How to sublimate berries at home

Freeze-drying is the most advanced method of food preservation. It was invented back in the mid-19th century. Then the technology was used to maintain the activity of various microorganisms for a long time. Yeast and medicines were made using sublimation.

In the 20th century, the technology began to be used in preparing food for astronauts. Freeze-dried foods entered everyday life relatively recently.

You can buy freeze-dried strawberries cranberries raspberries blueberries champignons right now in our store

We remind you that we have a course on unique dish decorating techniques. In this course there is a mention of how freeze-dried fruits and berries are used. The course includes a significant amount of molecular gastronomy techniques. The course is suitable for professionals and amateurs; you can familiarize yourself with it by clicking on the link now.

A large number of products can be sublimated. These are berries, cereals, mushrooms, vegetables, fruits, herbs, meat, seafood, yoghurts, juices, soups and much more. By the way, dry ice, which molecular gastronomy is famous for, is also a product of sublimation.

❗In this article we will tell you in detail how to sublimate berries at home in order to preserve the taste and beneficial properties as much as possible.

What is sublimation and how does it differ from other methods of canning berries?

We'll tell you how freeze-dried berries are made on an industrial scale.

Products are quickly frozen at temperatures down to -200 °C. The liquid contained in the berries turns into ice. However, its crystals are so small that cell membranes are not destroyed.
The products are placed in a special sealed vacuum chamber. In it, the berries are subjected to gentle heating while air is removed. Ice crystals evaporate without turning into liquid.
Carefully dried berries are packaged in sealed packages.

Compared to other preservation methods, sublimation has the following advantages.

The beneficial properties of the products are completely preserved.
When placed in warm water, freeze-dried berries restore their shape, color, taste and aroma.
This technology does not require the use of preservatives, dyes, flavors, flavor enhancers and other harmful substances.
Freezing prevents the development of fungi and microorganisms.
Freeze-dried berries are stored for 2 years.

As you can see, it is impossible to prepare freeze-dried berries using the technology described above at home, but there are methods that allow you to obtain similar results. Let's talk about the technologies used in everyday life.

What are freeze-dried berries and fruits?

Sublimation, which means "ascension" in Latin, was invented as an improved preservation method in the 19th century. For a long time, the method developed to preserve the activity of microorganisms remained in the hands of biologists and pharmacists.

After experiments with food products, the results of lyophilization (the evaporation of water from a frozen bio-substance bypassing the liquid phase) began to be used as food for astronauts, as well as in other areas where canned food served as the main food. Freeze-dried foods appeared on store shelves relatively recently. However, based on their distribution, it can be judged that they will soon completely replace the usual jars with canned berries, fruits, seafood, etc.

To ensure proper quality, as well as preserve maximum beneficial properties, exclusively fresh raw materials are used for lyophilization, which is ensured by minimal time between harvesting and the start of processing. For berries, this period is limited to eight hours, apricots do not lose freshness for 12 hours, and peaches intended for sublimation are stored for no more than a day. In its modern form, the process of sublimation of berries is divided into two stages:

Freezing. Fresh berries are cooled to -200⁰C. “Shock” (instant) freezing eliminates the formation of large ice crystals that destroy cell membranes.
Vacuum drying. After freezing, the product is placed in a vacuum environment where it is subjected to heat, which evaporates the ice crystals without turning into water.
Package. After grinding, dried products are packaged in vacuum packaging with a triple layer of foil.

The sublimation procedure takes 12–16 hours. To restore the product to food suitability, which takes no more than 3–4 minutes, pour a small amount of warm water over it.

Although freeze-dried berries in their dry form are harmless to health, nutritionists do not recommend eating them yourself. By taking away moisture from the body, they cause thirst, which leads to excessive fluid intake.

Compared to ordinary freezing and drying, berries that have undergone freeze-drying retain over 90% of useful micro- and macroelements. In particular: Freeze-dried strawberries contain the same amount of vitamin C as fresh berries, and the loss of antioxidant properties does not exceed 8%. Strawberries cooled in the usual way after a week's storage lose up to 19% of vitamin C, and the antioxidant content decreases by 23%.

The shelf life of freeze-dried berries exceeds 2 years. Moreover, every month they lose no more than 2% of useful components from their composition.

In addition to the composition, berries subjected to freezing and vacuum drying retain their aroma, taste and color after restoration. Complete dehydration reduces the weight of products by 5–10 times, which facilitates transportation.

Freeze-dried berries do not contain preservatives, synthetic dyes, flavors, and other substances that have a negative impact on health.

Detailed instructions: how to make freeze-dried berries at home

You can make berries that look like freeze-dried ones at home by drying them either in the oven or in a household dryer. You can cook in them:

Drying berries in the oven

We recommend using the oven to prepare freeze-dried berries only as a last resort. This is due to the fact that drying in the oven is not very convenient.

To remove moisture, the oven door must be open.
It is necessary to ensure a temperature of 120–130 °
To ensure that the berries dry evenly and do not burn, they need to be stirred frequently.

If there are no other options:

preheat the oven and open the door;
line a baking sheet with foil;
place berries on it;
place the baking sheet in the oven;
Stir the berries until the drying is complete.

Making freeze-dried meat at home

If you are not aware, on an industrial scale, freeze-dried meat is cooked under vacuum, ridding it of all the water it contains. The end result is something like dry meat powder. This year we tried to buy it, 100 grams of meat costs about 300 rubles in Moscow, enough for one time.

But firstly, not everyone can afford it, tourists, poor people, and secondly, personally, I personally did not like this powder, which is almost tasteless, and I did not like it at all. But you can cook homemade freeze-dried meat yourself. You can cook freeze-dried meat from pork or beef, it’s not for everyone. I'll tell you about two options on how to do this.

Option 1 - “freeze-dried meat”

Scroll the meat through a meat grinder or cut into small cubes about 1*1 cm.
Cook until done with seasonings and salt to taste
Place the resulting mass on a baking sheet and dry in the oven at a temperature of about 50-60 degrees. The cooking time for such freeze-dried meat is about 5 hours.
Don't forget to stir so it doesn't burn.
We pack the resulting product in any convenient container (more details below)

I haven’t cooked this kind of meat myself, but experimenters say that the weight decreases by about 4 times . They also say that 5 kg. dried meat fits into a liter bottle.

To prepare such freeze-dried meat, I think, you need 300-400 grams of the original product per time for 6-8 people.

Option 2 - “freeze-fried meat”

We’ve been preparing freeze-dried meat this way for years now, so I’ll tell you in more detail with examples and numbers.

We will need meat and lard in a ratio of about 2:1 . We never calculated exactly per person per time, but the approximate consumption: 4 kg. meat, 2 kg. lard for 6-7 people for 2 weeks. You can figure out a different amount yourself.

We take lard and grind it through a meat grinder or cut it into small pieces.
Place in a frying pan and heat the fat. We will use it to pour our ready-made freeze-dried meat during cooking and for better preservation.
We also cut the raw meat into small pieces, about 1*1*1 centimeter, and put them in a large saucepan.
After the meat is all cut and placed in a pan, fill it with fat rendered from lard. The meat should be all covered with fat.
Turn on low heat and start cooking the meat. Approximate cooking time is 4-5 hours.
During this process, water will begin to evaporate from the meat and bubbles will appear. Moreover, at first the water will be cloudy, since it is a mixture of soda and fat, and gradually it will become more and more transparent, as all the water will evaporate. The bubbles will also be rare and large at first, but gradually there will be more and more of them, and the size of the bubbles will become smaller. Until you have a foam of small bubbles floating on the surface of the transparent melted fat.
Do not forget to stir the future ready-made freeze-dried meat so that the pieces do not stick together, especially at the very beginning of cooking, and so that the meat does not stick out on the surface. Well, we make sure that nothing burns.
After the freeze-dried meat is ready, place it in a suitable container. The main thing is to do this right away, before the meat and lard harden. Place the finished product in the refrigerator to allow the meat to cool, or on the windowsill.

The weight reduction is the same as in the first option - about four times . From 4 kg. meat and 2 kg. We got about 1.5 liter juice boxes of lard.

Drying berries in dryers

Infrared dryers are best suited for preparing freeze-dried berries. The principle of processing products in such devices is similar to drying under the sun. Sublimates obtained by the infrared method are restored better and faster.

To make freeze-dried berries, place them on trays and start the drying process. Don't forget to consider the following nuances and features.

To ensure uniform drying, the trays must be swapped periodically.
If you are using a dryer with a power of 700 W or higher, do not set the temperature to the maximum. The food will burn.
Do not fill trays too tightly. There should be good air circulation inside the dryer. This prevents the food from souring and speeds up the cooking process.

What can you make from freeze-dried berries?

Reconstituted berries can simply be eaten or used to prepare various dishes. The use of freeze-dried products in confectionery is especially important. The technology eliminates the need to use perishable fresh products. At the same time, reconstituted berries do not differ from fresh ones.

The following are most often prepared with the addition of berries:

desserts with various sauces;
pancakes and pancakes;
cakes;
pies and other baked goods;
porridge;
smoothie.

Freeze-dried berries can be ground into coarse, medium or fine powder.

It is suitable for use as:

decorative powder for decorating various confectionery products;
flavoring additive for making chocolate and ice cream;
component for drinks.

Containers for ready-made homemade freeze-dried meat

There are two options here:

Small bottles with a dose of meat for 1 time. It’s convenient because you take out such a bottle for dinner or breakfast, cut it open, take out the meat and don’t think about anything else. Disadvantages: usually small bottles have a narrow neck - it is inconvenient to pack freeze-dried meat.
One large bottle or box for your entire meat supply. It is convenient, therefore, because the meat is placed into the wide neck of such a bottle or box with a regular spoon. Disadvantage: you have to eyeball the meat into portions. But on hard days you can give out a large portion of meat, saving on free days.

Actually, how to pack freeze-dried meat:

The easiest option is juice boxes. But they will have to be wrapped in several bags and sealed with tape, since it will not be possible to seal them hermetically. But in the heat, lard melts, and there is little pleasure in spilling this fat into a backpack and getting an appetizing-smelling sleeping bag, which is impossible to wash on a hike.

For small disposable bottles for meat, you can take 150-200 gram yogurt bottles with a screw cap. The same bottles, but large and with a wide lid, can be taken for the entire supply of meat. I came across very convenient plastic jars with Nesquik lids.

WHERE TO BUY SUBLIMINATED BERRIES, MUSHROOMS

You can buy freeze-dried strawberries, cranberries, raspberries, blueberries and champignons of excellent quality in our store.✅ Delivery within Moscow and to the regions is available. Pickup available.

Let us remind you once again that we have a course on unique techniques for decorating dishes. In this course there is a mention of how freeze-dried fruits and berries are used. The course includes a significant amount of molecular gastronomy techniques. The course is suitable for professionals and amateurs; you can familiarize yourself with it by clicking on the link now.