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#1 Freeze Drying TOOL You Should BUY | Save Time & Money | How to Freeze-Dry BLUEBERRIES
May 15, 2025
There are a number of tools you can purchase to help make things easier for you when freeze-drying but I've found one tool that has saved me the most time and money when freeze-drying fruit. In this video, I share how the Roller Berry tool from FrozenRight.com has helped me poke the skin of each blueberry prior to freeze-drying.
Poking the skin of blueberries is necessary when freeze-drying because the water activity needs to be released once the process begins. If the skin is not poked, the moisture has nowhere to go and therefore can cause the blueberry to explode in your freeze-dryer or worse, not dry properly. Watch this video to learn more.
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
0:54 Why blueberries skin should be poked
1:50 Roller Berry Tool
2:32 How to wash blueberries
3:25 Roller Berry in ACTION
5:32 Poking 2 lbs of blueberries in 34 seconds
6:29 2 lbs vs 3 lbs on a tray
7:43 How long do 12 lbs of blueberries take to freeze-dry?
8:21 Poked vs Not-Poked - The final result
11:24 Storing your freeze-dried blueberries
Interested in the Roller Berry tool?
Visit https://frozenright.com/product/roller-berry-price-140/
Tell them David from The Freeze Dried Business channel sent you. They may include a discount.
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
if you've got a freeze dryer like the
0:01
one behind me and you're trying to
0:03
freeze dry blueberries but you just
0:04
can't get the drying processed correctly
0:06
and they all come out inconsistent
0:08
you're going to love this video because
0:09
I've got a tool that's going to save you
0:11
time and money by poking the skin of the
0:14
blueberry it's fantastic and I'm going
0:16
to show you what it's all about in this
0:17
video
0:19
[Music]
0:22
I'm David and I'm a freeze-dried
0:24
business owner in Idaho if you are an
0:26
owner of a freeze dry business or you're
0:28
trying to start one this channel is for
0:30
you I started this channel because I
0:31
just couldn't find any visual video
0:33
representation of what it's like to
0:35
freeze dry as a business or to find just
0:37
videos about how to do different things
0:39
that can help you in a freeze dry
0:40
business so I started this Channel and
0:42
all the videos that I'm producing is to
0:44
help you wherever you're at in your
0:46
business in today's video we're going to
0:48
freeze dry blueberries and I'm going to
0:49
show you how to use a tool that's really
0:51
helped me be efficient with doing
0:54
blueberries one of the most frustrating
0:55
fruits for me starting out was the
0:58
blueberry and the reason being is
1:00
because I used to just throw the
1:02
blueberries right on the tray and I
1:04
didn't realize that you needed to poke
1:05
the skin of the blueberry and any other
1:08
types of fruits that have a skin because
1:11
as you know the freeze dryer is removing
1:13
the moisture from any type of item so
1:17
with the blueberry the skin preserves
1:19
that kind of like compactness water
1:22
activity in there and so if it just
1:24
dries it doesn't have a way to release
1:26
the water and then you get exploding
1:29
blueberries that are dried and it just
1:31
either falls apart and crumbles or it
1:34
becomes still chewing and it doesn't dry
1:36
completely that's the inconsistencies
1:38
that I found so I started poking
1:41
blueberries with an individual metal
1:43
skewer and I started just poking each
1:45
individual one on the trays it took a
1:48
really long time and it just wasn't
1:49
efficient now I purchased the roller
1:52
Berry this is by the company Frozen
1:54
right the company manufactures a
1:56
stainless steel roller Berry now the
1:59
tool has metal spokes that rotate and
2:02
then right here is where all the
2:04
blueberries catch once you roll it and
2:07
it falls right back on the tray now the
2:09
rollerberry tool and then this case that
2:13
comes with Styrofoam in it to keep the
2:16
stainless steel tool intact that's going
2:19
to run you about a hundred and ninety
2:20
dollars if you just want the roller
2:22
Berry it's going to run you 160. now it
2:25
pays for itself I love this tool I'm
2:28
definitely an ambassador of this tool
2:30
because it's saved me a lot of time and
2:32
money all right first things is we need
2:34
to wash the blueberries now if you're
2:36
not familiar with washing methods I did
2:38
look up on the USDA and you really don't
2:41
have to wash fruit in any specific way
2:44
you just need to run it over cold water
2:46
and I usually run it for about a minute
2:48
or so so what I use is a strainer like
2:51
this
2:52
and then I'm just going to use running
2:54
water
2:55
and then cold water and then I use the
2:57
sprayer to rinse over the blueberries
3:04
and then what I do is I usually just
3:05
take my hands and I kind of
3:07
turn over the blueberries a little bit
3:09
so that we get the ones that were at the
3:12
bottom anytime you're freeze drying
3:13
fruit you should definitely be washing
3:15
the fruit beforehand so again I'm just
3:17
making sure I'm getting all of any type
3:19
of dirt or bacteria that came off the
3:22
blueberries from the store off of there
3:24
so that's probably good all right we're
3:26
going to use the roller bear I'm going
3:27
to show you how quickly it is to poke
3:29
blueberries I've got the blueberries all
3:31
washed and what we're going to do is we
3:33
just kind of line up the blueberries
3:35
using the silicone mat from the Harvest
3:38
Right trays and we simply put the roller
3:41
Berry on the end we kind of tilt up like
3:43
this and then we roll and look every
3:46
single one of these blueberries just got
3:48
poked which is brilliant so then we can
3:50
just toss those in here
3:52
onto the other tray
3:55
and get more blueberries I've got one
3:58
Harvest tray over here and then I've got
4:00
this one with a silicone mat
4:03
and this was about three pounds of
4:05
blueberries that I washed
4:09
and I usually do about
4:11
three pounds on one tray of blueberries
4:15
I haven't noticed any really bad
4:18
consistencies with putting three pounds
4:21
versus putting two pounds of blueberries
4:24
again you just kind of lift up and you
4:25
roll it all across this is super
4:28
efficient
4:29
to get these blueberries skins all poked
4:32
so blueberries are very popular for me
4:35
because they're kind of just very snacky
4:39
they're small they taste like the
4:40
blueberries and they're crunchy I find
4:42
that people really buy these because one
4:44
if you like blueberries you're going to
4:46
like these like I said they're crunchy
4:48
they kind of people like crunchiness
4:50
they like having pretzels they like
4:52
having you know corn chips and things
4:55
like that and corn nuts blueberries kind
4:58
of provide that crunchiness and it's
5:00
awesome and then it also it's freeze
5:02
dried so it's preserved freeze-dried
5:04
blueberries provides that stability for
5:07
fresh produce so I just did three pounds
5:11
of blueberries this whole tray right
5:14
here three pounds of blueberries
5:17
this took only about five minutes
5:21
using the rollerberry All poked and
5:23
everything all right I'm going to set a
5:24
timer for how long it takes me to do two
5:27
pounds of blueberries so you can see
5:29
let's go ahead and press start and let's
5:31
do the roller Berry
5:32
[Music]
5:59
foreign
6:02
[Music]
6:09
seconds to do two pounds of blueberries
6:12
all poked and all awesome all right I
6:15
just washed two pounds of blueberries
6:16
and I'm gonna do it without it being
6:19
poked so that you can see the difference
6:21
once these are all done of what the
6:24
difference is with the blueberries if
6:27
they're not poked versus if they are all
6:29
right I want to give you some
6:30
perspective on the tray loads because
6:33
this is two pounds of blueberries that
6:37
are poked and then this is three pounds
6:40
of blueberries that are poked so it's a
6:43
little bit taller as you can see and
6:45
definitely has more of a layer to it
6:47
we're going to see how both of these dry
6:50
and what the difference is in
6:52
consistency is of the dry when they're
6:54
more overloaded versus when they are
6:57
just a more single layer like two pounds
6:59
versus three pounds so I have a Harvest
7:02
Right large freeze dryer and I don't
7:04
change any of the default settings that
7:06
come with it for fruit specifically I
7:09
keep everything the same except for
7:11
maybe the final dry time you can change
7:13
that however long you want it to be
7:15
extra dry usually when it's on that
7:17
final drive process I'm right by the
7:20
machine and if I want more time I'll add
7:23
it so in the freeze dryer that we're
7:24
going to do for this Cycles 12 pounds of
7:26
blueberries we've also got a couple of
7:28
trays that don't have any poking to it
7:30
of the skin so we're going to see how
7:32
that does and then we've got a tray that
7:34
has three pounds on it versus two pounds
7:36
so a lot of fun stuff to kind of see how
7:38
it all turns out we'll wait for this
7:40
cycle to get done and then we'll see how
7:42
it all turned out all right blueberries
7:44
are done so with that 12 pounds of
7:47
blueberries it took around 47 hours now
7:50
I'm warming the trays up just so it can
7:52
get a little bit more warmer I just
7:55
wasn't able to get it here earlier in
7:57
the day so we're just going to warm up
7:58
the trays and then we'll take a look at
8:00
the blueberries blueberries are done
8:01
they're done freeze drying and so what
8:03
I'm going to show you is the various
8:05
different phrase now if we recall we did
8:08
some with the roller Berry where we
8:09
poked the skin we wanted to release the
8:11
moisture out of the berry and then we
8:13
also did a couple trays with different
8:15
pounds so we did one tray with two
8:18
pounds one tray with three so let's take
8:20
a look at those trays all right
8:21
everybody I just took two trays out of
8:23
the freeze dryer one tray is poked
8:26
that's the one that's poked that we did
8:28
with the roller Berry and then this one
8:30
is not and as you can see quite a big
8:33
difference so this is the tray that we
8:34
didn't poke the skin and remember the
8:36
reason we've broken the skin is because
8:38
there's moisture inside these
8:40
blueberries obviously and when they have
8:42
a skin or most berries that have a skin
8:45
basically there's no way for that
8:47
moisture to release so unlike other
8:49
fruits there is a way for that water to
8:51
release but with blueberries there's the
8:53
skin so again this is the tray that as
8:56
you can see it just has
8:58
this red and it actually like crushes
9:01
you see all that how it's crushing with
9:04
just my finger
9:05
it's this really poor quality in terms
9:08
of the overall product now take a look
9:11
at this tray now this is the tray that
9:13
we poked as you can see there's barely
9:16
any type of juices that were released
9:18
maybe one or two from ones we just
9:20
didn't get enough poking on this
9:21
blueberry doesn't really Crush at all
9:23
and even if it does it still stays
9:25
intact and you get that really crispy
9:27
crunch now the reason you're hearing
9:29
that popping is because I just came out
9:30
of the freeze dryer so again here's the
9:32
two trays this tray that has been poked
9:36
you really get a really nice blueberry
9:38
okay so now what I'm showing you is the
9:41
two trays that were poked but one of
9:44
them had three pounds that's this one
9:46
right here it's a little bit overloaded
9:48
and then this one has just two pounds of
9:52
blueberries that are poked with the
9:53
roller Berry and as we can see with this
9:56
three pound one let's dig down into the
9:59
kind of The Middle
10:01
and see if it's
10:03
dry yep
10:06
it's good product hey I wanted to show
10:09
you one more tray this is a tray that we
10:11
didn't poke and I wanted to show you
10:13
just look at look at how some of these
10:15
blueberries turned out shriveled up and
10:17
things they're just very inconsistent
10:19
still has some moisture in it also the
10:21
blueberries that are shriveled up that
10:23
you see have moisture in them so if you
10:25
just throw them in a bag or throw them
10:26
in your bucket for storage it's really
10:28
going to spoil all your freeze-dried
10:30
blueberries that were already dried okay
10:33
so if you're wondering what blueberries
10:35
taste like freeze-dried a freeze-dried
10:38
blueberry when it's poked and it's done
10:39
perfectly it's super crunchy
10:43
over the past three years of doing
10:45
freeze drying I feel like freeze drying
10:47
for fruit and other types of things even
10:49
candy the flavor for certain things just
10:52
hits more quickly than others which I
10:55
really like all right so one thing about
10:57
freeze drying that you should definitely
10:59
know about is you're going to want to
11:01
store your freeze-dried fruit and what I
11:04
use for kind of temporary storage until
11:06
I'm ready to bag it is I use a five
11:08
gallon bucket that has a gamma seal lid
11:11
on it which is kind of an airtight type
11:13
of lid so I'm going to show you that and
11:15
then we're going to put the berries that
11:16
I poked in there and we're going to kind
11:19
of probably discard the ones that I
11:21
didn't poke or kind of use them and
11:23
maybe some other ways all right so
11:24
here's the five gallon bucket and this
11:26
is what they call the gamma seal lid
11:28
I've got a link in the description of
11:30
this video if you want to buy it off of
11:32
Amazon but it has this rubber gasket as
11:35
you can see here and that's what creates
11:37
that seal and then it has a really good
11:40
amount of spin to it and then you just
11:42
tighten it up and what what I usually do
11:44
is I put some desiccant packets down
11:47
here to just absorb any type of moisture
11:50
or anything I'm not too concerned with
11:51
air at this point because it's just just
11:54
so short term right now of using
11:57
the bucket so I'm going to dump the
12:00
blueberries in here
12:03
that that I poked with the roller Sperry
12:09
and I already had some blueberries in
12:11
there which is totally fine I did
12:13
actually have a big wholesale order for
12:15
blueberries this past Christmas usually
12:18
my bags that I put together I have a net
12:21
weight of 1.2 ounces of blueberries that
12:24
I sell and I was able to get about 60
12:27
bags if I filled this up to the top 60
12:30
bags of blueberries at 1.2 net ounces
12:33
then we're just going to seal it back up
12:37
all right and then we're done hey it was
12:39
a blast doing freeze-dried blueberries I
12:41
hope the roller Berry and poking the
12:43
skin of the blueberries made sense for
12:45
you remember we just want to poke them
12:48
for purely to release the moisture out
12:50
of the blueberries because the skin
12:52
provides that kind of compact pressure
12:54
that's not going to give you the best
12:57
crunch and the most high quality product
12:58
that's what it's really all about when
13:00
it comes to freeze drying if you want to
13:01
purchase the roller Berry go ahead and
13:03
go to frozenright.com let them know that
13:05
David from the freeze dried business
13:07
Channel sent you also you can subscribe
13:10
to this Channel or like this video if it
13:12
was helpful for your business hey have a
13:13
great day and make an impact to your
13:15
community using your business we'll see
13:17
you next time
13:22
[Music]
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