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#1 Chocolate Candy to Freeze Dry | How to Freeze Dry Charleston Chews | Freeze Dried Business
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May 15, 2025
Have you tried freeze-drying chocolate? The lack of moisture/water in chocolate is why it usually doesn't hold up in the freeze-drying process but...there is a candy bar with chocolate and it does freeze-dry to a new flavorful texture. In this video, I demonstrate the process of freeze-drying chocolate/vanilla-based candy bar; the Charleston Chew! Join me on this video for a detailed look at the preparation methods needed to transform this chewy candy into a crunchy, rich texture as well as freeze-dryer settings. You can support my channel by purchasing items from the links below for either personal use or your freeze-dried business. Thank you! Here are several freeze-dryers I use in my business and I would recommend considering them for your existing freeze-dried business or just starting out. - Harvest Right Freeze Dryers - https://affiliates.harvestright.com/1974.html - StayFresh Freeze Dryers - https://stayfreshfreezedry.com/?sca_ref=3292008.4uBi4MIG3W&sca_source=YouTube Create an Amazon Business Account like I did to save on Amazon purchases: https://amzn.to/40HUntM Items in this video you can order on Amazon: - Charleston Chews 120 count - https://amzn.to/3FfTf7z - Charleston Chews Rollers - https://amzn.to/3FfTf7z - Knife Sharpener - https://amzn.to/3Vrttml - Large cutting board - https://amzn.to/3GqhIYN - Food Scale - https://amzn.to/3FyO9DW Here are other tools I use for my freeze-dried business: - Cookie/Ice Cream Scoop (1/2 or 1 tablespoon size) - https://amzn.to/3utyX4H - 5 Gallon Storage Pails with Gamma Screw Lid - https://amzn.to/3ICnXdT
View Video Transcript
0:00
hey welcome to the freeze Drive business
0:01
Channel have you ever wondered why
0:03
certain candies that have chocolate in
0:05
it just don't freeze dry well in today's
0:07
video I'm going to share with you a
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candy that does have chocolate in it and
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it does freeze dry well and it is one of
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my top sellers for my freeze-dried
0:14
business and you should add it too let's
0:16
get started
0:21
hey welcome back to the freeze-dried
0:22
business Channel my name is David I run
0:24
a freeze dry business in Idaho if you're
0:26
running a freeze-dry business or you
0:28
want to start one this channel is for
0:30
you I'm trying to connect the freeze dry
0:32
business Community with the tools and
0:34
resources needed to grow a sustainable
0:36
business and that's what these videos
0:37
are all about now I've been absent for a
0:39
couple of weeks reason being I do have a
0:41
full-time job on top of this side hustle
0:43
business that I'm trying to grow and so
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sometimes that just gets in the way of
0:47
video production and things that I need
0:48
to get done in today's video we're going
0:50
to be doing Charleston shoes this is one
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of my top 20 selling freeze-dried items
0:55
that I have if you want to check out
0:56
that video it's on my channel usually
0:58
chocolate doesn't freeze dry well it
1:00
doesn't have much moisture so really it
1:02
just ends up melting but like caramel M
1:04
M's and Milk Duds the caramel that is
1:07
inside the chocolate when you freeze dry
1:10
it that actually allows it to have kind
1:13
of that popping texture and then you're
1:16
able to maybe like put it into the
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freezer and that candy is able to harden
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up and the chocolate doesn't melt right
1:22
away now if you're not familiar with the
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Charleston chew this is one of the more
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expensive type of candies that you're
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going to purchase because they don't
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sell these in bulk like they do at other
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types of stores like Costco and things
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like that so you're really going to have
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to go onto Amazon I've got a link in the
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description to buy Charleston shoes now
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this is a 30 ounce bag it has about 120
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of the Charleston Chews in these little
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wrappers so in today's video I'm going
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to show you how to kind of quickly
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unwrap it as best as I can I'll cut it
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for you I'll show the different sizes
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that I cut them in up until this video
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I've only done this size of the
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Charleston shoes with the wrappers but I
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found that through some of the forums a
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lot of people are liking these
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Charleston shoes rollers because they're
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just little balls and you can put them
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on the tray there's no unwrapping or
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anything of that type of nature so I'm
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gonna do in this video both the rollers
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for the first time and then I'm also
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going to do the Charleston shoes with
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the wrappers so let's talk about the
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freeze dryer settings I usually don't
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change up the temperatures too much
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above 140 degrees or so so I'm going to
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press customize because I've got the
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latest software with candy mode I'm
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going to increase the drying temperature
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to 140 and then I'm going to do the
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extra dry time that's the time that it's
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actually going to do the freeze drying
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for the candy I'm going to set it to
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three hours this time now here's the
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hint about Charleston's shoes it does
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have chocolate in it so if you take it
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out too early when it's at that 140
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degrees or even around 100 degrees once
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it's finished with its cycle you're
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going to still have it be melty and it's
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going to have a probability of it
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melting with it in your bucket and in
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your bags so what I found best with
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Charleston shoes is I leave it in the
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freeze dryer or I take it out and put it
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in the freezer all the trays and let it
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freeze over and then I store it in my
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buckets or immediately bag it so that's
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my tip for you is don't take it out
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immediately and if you do put it in the
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freezer all those trays so that the
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chocolate hardens up and then you have
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an intact Charleston juice and I'll show
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you what that looks like alright so the
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for the prep tools and everything that
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you're going to need for Charleston
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Chews is really simple all I've got is a
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knife because we're going to take the
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wrappers and we're going to cut those so
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what I'm going to do for these rollers
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for the first time is I knew that they
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had they came in little balls so rather
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than pour them all on the tray and have
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them scatter about on the tray and have
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them all maybe touch is I'm going to put
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them
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all in these different molds this is the
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Harvest Right tray molds that you can
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buy on the website I've got a link in
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the description of this video if you
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want to buy these molds
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[Music]
4:05
so I got every single ball on one tray
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with the tray molds that's pretty nifty
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I had three left all right so now we're
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going to do the Charleston shoes that
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have wrappers on them now I'm going to
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put gloves on the chocolate and
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everything just gets
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sticky over time and I just it ends up
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just getting a mess on my hand I did
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pre-freeze and I put my Charleston Chews
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bags in the freezer now the reason being
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is because over time that I've done this
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if it's at room temperature or whatever
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it just adds a little bit more of the
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stickiness to the wrapper so when you
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freeze it though I found that the
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wrappers come apart more easily and
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again it's about speed and efficiency
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when it comes to freeze drying as a
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business and cutting these candies now
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what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut
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these in half and then I'm also going to
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cut them in thirds because there's just
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different types of bite-sized pieces
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that you want to choose for your
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customers with different candies in your
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freeze-dried business the reason we're
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cutting them in different sizes is
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because if you were going to create your
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own candies you wouldn't want them to be
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just gigantic right I mean the Jolly
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Ranchers are really fun if you do them
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in their full size but it's not
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manageable to put them into a bag to
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sell so that's why we're going to do
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more of the smaller pieces and we're
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going to make them more bite-sized I'm
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going to unwrap all of these Charleston
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shoes and then I'm going to put the
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chocolate on here that's unwrapped and
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then we'll arrange it on the tray so you
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can kind of see how many you can put on
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the tray as you can see here
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I'm literally pushing up and it gets out
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the chocolate without it sticking and
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again you saw that it didn't stick to
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this wrapper and that's because I
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pre-froz it this is the tedious part
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about freeze drying as a business
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especially if you're going to do candy
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like this it's a lot of fun freeze
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drying but it does take time to prepare
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all of this candy you have to cut it you
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have to arrange it it just takes time
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now
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is it worth it absolutely because
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if you're doing it as a side hustle you
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know hey you know you don't have huge
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amounts of overhead you can kind of
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price the way you want to but as soon as
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you start getting into wholesale and you
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have people asking for bulk items things
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like that you got to figure out your
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margins you got to figure out how much
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time you're going to dedicate
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to doing stuff like this and I only do
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these Charleston Chews really maybe once
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a month and I just do a couple of these
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bags like you're seeing here
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[Music]
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okay so let's take a look at this tray
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and let's see what the arrangement is
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Okay so we've got six and then let's
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calculate how much we got down in
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another row one two three four five six
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seven eight nine ten eleven twelve six
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times twelve I'm not a math whiz but it
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is 72 so we've got
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72 half pieces in here so that's 36
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individual Charleston shoes that we cut
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so you need to have 36 on here let's do
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120 because it's 120 in the bag divided
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by 36 is three so we can actually do
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three trays three and a quarter trays of
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Charleston shoes out of 120 count plus
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we've already got the one in the rollers
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so for the purposes of this video I just
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wanted to show you the arrangement of
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this now do them cut in thirds
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[Music]
8:06
thank you Okay cool so let's count these
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up right now so we've got one two three
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four five six seven okay so seven right
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there one two three four five six seven
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eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen
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gonna get my handy calculator out on my
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phone thirteen times seven so I got 91
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pieces on here 91 divided by three again
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30 30 pieces that we did here all right
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so we've got three trays in the freeze
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dryer so now I'm gonna just do the next
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two off camera and then we'll check the
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freeze dryer once it's all done all
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right the Charleston shoes are done now
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what I did is I actually ran this
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overnight so I let it chill all the way
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down to about negative 20 degrees and so
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I'm just pressing warming the trays I'm
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not going to warm it very much I'm just
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going to warm it to about maybe zero
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degrees or so just so it's not super
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cold when I take it out of the freeze
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dryer and then we'll take a look at the
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finished product Oh all right let's take
9:08
a look at the Charleston shoes this is
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what I love about this Charleston shoes
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now look at this this puffs up this was
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the cut in half size as you can see the
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chocolate once you freeze it it actually
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doesn't uh melt and things so that's why
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I say you got to make sure you like
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freeze it either in the freezer or just
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let the freeze dryer freeze it back
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let's see what these Charleston Chews
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rollers did wow that's awesome look at
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that
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yeah it basically turned out about the
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same
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size is some of the thirds that we did
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for the Charleston shoes so awesome
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let's take it out now this is what's so
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great about the Charleston shoes is the
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texture has changed the chocolate is now
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not melted it's all around the the
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marshmallowy type of candy
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it literally is just like a vanilla
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marshmallowy like Whopper that's how I
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would describe it now I chose to do
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these molds because with the rollers I
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just didn't want it rolling around and
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then touching
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each individual piece so what I'm going
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to do is I'm just going to kind of Pop
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these out and I'm just going to put them
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back on the tray as I'm seeing right
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here and I don't know if you can see
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this from the angle here I'll zoom in a
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little bit it's definitely kind of
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creating a little bit of breakage if
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that's even a word so it's kind of
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popping out as I'm popping out the
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silicone mold here so it's definitely
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kind of crumbling the Charleston Chews
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not really liking this so you're kind of
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seeing this for the first time so my
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thought process of like you know hey
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making this individual it may not have
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been the best idea I'm not really liking
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to be honest because it's just taking
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more time for me to to get these open
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and what I would recommend based on this
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first experience because this is the
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first time that I did the Charleston
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shoes rollers I would not use these mats
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because I don't like how it's kind of
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crumbling the product and therefore I'm
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not going to package it because it just
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doesn't look right hey thanks for
11:07
watching another video I'll keep it
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short and sweet hit the like button if
11:10
you like the content from this video and
11:12
it helped you understand how to do
11:13
Charleston shoes and if you want to join
11:15
the community of freeze-dried business
11:16
owners I'd love for you to subscribe
11:18
that way you get notified of future
11:20
videos and you also kind of just build a
11:22
community and comment on my videos let
11:24
me know what you're doing let me know
11:25
what other videos I could be doing for
11:27
you to help you out this whole rest of
11:29
the Year have a great rest of the month
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we'll see you again next time
11:35
foreign
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