You all know how much I love freeze drying and I will freeze dry most anything . . at least once.
The last time we boiled crawfish here, Chad and I cleaned some heads (I know — gross if you aren’t a crawfish eater). I will use those to make a crawfish bisque, which is a spicy gravy and the heads are stuffed with a crawfish stuffing. It’s a lot of work but it’s so delicious. When I make it, I’ll usually stuff a bunch of heads, freeze some of them, then make the gravy and add the heads when we’re ready to serve it.
So, Chad took some heads home and he made a crawfish broth and froze it. I scrubbed the heads I had and froze them and will use them later.
I had a bunch of heads left so I made a broth, canned about 18 pints of it, still had more so I poured it into four trays, froze it and then freeze dried it.
I should have known . . it’s mostly water. When you freeze dry water . . it all gets “dried” out. I hadn’t thought much about it but when the freeze dryer was done, I grabbed a half gallon jars and with the four trays, I ended up with a total of about 3/4 cup of powdered “broth”.
I told Chad . . I boiled the broth for about 8 hours, strained it all through cheesecloth, froze it then the freeze dryer took 54 hours to process it and I got 3/4 cup! Not much return on that investment. 🙂
I will not be freeze drying broth of any kind again!
Donna in KS says
We all live and learn about something!
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Yes, I’m glad I tried it but won’t do it again.
Pat/SC says
How much of the powder to. Reconstitute the broth?
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Probably 1 teaspoon per cup and when you think about making a pot of bisque or gumbo, that’s at least 5 – 6 teaspoons of the powder so for the amount of time it took to freeze it and freeze dry it, I don’t think it’s cost effective at all.
Lizl says
How concentrated is it? You may need only a small amount of the freeze dried stuff to get a cup of the broth. Think about the chicken bouillon powder or cubes.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Beef and chicken broth are more concentrated because we cook it down way more. The beef and chicken broth that’s freeze dried is pretty similar to the beef and chicken broth powder purchased in the store. I think people use about 1 teaspoon of the powder for making broth. The crawfish broth isn’t nearly as concentrated. I still don’t think it’s worth the 50+ hours in the freeze dryer plus having to freeze it in the freezer ahead of time. Some things are more cost effective to can – especially the things like beef and chicken broth that I use so much.
Pat/SC says
In the mid 70’s we had moved back to Clemson for RANDY’s job. We moved into a brand new apt. As we were going to build a house. My brother in law was finishing his Doctorate in Vegetable production. His research involved taking plugs out of tomatoes grown various ways and testing sugars and something else. he said it was a shame to just have to throw away bushels of beautiful ripe tomatoes. It was July and I had the summer off as a teacher, so innocently I said I would make ketchup since they ate it on Everything. I got everything ready including a big pot of boiling water to blanch so the skins would come off easier.by the third bushel, I was tired of peeling and cutting tomatoes. One of my cookbooks said to core and put the whole tomato in the blender..so about the 4 time, the lid came off and new tshirt, new kitchen and I was sprayed! Cleaned everything up and continued. 5 bushels of tomatoes and cooking for about 5 hours and stirring very frequently and voila…..3/4 Pint of ketchup that tasted more like a good seafood sauce! Never made any more ketchup.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Oh, my goodness. I’m sorry but it made me laugh (blender incident). You’re right. I will cook tomatoes for days and end up with a few pints of ketchup. I know it’s better for us and I do it every three or four years and then remember how time consuming it is and don’t do it again for a while.