Are Freeze Dryers Worth the Investment?

If you’ve been around the homesteading community for the last 2 years, you’ve probably seen the huge rise in freeze dryers. While so many of use have accepted the utility of canning and dehydrating, many are still a little wary of freeze drying. And with the sticker shock that comes with some of the machines — I can understand why. Today we’re going to chat through freeze dryers, what they can do and if they are worth the cost.

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TLDR: Yes, they can be! If you have the money to invest and the volume of food to process (like you own a garden or want to make money selling goods) they can be a great investment. I recommend the brand Blue Alpine based on a few reasons discussed later in the article.

What is a Freeze Dryer and How Does it Work?

Even if you’ve heard about freeze dryers before, you’re probably still a little unsure of what exactly a freeze dryer is and how it actually works. And more importantly how is it better (if at all) than traditional preserving methods like canning, dehydrating and freezing.

I will try to give you the most layman answer I can, because the terminology can get a little heady. Essentially a freeze dryer is a machine that removes all the water content from food. It does this through a process called lyophilization, which essentially freezes the food, converts the ice into a vapor, which in turn dehydrates the products while maintaining food integrity (most importantly, the nutrients).

While freeze drying might seem like new technology, because it has only recently been sold to consumers, it has actually been around for centuries in some form or another. The first modern machine was invented in 1906 and was used to help support the war to preserve food for the military.

Why Freeze Dry Instead of Can or Dehydrate?

There are a number of reasons you would choose to freeze dry instead of can, and I’ll list them below. Just note that there are still many reasons you might want to can or choose another method — depending on the food and what you are making.

Freeze Drying Preserves More Nutrients

Generally, freeze drying will preserve more nutrients than canning, because in many cases the high temperature heat that is involved in the canning process can degrade heat sensitive nutrients.

Freeze Drying Has a Longer Shelf Life

Freeze dried foods can last up to 25 years when stored in light blocking mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. Whereas most lid brands and other advice suggest not to consume home canned goods past 12- to 18 months.

Considering the amount of work that often goes into harvesting food and making it, it is a shame to lose all that work because you can’t eat it in a timely manner.

You Can Preserve More Food With Freeze Drying

If you’ve ever canned, you know that you need to follow very specific recipes to comply with USDA safety guidelines (although you might see conflicting advice here). You cannot can anything you have as leftovers, your favorite weeknight recipe or entire groups of food (flour, oils, etc).

With freeze drying, you can preserve almost any of your favorite week night recipes, as well as simpler things like cut up fruit and veggies, candy and your favorite herbs.

What Brand Freeze Dryer is Best?

There are a few freeze dryers on the market, and it can seem hard to choose between them all.

I’ll talk from my own personal experience in purchasing my own, and the things that I considered.

The two brands that I saw a lot were Blue Alpine Freeze Dryers and Harvest Right Freeze Dryers.

I was specifically looking at the large models for both companies, and they honestly had similar specs when I looked at both. I liked that the larger model of Blue Alpine had more capacity on its largest model than Harvest Right.

But to be honest, the biggest deciding factor for me was that Blue Alpine is assembled in the USA. As a military family and former owner of an ethically made home store, prioritizing made in USA companies was huge for me.

The second main reason I purchased from Blue Alpine was that when I looked online, everywhere I looked praised the customer service of Blue Alpine whereas Harvest Right had less than favorable reviews. Many people talked about how the owner reached out to them personally which is awesome. My own experience with the company before I purchased was very positive too.

I noticed something on their website that would optimize it better (a blogger never clocks out) and they responded within an hour saying they made the update and thanked me for the recommendation.

To me, that was awesome and an indicator of the service they would provide if I had an issue.

Ultimately both brands seem to make decent products, however when you’re making such a large investment, in my opinion you want to make that purchase with a brand that will be responsive if you ever have an issue.

Why Wouldn’t You Want to Buy a Freeze Dryer?

Well, for one, you might not want to buy a freeze dryer if you don’t have the money to invest in a machine right now.

I would never convince someone to go into debt for one, especially since there are a number of other ways to reliably and cheaply preserve foods. While a freeze dryer gives you a lot more flexibility to preserve, it’s not the only way.

Additionally, if you don’t have the space for one, it might not be a good fit. They can get loud, so having a place to put it out of the way, like a basement, is a good idea. Garages are generally not recommended as many machines have external temperatures in which the machine is not recommended to be run (i.e. over 85, etc). So if it is in a place that is not temperature controlled, you may be limited on when you can use the machine. And if you’re buying this to preserve your harvest, you’re going to want to be able to use it in the middle of the hot summer.

You also may not want to invest in a freeze dryer if you don’t think you’ll get a lot of use out of it. It is a higher priced machine, and if you’re only using it once a month, you will probably save money simply buying freeze dried foods from the store.

Can You Make Money Freeze Drying?

In theory, yes! I haven’t tried it, so I can’t attest to any sort of success. If you are planning on purchasing a machine either way, it may be a great way to help offset some of the cost of a machine.

However, I think it is important to check the Cottage Food Laws in your state before making that investment to see what you can and can’t sell from your home.