Store your meat for years without problems. Dehydrate and vacuum seal your meat, to create one of the best methods of storage possible in your kitchen.
3. Choose Choice/Tender Cuts to reduce toughness
Less Fat – Fat goes rancid
Cut into small pieces
Cook it – thoroughly
Drying makes it easy to set up meals
Dehydrate all ingredients
Add all of your ingredients
Make meals and vacuum seal it. Freeze until you want to go hiking.
This is great for hiking meals for overnight or multi-week hikes.
Designed for use for month long hikes.
4. Dehydrate ingredients
Freeze the ingredients you are not ready to use
until you can make meals
Take it out and let it sit to return to room temp
before opening (condensation)
At room temp – you can open it
Make meals and re-vacuum seal it. Freeze if
desired.
Meals preserved this way have been good up to 8
months after packaging them
7. Called gravel by backpackers – doesn’t rehydrate well
Add breadcrumbs to the raw meat – allows liquid to
penetrate it better
◦ Turns out tender every time
Only use lean ground beef with fat below 15%
◦ Lower is better
◦ Usually labeled as ground round
◦ Grass-fed beef is usually 7-10%
Prepare it
◦ Each pound, ½ cup bread crumbs (can make
◦ them yourself)
◦ brown over medium heat, fully cooked
◦ blot with papertowels while cooking
◦ press between papertowels after– remove oil
◦ Dehydrate at 145F on sheets until hard
◦ If drying for long term storage, no bread crumbs (soaks fat)
8. Sliced 1/16 in thick
Slice into Strips of ¾-1”
Dry at 145F for about 6 hrs
Blot oil every couple hours while drying
Usually chewy when hydrated
◦ Boil 2 mins to help soften it up
9. Frozen/Precooked/Peeled
Thaw in refrigerator or cold water
Slice into small pieces
Dehydrate at 145F for about 6hrs
No moisture remaining when cut
10. Solid white tuna in water
Drain water
spread evenly on tray
Dry at 145F about 6 hrs
It will be crispy (yes it stinks!)
11. Imitation crab
Pull apart into small
pieces
Dry at 145F about 6 hrs
12. Great for Chicken Salad
Low Fat Canned Chicken
(looks like tuna can)
rehydrates best or pressure
cook your own
Drain can
Rinse fat away with HOT water
Pull chunks apart to smaller
pieces
Dry at 145F about 8 hrs
13. Press Cook a Potato
◦ Peel and cube 4 oz potato
◦ 1 ¼ cups fat-free chicken broth
◦ ½ tsp salt
◦ Heat until salt dissolves
◦ Press cook high for 3 min, then set aside but don’t release
pressure
Cut and Tenderize the crap out of 1 lb the chicken
Mash potato
Add chicken and any other veggies you want for flavor
Add lemon juice from one lemon slice
Press cook for 10 minutes
Don’t release, let it release on its own
Dehydrate at 145F till dry, about 4-6 hrs
15. Use a good quality vacuum sealer with 3-mil
plastic sealing bags
I haven’t tried this, but heard you could use a
brake bleeder from harbor freight to seal
your jars when there is no electricity.
Any long term storage should be below 5%
moisture. It will easily snap and won’t stick
together.
16. Iron pellets in a plastic jacket
Absorbs most of oxygen, leaving nitrogen (inert gas)
300cc absorber per gallon of product
Not same as desiccant. That is for moisture.
Moisture
Careful to remove ALL moisture – Botulism
Moisture content = Initial weight of food - dry weight of food / dry
weight of food X 100%
Heat kills botulism
Botulism isn’t a concern on truly acidic foods, so 30% moisture on
oranges and tomatoes isn’t a problem.
30% on Meat would be a major problem
Most fruits should be dehydrated to 20%, whereas veggies to 5%
moisture
Use desiccants if you would like to continue to remove moisture
◦ Again not the same as an oxygen absorber
17. Mason Jars
◦ Airtight and you
can see the food
◦ You can use
vacuum sealer
attachments to
remove most air