If you have any questions on it, you can PM me and I’ll help anyway I can! I’ve done many “experiments” with it so I know a little bit about a little bit.
I've had a chance to run a few batches through it and I'm happy with the purchase. I would not recommend the average grower invest in one though, just due to the cost ($2k +), weight(250lbs) and noise (think vacuum cleaner running for 12 hours straight). I needed it for a large harvest that I really wanted to all dry equally and pretty quick, but not smell like hay. I knew trying to hang that much flower was not going to work and the machine did what I hoped it would. We trimmed all the buds and put them in the deep freezer. After a day in there, we ran them through the freeze dryer for 8-9 hours with max shelf temp at 70*F (ran some more and some less and settled on the 8-9 hrs/70*F). That time and temp got most of the water out and it left them just shy of dry (stem not snapping). Then left it out on a rack for about a day and then it was ready for the jar. Burped the jars over a couple days, even dumping it out on a rack again if needed, until it was just right. Pics are of the machine, the plants a couple weeks in and then again a couple weeks before harvest.Hello EVERYONE! I own a commercial freeze dryer, AND I have freeze dried medical cannabis. It was dried in less, than 12 hours and came out BEAUTIFUL!!! The color was electric, the smell was VERY fragrant, it broke up perfectly, AND THE TASTE WAS AMAZING!! Did NOT trim before hand, as you can trim after with ONLY using your fingers to easily break off the leaves, which are perfectly dried, IN A FRACTION(1/10th of the time) of the time needed doing it wet. The "clippings" were ready for making edibles. NO MOLD OR FUNGUS OR DANDER WORRIES ( compromised immune systems)/ NO WORRY OF SMELL WHILE DRYING/ NO TIME HARDLY/ NO WORRY OF TOO HIGH OF TEMP WHILE DRYING!!! THIS IS THE FUTURE!!! ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS????
I bought the smallest Harvest Right freeze dryer. It took 4-5 runs to dry what turned out to be 2.5 lb of finished product. Each run was about 8-9 hrs. Taking a que from the preppers who use this for food, I pre-froze the buds for a day or so. This reduces the machine run time by about half. Highly recommend the prefreeze. Use the custom settings and set your "shelf temp" around 70. Maybe even as high as 90. You'll need to play with time and temp to dial it in.
Have you tested your terpene levels after freeze-drying?Hello EVERYONE! I own a commercial freeze dryer, AND I have freeze dried medical cannabis. It was dried in less, than 12 hours and came out BEAUTIFUL!!! The color was electric, the smell was VERY fragrant, it broke up perfectly, AND THE TASTE WAS AMAZING!! Did NOT trim before hand, as you can trim after with ONLY using your fingers to easily break off the leaves, which are perfectly dried, IN A FRACTION(1/10th of the time) of the time needed doing it wet. The "clippings" were ready for making edibles. NO MOLD OR FUNGUS OR DANDER WORRIES ( compromised immune systems)/ NO WORRY OF SMELL WHILE DRYING/ NO TIME HARDLY/ NO WORRY OF TOO HIGH OF TEMP WHILE DRYING!!! THIS IS THE FUTURE!!! ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS????
retains all the terpenes, sublimation i think is the science term & process. just doesnt smell as strong as room temp flower, but thats the point to keep the good stuff in the bud & not in the atmosphere volatizing
Just curious, what do you limit your shelf temps to? Ive had a harvest right freeze dryer for years doing all sorts of food, but have never used it to dry flower. Ive read wide ranges of temps from 35F to 70F. The problem with vacuum is that evaporation points of just about everything move down the temperature scale. A lot of people use freeze dryers for bubble hash and keep the shelf temps low, around 45-50F which is right in the middle of the range Ive seen people write about. Obviously terpene retention is really important. As far as curing, since the enzymes are still present in the freeze dried flower, when you bring it back up in RH, they will do their work to break down the chlorophyll etc, just much faster than with ordinary curing.
Thanks for the reply! Yea if the machine smells strongly of weed while the ice melts, it’s likely that terpenes evaporated and were captured in the ice. I know that at normal atmospheric pressure, volatile terpenes start evaporating at 70F. In vacuum, it is lower. I may try it at a lower temp setting to see how it turns out. I’m used to 36+ hour dry cycles so the wait doesn’t bother me lol
completely different and doesn’t preserve the terp, and takes a longer time compare to a freeze dryer. I tried once with my first outdoor grow of some Fruity Pebbles and is pretty bad. Also had some mold issue on some buds but these were clean and still came out bad
So I did a little experiment. Did one batch 35F shelf limit (which gets as high as 42F on the tray heaters), 12 hours final dry. The machine automatically goes into small batch mode (25 cycles) because vapor pressure does not ever reach the default 500/600 mtorr annealing settings. Even after 12 hours the center of the buds still had some moisture which caused the buds to go from crispy to fairly moist all on their own. By the time I realized it, it was too late the machine had already been defrosted and I don't think there was enough moisture in the buds to freeze and run it through again. I think the stems inside the buds resist sublimation at that shelf temp. Almost no smell in the defrost water and only slight odor in the machine. Im going to have to cure those the standard way I think.
no idea on the shops, but yeah it does come out dry but smells amazing. Although 6-8 hours after drying in a paper bag will add some moisture back and soften the buds up a little. I just know I don't wanna go back to my regular drying method in paper bags. No guessing game anymore and no burping of the jars either.
