Dehydrating your own meals.

[les welch]

Does anyone here do it? I'm starting to research it, and plan on doing some for my hunts this year. I really want to get away from all the sodium. I like the MH meals just fine, I just want to try and clean it up a little. If you do, post up some of your favorites.

 

[Chesapeake]

I do but it isn't easy or time affective and home dehydrated doesn't rehydrate like freeze dried. You really need to simmer it for a bit to rehydrate. I get away with pouring in the boiling water and then wrapping the bag in my stocking cap to hold the heat in longer for it to rehydrate. I have a couple books on it. Trail food by Alan Kesselheim and backpack gourmet by Linda Yaffe. Honestly I find stuff like instant mashed spuds (idahoan), Lipton instant soups, couscous, minute rice, ect... To be much easier. You can easily dehydrate cooked ground beef to add to your store bought stuff. But again it don't hydrate well if just adding boiling water to a ziplock freezer bag.
But then if your planning to simmer in a pot, then the options are wide open.

 

[Chesapeake]

For energy bars look up university of Alaska Logan bread. It's decent stuff and not hard to make. You can produce 300 calorie energy bars for about 25 cents a piece.

 

[tim tarras]

I have tried the Hawks Vittles brand of Dehyrated food and it does take a lot longer to rehydrate. Most say 15 minutes but I find it takes more like 20 minutes.

They say they have less sodium than others. I can look at the sodium content on the package I have at home.

I have to drive over to MN tomorrow and I can bring one along for you to try and see what you think. They cost about the same as a mountian house.

 

[teamtoppin]

I have used the freezedried and dehydrated and I think the dehydrated tastes better and is better for you.

The advantage to the freezedried is that it is quicker, no up front preparation and less clean up.

The advantage to the dehydrated is that you can control your own menu, tastes better and has less sodium. They are also cheaper to produce. The disadvantage is that there is more up front work and planning and you have some clean up and increased boil time/need for more water.

I prefer the dehydrated and we decreased the amount of freezedried I used last year, by decreasing the mountain house freeze dried to only 2-3 days.

I backpack in to a base camp and hunt from a camp for the week and don't hunt off my back or move camp everyday which makes a difference.

I used idahoan mashed potatoes, dehydrated ground beef, chicken chunks, refried beans and spaghetti sauce "leathers" with good success. The meals are compacted smaller than the mountain house bags. Also, by using angle hair pasta it decreased the boil time (smaller noodle). I also use one pot meals and wraps to make the meals easier and quicker.

I will look and see if I have pictures of any of our meals.

 

[les welch]

Thanks guys.

 

[G Posik]

Les, I have been doing some experiments with the dehydrating meals for this years hunts. I have just about got some sauces to the point where they are really good. Mushrooms do well in the dehydrated state if you like them. I will also be packing some instant potatoes, fideo pasta, dehydrated chicken and ground meat. I will also be trying some other one pot meals that can soak for a about 10-15 minutes then boil up for a nice warm meal. I like you would like less sodium and can make the seasoning something I really enjoy.

Glenn

 

[BuckSnort]

Les, Somewhere on this site FranklinManklin started a post about freezer bag cooking, he posted a few links that are informative and I have been trying it myself with a borrowed dehydrator..If you can find the link I posted a simple recipe I tried that worked good..

 

[BuckSnort]

Found the link... http://www.rokslide.com/forums/showthread.php?1629-Freezer-Bag-Cooking

 

[les welch]

Thanks Jason!

 

[Califhuntn]

Great thread guys. I am going to try my own dehydrated meals to avoid the amount of sodium in freeze dried.