting 😁 Bottom line is I (personally) would only be considering two machines if I were looking to buy a freeze dryer today. (for my batch size needs) Harvest Right or Blue Alpine. - HR is still the only one I've touched.

@@SchoolReports The majority of reports I've seen are "as long as you don't need to deal with HR and your machine works fine, you'll love the freeze dryer." Which was pretty much my experience. Once our machine broke, everything went down hill because HR wouldn't honor their warranty. Up to that point, I loved the machine and freeze dried everything! (Just be sure to wrap any cooked bacon trays you put in the freeze dryer with paper towels - the vacuum pump will aerosolize the grease and it'll coat everything on the inside.) Keep making the high quality videos - I'll keep watching them!

@@anthonyw5188 Thanks! Product designers should be required to use, clean, and live with their products. And customer "service" people should be required to be using the product that they are being called about so they know about them in the real world. 😁 Yes, we found out very early on that paper towels are our friend when we freeze dry anything that might release any fats. Cuts way down on clean-up.

That should work just fine.

Our bacon was not freeze dried, but you certainly can freeze dry it. We haven't done any yet because we tend to go through our bacon pretty fast. Maybe it's time for me to do some to take camping.

My husbands favourite snack , it works well :)

Great question, I wish I had a good answer. I haven't used Rosemary, I really don't know enough about rosemary to know how go about using it. I know it's probably worth looking into. Until someone had asked about it, I didn't even now that it was being used as an antioxidant. Mountain House seems to put it in a lot of their freeze dried items. I have read a few papers about rosemary, but I still know almost nothing about it: Protection Function and Mechanism of Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) Extract on the Thermal Oxidative Stability of Vegetable Oils - www.mdpi.com/2304-8158/12/11/2177 Use of rosemary extracts as a food additive efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.2903/j.efsa.2008.721 Rosemary: A Natural Antioxidant for Clean Label Food Products - www.ulprospector.com/knowledge/3595/fbn-rosemary-a-natural-antioxidant-for-clean-label-food-products-2/ Rosemary as a Natural Food Preservative in Commercial Products - www.savorysuitcase.com/rosemary-as-a-natural-food-preservative-in-commercial-products/

@SchoolReports Thanks for responding. If you ever figure it out, let us know with a video. I plan on buying a frezze dryer for long-term food storage soon, and your videos are great for learning .

With it sitting for a long time, my first guess would actually be the vacuum pump due to possible corrosion. My second guess would be the drain valve for the same reason. It should definitely get below 500 mTorrs in less than 30 minutes. Did it get below 2500? If so, how long did that take? Between my machine and my sister's machine, we have 2 complete set-ups. It's just so much easier to diagnose issues when you have access to 2 machines and at least 2 of everything. You can swap out each component until you find the part that's not working. Maybe we can swing by with parts on our next road trip:)

I overlooked that you said you have the premier pump, they seem so good it's less likely to be that. Still, sitting for a year, maybe?

@@SchoolReports thanks so much. Yes, the FD got to about 645 mTorrs +- a couple of mTorrs. It only took about 20 mins for it to get from extremely high mTorrs to 645. I have a spare valve and vacuum pump hose and can test with those. I don’t see any corrosion on the pump but can take it apart and check it if the new valve and hose don’t improve the situation. Thanks and have a nice weekend!

@@SchoolReports maybe! I will do another test on the weekend and maybe try to dry something inexpensive like rice porridge.

Thanks! At least now I know why they weren't the ones with the inner plastic bags. I was so surprised by that that I even went back and looked at the original 609 video to see if I had bagged some without the inner plastic bags in that batch, but never noticed the extremely obvious different batch number. I bagged the ones in batch 611 without the inner bags to have a worst-case comparison for the possibility of the slices sticking together. I did 3 consecutive batches of tomato slices, batches 609, 610, and 611. The ones in this video were from (duh) batch 611, the only batch I didn't make a video of. Well, that's what I get for not checking my own videos before referencing a video that I never made!

Thanks for watching and for commenting!