Fruit time!!! Freeze dried apples and blueberries are fantastic!
This one is exciting, because I LOVE fruits of all kinds!
For this one, I already had some blueberries in the freezer, and then I got a bunch of apples on sale. And after making some apple butter (recipe here) and apple syrup, I still had tons left over. So I decided to freeze dry them:)
For the apples, I sliced them up, removing the core and saving for more syrup or jelly or something. I tried to keep the slices fairly even in terms of thickness – did my best, lol. For freeze drying, I laid the blueberries out on the tray, making sure there weren’t any stuck to others that were sticking up all crazy. The apples, I just laid out in rows, trying to make sure none were on top of others.
Both fruits were frozen before I put them on the trays and then put the trays into the Ice Queen (a Harvest Right Home Pro Medium freeze dryer).
Great for a snack or as ice cream toppings or added to other dishes:)
The apples and blueberries are just really good! They also look pretty, which doesn’t matter much, but I still dig it.
I put the freeze dried apples and blueberries into mason jars with oxygen absorbers, sealed them with a jar vacuum sealer (I actually now have two of these, lol: Electric Mason Jar Vacuum Sealer), and put them on our shelf:)
Freeze drying timeframe:
The apples and blueberries took 19 hours to freeze dry.
The defrost was needed after this batch, which takes about two hours. And don’t forget to make sure your drain line isn’t kinked and that it’s staying inside the bucket, if not draining into a sink or something. Don’t want a huge mess all over the floor, haha.
Happy freeze drying!!
Freeze dried apples & blueberries came out great!!! Woohoo!
The Ice Queen is defrosting now, then I’m unplugging her until the storms pass. No way I wanna be in the middle of a batch and have the power go out🤣 pic.twitter.com/ufgIH1uO3q— Buck Hills Farm (@buck_hills_farm) January 9, 2024
