Freeze-Dried Strawberries

I’ve been waiting for strawberries to come down in price, and while they’re not as cheap as I’d have preferred, I went ahead anyway because…who wouldn’t like some tasty strawberries during the apocalypse?

So, I bought six two-pound containers of strawberries at Sam’s Club for $3.77 each:

But, because I never really know how much of any food I’m going to need, I bought six containers thinking that even this wasn’t enough. As it turns out, I only needed four containers to fill my five sheets:

No doubt, this largely depends on how thick I cut the pieces, but I’m still used to cutting food thin enough for a dehydrator, so maybe next time I can cut them thicker. Even so, I had some bits leftover, especially the bottoms, because I wasn’t sure whether they would properly freeze-dry if I placed them bottom-side up, which is how they fit best:

I just fed the ends to the chickens, but they’re uber-spoiled (that’s entirely my fault) because they weren’t grapes or cherry tomatoes. Eventually, my birds ate them.

Anyway, the Harvest Right only needed about twenty-six hours to finish the job. I’d thought about freeze-drying the other two containers, but my wife said we can take them on vacation with us next week. Yes, we’re going to Colorado. 🙂

In any case, this is what the strawberries looked like when finished freeze-drying:

You might think some of the strawberry slices were still wet, but I think that’s just sugar as the several pieces I tried were crisp, just as I’d expected.

Ultimately, I ended up with 8.2 ounces of freeze-dried strawberries after starting with roughly 7 pounds, give or take:

I spent roughly $16 on four containers of strawberries, $4 per Mylar bag and O2 absorber combo, and about $3.50 on electricity for a total of $23.50. How does that compare to online? Well, I found this #10 can of Augason Farms sliced strawberries, which holds 6.4 ounces, for $30.38. That’s $4.75 per ounce, whereas my cost was $2.87 per ounce, a nearly 40% reduction in price…take that Augson Farms!

I’d suggest that if I’d cut the slices thicker, then I could’ve piled more on the freeze-dryer sheets and saved even more money, though the process would’ve also taken longer to dry and I would’ve needed more Mylar bags, so perhaps the savings would be minimal. Regardless, I’m happy with what I got.

As for taste tests, who doesn’t like strawberries? They disappeared with a quickness!