Brandon here. It was a good week: the garden gave us a photo op, a kid gave us a freeze drying request, and the comments gave me my next homework. Here is all of it.
What worked this week
A kid asked us to freeze dry a cake. So we did. Watch the run on TikTok or catch it over on Instagram if that is where you spend your time. The best part was the comments. One fan trick from that thread is waiting for you further down this email. If a kid in your life has a strange freeze dryer request, my advice is to take it. Those runs tend to be the fun ones.
Earlier in the week I also posted the top 5 freeze drying mistakes I keep seeing. If your batches have been fighting you, start there, then read the next section, because the two go together.
The freeze-dry takeaway
Under the mistakes video, one commenter said they were ready to sell their freeze dryer because they were making basically every mistake on the list. I want to talk to that person, and to anyone else who is one bad batch away from giving up.
Almost every fix starts with a record of the run. If you change one habit this month, make it this: write down five things for every single batch.
- What went in, with the detail you will want later. Sliced peaches with the skin on beats a note that says fruit.
- Weight going in and weight coming out.
- Your machine settings.
- Run time.
- What you would change next time.
Number five matters most. When a batch comes out wrong, those notes are how you find the fix. And when you send me a problem food, those same five details are what let me give you a real answer. It costs you one minute per batch, and it saves you from repeating the same bad run all summer.
In Freeze-Dry Buddy
Those five things are exactly what Freeze-Dry Buddy keeps for you, and you can now go back and fix your old batches too: names, weights, settings, run time, notes. Your first sloppy month of entries can turn into a history you trust. The pantry keeps foods under the exact names you give them, and a new guide covers the full road from starting a batch to reviewing your pantry history. One more thing: when you submit a finished recipe for featuring, your photos now come through with it, straight to my review queue.
From the comments
On the cake video, one of you wrote: "My kids love when you turn their leftover birthday cakes into cake balls. I use the smallest ice cream scoop I could find." The small scoop is the kind of detail you only learn by doing it. If there is cake sitting around after the next birthday at your house, now you know where it goes.
Try this before next week
One ask. When you finish a batch you are proud of, turn it into a recipe and submit it for featuring in the app. The photos come through to me now, and I want to see what you are making.
And if you need two more seconds of entertainment this week, the harvest pose in question is here.
Next issue I am pulling another problem food from the comments and walking through the fix, the same way we handled peaches.