Freeze-Dried Beets

Yup. You read the title right; I freeze-dried beets this week. Look, it wasn’t my first choice…or my tenth choice, but my wife though we needed some freeze-dried beets to use over the winter for our veggie smoothies. And since I didn’t have anything better to freeze-dry (the tomatoes and most other vegetables aren’t quite ready yet) I gave it a go. So, my wife picked about two dozen beets, large and small, from our garden:

I didn’t bother to weight them, so I won’t have a before and after calculation. Now, I was going to peel the beets, but I was in a rush, so I merely washed and cut them. I ended up with about four and a half trays worth:

Although I tried my best, I couldn’t get the slices as uniform as I would’ve liked:

I cut some of the largest pieces in half to help with the process, though I doubt it mattered much. By the way, I still haven’t bothered to adjust/fix the Harvest Right handle so that the door seals properly; I’m still using a wood shim force it to seal:

In any case, the Harvest Right needed about 35 hours to finish. I was surprised to see that some of the beet slices curled up so much:

I’m not sure if curling was a good thing or not, but the pieces I tested split in half with a satisfying snap, so I’m guessing it’s fine. Ultimately, I ended up with 12.2 ounces of beets:

As always, I like to look online to see if I saved myself any money, but I couldn’t imagine that anyone actually sold freeze-dried beets. As it turns out, I was wrong. They sell beet root powder, beet root sticks (whatever those are), and beet chips, which seem to be the closet match to what I freeze-dried. Apparently, you eat them as snacks.

If I use beet chips as a comparison, they sell a 1.4 ounce container for $15. I’d have to purchase nearly nine containers–$135 worth–to match what I freeze-dried. As another comparison, they sell 200 grams of beet root powder (roughly 7 ounces) for $36.99. I’d need just under two containers of these.

So, how much did I spend? The beets were free. I used $4.83 in electricity (35 hours @ $3.31 per 24 hour period), and I needed three Mylar bags and O2 absorbers for about $1 each, if I remember right. All total, I spent just under $8. I guess that was worth it if you just can’t live without beets, which I absolutely can do.

On a related note, I gave some beets to a friend at the local Farmer’s Market we’ve been selling produce at, and she made brownies from them:

I would swear that if she didn’t tell me they were made from beets that I would’ve never know the difference.

Sadly, my wife says I have more beets to freeze dry soon. Ugh.