0:00
a freeze dryer like the one next to me
0:01
removes water activity and moisture from
0:04
various different foods I've got several
0:06
different fruits that I'm going to show
0:07
you what the net weight is after freeze
0:09
drying let's get started
0:14
hey everyone welcome back to the freeze
0:16
dry business Channel my name is David
0:18
today is the first part to a new series
0:21
that I'm doing on Gross versus net
0:23
weight when it comes to freeze drying
0:25
because we know that freeze drying
0:26
removes the water activity and moisture
0:29
from various different foods and even
0:30
though this machine right behind me does
0:32
a lot of the work for us as a
0:34
freeze-dried business we really need to
0:35
know when we put 10 pounds of something
0:38
into our freeze dryer how much net
0:40
weight are we going to get so that we
0:41
can be more predictive and have a better
0:44
forecast of what type of production
0:46
we're going to get out of our freeze
0:47
dryer and a great example is if we put
0:49
10 pounds of let's say strawberries into
0:51
our freeze dryer and we only get one
0:54
pound of freeze-dried strawberries how
0:57
many bags can we actually put out there
0:59
for customers to buy that knowledge is
1:02
really good for us to know so that we
1:04
can predict and forecast how many
1:06
different Cycles we need to do in order
1:08
to fulfill orders and get ready for
1:10
events whether you're in cottage food or
1:13
if you're commercially licensed and
1:14
you're just doing wholesale to prepare
1:16
for those orders I'm going to do five
1:18
fruits that are really my top sellers
1:20
and in future videos within this series
1:22
we'll do other types of items and
1:24
different products that you've selected
1:26
or I've chosen and we'll see how those
1:29
gross weights change to net weights
1:31
after the freeze drying process the
1:33
fruits that we're going to do today to
1:35
see gross versus net weight is we're
1:37
going to do pineapple we're going to do
1:38
raspberries strawberries blueberries and
1:42
apples all right here are all the tools
1:43
that I use to prepare fruit these have
1:46
really helped me be more efficient in my
1:47
business and get these fruits prepared
1:50
very quickly and easily now if you're
1:53
interested in purchasing any of these
1:54
I've got links in the video description
1:56
of this video that link directly to
1:59
Amazon they are affiliate links so I do
2:01
get a small commission and for the very
2:03
small amount that Amazon does give me in
2:05
commission I use it directly to buy
2:07
different tools and things that I'm
2:09
seeing that would be beneficial for all
2:10
of you to see me use for this freeze
2:13
drying Channel all right so what we've
2:15
got here is I've got a knife sharpener
2:17
this is an antique sharpener I don't
2:18
think you're going to find that on the
2:20
Amazon links but I do have one that's
2:21
more modern on there this is a egg
2:24
slicer that I use for strawberries to
2:28
slice into different pieces now this is
2:30
an apple core so this goes directly into
2:33
the core which I'll show you of the
2:34
pineapple and then after you get it
2:36
cored you slice this down and it gets
2:38
you really nice bite-sized pieces with
2:40
this piece I got a really great knife if
2:43
you're interested in purchasing a grid
2:45
Knife Set I've got a link in the
2:47
description here and then I've also got
2:49
of course the roller Berry which I did a
2:51
video on and this pokes the skin of
2:53
blueberries so that the moisture
2:55
releases and you get a really nice
2:56
crispy blueberry and it drops the
2:59
blueberries with this little groove
3:01
right here also I've got this apple
3:03
slicer now this is actually more of a
3:06
potato slicer believe it or not for
3:08
fries but I use it for apples and you
3:10
put it in here then you slide this lever
3:12
and it creates all these different nice
3:14
little small bite-sized fry slices for
3:17
apples my customers love this and it has
3:20
these suction cups here so you get a
3:22
really good amount of Leverage when
3:24
you're slicing the the apples this is a
3:26
great device all of these are in the
3:28
video description if you'd like to
3:33
all right so let's get started with
3:34
blueberries so what I've got is a scale
3:36
here that will measure the gross and net
3:38
weight but I wanted to make sure I
3:40
showed you what I'm kind of doing within
3:42
this video so for blueberries here that
3:45
I've already washed what I did is I I
3:47
really looked for a tray it's worth in
3:50
the large freeze dryer worth of fruit
3:53
and I made sure that I did a pound of
3:56
every type of fruit or more and so this
3:59
is a carton of blueberries it's six
4:02
ounces growth starting out and I did
4:04
three of those so what we're going to do
4:06
is we're going to turn on the scale now
4:08
I'm going to use this bowl and then I'm
4:10
going to tear it off so that it gets to
4:12
zero and then we're going to pour the
4:14
blueberries into this bowl for the
4:17
blueberries it's one pound and three
4:20
ounces so that's what we'll start with
4:21
with the blueberries now it's time to
4:23
use the roller Berry and get the
4:25
blueberries poked all right so for all
4:27
the fruit that I do in this video I'm
4:28
gonna put them on baking sheets so that
4:30
we can pre-freeze them in the freezer
4:33
now I use this Reynolds kitchen freezer
4:35
paper it has kind of a shiny side that's
4:37
more for the non-stick so that way I
4:40
tear off five different sheets I put
4:42
them on the baking sheets and that way
4:44
when I put the fruit on them they don't
4:46
stick after Frozen and then I'm just
4:48
going to transfer them over into the
4:49
freeze dryer trays for my freeze dryer
4:51
all right so let's start poking the
4:53
blueberries again I use a Harvest Right
4:56
tray and silicone mat to line these up
5:00
and if you'd like to buy Harvest Right
5:03
mats you can obviously go to their
5:05
website I've got a link in the
5:06
description and just transfer the
5:08
blueberries over to the freezer paper
5:09
you want to have the shiny side up and
5:12
then we just keep doing the blueberries
5:31
this is 18 ounces of blueberries poked
5:34
and all with the roller Berry I'm going
5:35
to put this into the freezer so we'll
5:37
pre-freeze it and then we'll get into
5:38
the freeze dryer and see what the net
5:40
weight is of 18 ounces of blueberries
5:43
all right the blueberries are done take
5:45
a look at this this is what your
5:47
freeze-dried blue areas should look like
5:49
when you poke the skin it shouldn't look
5:51
like this one this one wasn't poked as
5:54
you can see it kind of exploded the rest
5:56
of them did not so this is a good solid
5:58
batch of blueberries now if you recall
6:00
what we did with the blueberries this
6:02
gross weight was about 18 ounces we did
6:05
three packs of six ounce of the
6:07
blueberries let's see how much
6:10
the blueberries get for net weight all
6:13
right so let's take a look at the
6:14
results after we put in 18 ounces of
6:17
blueberries starting out we got after
6:19
freeze drying 2.3 net ounces of
6:23
freeze-dried blueberries
6:27
all right next up is raspberries this is
6:30
another six ounce Carton and I put three
6:32
raspberries I've already washed all of
6:35
these raspberries so we're going to
6:36
transfer it to this bowl let it zero out
6:39
then let's put the raspberries on there
6:41
all right so what we've got here for
6:42
gross rate for The Raspberries of just a
6:45
little bit over a pound so we've got a
6:47
pound and roughly maybe two to three
6:50
ounces of raspberries so we'll put that
6:53
onto the baking sheet and then put it in
6:59
all right so here's a pound of
7:01
raspberries we'll put this into the
7:03
freezer let it pre-freeze and then we'll
7:05
put it in the freeze dryer this is what
7:07
freeze dried raspberries looks like
7:09
becomes super crunchy I'll smash one of
7:12
these just super Airy it's very tart but
7:15
very delicious great for smoothies
7:17
yogurts that's how I would Market it and
7:20
just excellent excellent fruit to freeze
7:23
dry we're going to put them into the
7:28
and let's see what it came out to all
7:30
right so how much did we get from 18
7:33
ounces of raspberries 2.2 net ounces
7:36
were produced from freeze drying
7:38
raspberries I do want to invite you to a
7:40
couple of my other videos there's a lot
7:42
of other videos on how to do different
7:44
candies fruits and I even do ice cream
7:46
so check that out and as always if you
7:48
enjoyed this video please hit the like
7:50
button but also subscribe to the channel
7:52
so that you can be notified of future
7:54
videos and join us in this freeze giant
7:59
all right so let's get started with
8:01
strawberries now and what we're going to
8:03
do is we're going to cut off the stems
8:05
of the strawberries that are already
8:06
washed so that we can figure out the
8:08
gross weight of that versus with the
8:11
stems on and then we'll put them on the
8:13
baking sheet using the freezer paper and
8:14
put them into the freezer
8:47
now that the stems are off the
8:49
strawberries we're going to weigh the
8:50
gross weight that way we know where we
8:52
started I'm doing two pounds of
8:54
strawberries out of these cartons so
8:56
there's one and then another one of
8:57
these put the bowl on here and tear it
9:00
off and then we're gonna pour the
9:02
strawberries in here all right sweet so
9:05
we're starting off with two pounds of
9:06
strawberries with the stems off which is
9:08
awesome I'm going to go ahead and slice
9:10
these strawberries and then we'll put it
9:11
on the baking sheet and put it in the
9:38
this is two pounds of strawberries all
9:40
the gross great so we're gonna put this
9:42
into the freezer and then we'll see what
9:44
the net weight comes out okay here we go
9:46
with strawberries these are freeze dried
9:48
strawberries they should be very crispy
9:51
and Airy and look like this and just
9:54
basically snap in half these are awesome
9:57
this is probably my one of my favorite
9:59
fruits to do so what we did here was
10:01
about two pounds of gross weight for the
10:10
okay so what do we get for the
10:12
strawberries we got 3.4 net ounces from
10:15
two pounds of strawberries all sliced
10:22
right so one of my favorite fruits
10:24
that's freeze-dried but I don't do it as
10:26
much as I should is pineapple I've got
10:29
two Pineapple we'll core it using this
10:32
core and then we'll put all those slices
10:35
into a bowl and figure out the gross
10:37
weight so let's do that
10:44
so now we're ready to core the pineapple
10:51
pineapple as you can tell by the
10:54
outside layer but that's okay
10:57
I just wanted to get
10:59
some pineapple for this video to kind of
11:01
see how much we're gonna get we're going
11:06
slicer and this goes all the way down
11:08
and gets you into like the little
11:09
bite-sized pieces now pineapple does
11:12
take a little bit longer to freeze dry
11:13
because it has a lot of sugar in it and
11:16
so I've found that sometimes it just
11:18
takes a long time to dry and also just
11:21
doesn't dry all the way it's kind of
11:22
inconsistent but I really do like it
11:25
when it freeze dries really well okay so
11:27
just like all the other fruit we're
11:29
going to put this bowl on the scale
11:30
we're going to tear it off so that when
11:33
we put the pineapple on we have the
11:35
exact weight two pineapples all sliced
11:39
we've got one pound and almost 15 ounces
11:43
so almost two pounds of pineapples out
11:47
of two pineapples that are cored and
11:49
sliced all right so here's the pineapple
11:51
that we cored and sliced now this was
11:54
two full pineapples cored and sliced and
11:57
what it got us was on the gross weight
11:59
two pounds roughly so we'll put this
12:02
into the freezer freeze dried pineapple
12:04
is super delicious man the flavor is
12:08
sometimes you do need to freeze dry this
12:10
a little bit longer I've checked a lot
12:12
of these and it should kind of sound
12:13
like what you're hearing it should sound
12:16
like it's dry and just kind of crumbling
12:18
up and breaking apart like this and with
12:21
pineapple we did two large pineapples we
12:23
cored it and we sliced it and so we got
12:25
about two pounds of pineapple that we
12:28
freeze dried and we put on this tray
12:30
then we're gonna put it into the bowl
12:35
and let's see what it comes out to all
12:38
right so what do we get from Pineapple
12:39
we got five net ounces from two pounds
12:42
of pineapple sliced and cord awesome
12:48
all right last fruit on our list for
12:50
this video is going to be apples I've
12:51
got some gala apples this is about two
12:53
pounds of apples there's only five of
12:56
them now this is one of my favorite
12:58
tools for prepping fruit other than the
13:01
roller Berry this is a fry slicer that I
13:04
found off at Amazon this is fantastic
13:06
you put the Apple into this apple core
13:11
and then you push this lever and it
13:14
slices out the Apple into these little
13:17
pieces that look like fries I separate
13:20
out all the good pieces from what the
13:23
core had because I don't know I don't
13:26
really want to eat the part of the core
13:28
that has the seeds in it if after it's
13:30
freeze-dried so this is what I discard
13:32
is the pieces that have the seeds in
13:35
them we're going to core the all these
13:39
and see what we get for a gross weight
13:42
after I remove those slices
13:58
all right so let's see how much this
14:00
weighs as part of a gross once we've
14:02
sliced them all all right we've got the
14:05
food scale now let's put the bowl on and
14:07
let's tear it off and then we're gonna
14:18
all right so look what we've got here
14:19
we've got one pound and 12 ounces gross
14:23
weight for all these apple slices so
14:25
we'll put them onto the baking sheet and
14:28
then we'll put them into the freezer and
14:29
we'll see what happens after we freeze
14:31
dry All Right freeze dried apples are
14:34
out and we cut them with that potato fry
14:37
slicer which I love so these look like
14:39
apple fries these are just awesome they
14:42
look very snacky that's why I like doing
14:44
that potato slicer and fry slicer so
14:48
we're just going to break these apart we
14:50
did five gala apples these are gala
14:53
apples we did five of them so let's see
14:55
what that comes out to after freeze
14:58
drying okay the big reveal how much did
15:00
we get from five gala apples we got 4.3
15:03
net ounces of freeze-dried apple fries
15:11
I wanted to address a couple questions
15:12
that usually come up in my videos which
15:14
is you know if you're starting out doing
15:16
a freeze dry business or you're
15:17
currently doing one one of the things
15:19
you're trying to evaluate is what the
15:21
price is going to be on your packages
15:23
based on various sizes but also you know
15:26
how much weight or how much product do
15:28
you put in there so to answer that
15:29
question I really didn't make it too
15:31
complicated on myself when I first
15:33
started out and even to this day I went
15:35
online I did some Google searches I went
15:37
on to Etsy and I looked to see what
15:39
other freeze drying companies were
15:41
pricing their products at and the net
15:43
weight and what I found to be more
15:45
consistent online and from other freeze
15:47
dry companies including large companies
15:49
like the brands that you see at Target
15:51
and Trader Joe's freeze drying fruit
15:52
generally about one net ounce of
15:55
freeze-dried fruit is gonna run about
15:58
six to seven dollars I add probably two
16:02
to three dollars for my end because I'm
16:04
a local small business it's a little bit
16:06
more premium I'm not mass producing it
16:09
I'm more pricing it as a local premium
16:12
freeze-dried fruit product so that's
16:14
what I would suggest you doing is kind
16:16
of looking at about an ounce of product
16:18
and then marking it up to probably about
16:22
nine to ten dollars per ounce you need
16:24
to evaluate you know how much labor
16:26
you're putting into prepping all that
16:28
fruit as you saw earlier in this video
16:30
it did take a lot of time to prep and
16:33
slice and do different types of fruit
16:34
maybe raspberries was one of those that
16:36
didn't take that much time but you
16:38
really do need to take into account the
16:40
time and labor that you're putting into
16:42
that and also you're not adding any
16:43
preservatives or sugars like some of the
16:46
other companies might be doing so to
16:48
recap the answer is those larger
16:50
companies that are mass producing
16:51
freeze-dried fruit they are pricing
16:53
about one net ounce of fruit for about
16:57
six to seven dollars so for the smaller
16:59
business freeze-dried companies I would
17:01
recommend pricing that up about two to
17:03
three more dollars I'm still selling all
17:05
the fruit that I put out there to my
17:07
customers and in retail stores it still
17:09
seems to be demanding that type of price
17:11
nice hey that was awesome figuring out
17:13
the gross and net weight of all these
17:15
different fruits I think this is really
17:16
helpful just for you to evaluate and
17:19
figure out what you can forecast for all
17:21
the different Cycles based on how many
17:22
pounds you need to buy at the store and
17:24
then how many you're going to actually
17:26
get out of freeze drying in that cycle
17:28
because it's all about just knowing how
17:30
quickly you can get stuff freeze dry but
17:32
also how much bags you can get so you
17:34
can get out there and sell so I hope
17:36
this video was helpful make sure you
17:37
subscribe to this Channel and join us in
17:39
the freeze drying Community thanks again
17:41
for watching and do something great for
17:42
your community for freeze drying as a
