More Beef In The Freeze Dryer

I mentioned a few weeks ago how happy I am with the freeze dried ground beef. I have freeze dried ground beef that I browned and added nothing (not even salt); ground beef that I browned with onions, garlic and green peppers; ground beef patties, raw ground beef. I only dried three patties just to try them and we could not tell the difference in that and fresh made hamburgers so I wanted to make more.

Once the food is freeze dried, I vacuum seal it in jars. I don’t use oxygen absorbers or desiccants. I prefer jars to mylar bags so the problem with making hamburger patties is getting them in and out of the jars.

I made 32 hamburger patties and I cut them in half. I will freeze dry them and hopefully get them in the jars next to their other half. I wasn’t exactly sure the best way to do this but some of the things I thought about were:

1. Make 1/4 pound “balls”, freeze dry those and put them in the jars. Once they were rehydrated and back to the texture of raw ground beef, I could shape them into patties. I didn’t do this because the thicker the food being freeze dried, the longer it takes (and sometimes the center of something thick doesn’t get dry).
2. Measure out 1/4 pound of meat, then shape it into 3 or 4 little “discs”. Once dried, they would all fit into the jars. When we got ready for burgers, if I had divided each 1/4 pound into three discs, I would remove three discs per burger, place three into a bowl with enough water to hydrate it, doing that with three bowls because I usually make three burgers at a time. Once the meat was back to the state of raw ground beef, I could shape them into the burgers to cook.

It really doesn’t matter what size burgers I make because I make our buns and can make them whatever size they need to be.

In the end, I decided making the patty, cutting it into half was the best idea. We’ll see how it works out and, of course, I will report on it.