https://wiki.tjhowse.com/ 2026-04-21T08:29:19+00:00 https://wiki.tjhowse.com/ https://wiki.tjhowse.com/_media/wiki:logo.png text/html 2022-10-14T11:26:40+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://wiki.tjhowse.com/projects:vacuum_drier:work_logs:1_assembly The Beginnings The Plan I would like to make vacuum freeze-dried food at home for fun. Ben at Applied Science made it look easy. The Shopping * 2-stage 1 HP Vacuum pump, * Chamber, * Strawberries, * Raspberries, * Mangoes, * Kiwi fruit, * Rainbow ice cream, text/html 2022-10-18T06:43:55+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://wiki.tjhowse.com/projects:vacuum_drier:work_logs:2_first_try First try Freezing the food I bought and prepared some food a few days prior to buying the dry ice. * Strawberries, * Raspberries, * Mangoes, * Kiwi fruit, and * Rainbow ice cream. I separated each foodstuff and froze them in our regular -18°C freezer. I cut the ice cream into slabs approximately 15-20mm thick. I cut the mango and kiwi fruit slightly thinner for no good reason. I left the berries whole. At this point I noticed I'd accidentally bought low-fat ice cream. I think this… text/html 2022-10-28T07:02:01+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://wiki.tjhowse.com/projects:vacuum_drier:work_logs:3_second_try Second try Improvements The main improvements over the last attempt were to increase the diameter of the pipe between the cold trap and the vacuum pump, and to improve the quality of the vacuum. I bought new fittings for the vacuum pump with fewer narrow points along the path, and installed a bigger passthrough to the cold trap lid. It was hard to identify the thread on the body of the vacuum pump. I eventually worked out that it was a 1/2 text/html 2022-11-30T02:51:37+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) https://wiki.tjhowse.com/projects:vacuum_drier:work_logs:4_more_tries More tries Improvements WIP Videos