I imagine that title might look a little odd until you realize what sub this is :)
So two years ago I freeze dried a tray of cream cheese and two trays of greek yogurt. Coming out of the freeze dryer, they seemed absolutely great. They were dry, powdered well, and took water quickly.
I vacuum sealed the yogurt in non-mylar bags and vacuum sealed the cream cheese in two jars.
While doing some fall cleaning (it's like spring cleaning but it's in the fall, duh), I pulled most of the food out of the kitchen pantry to store in the basement with the rest. Living off of stores, I don't need to worry about keeping the kitchen pantry packed as much as just keeping something up there as a kind of "live inventory" that represents some of what's in the basement stores.
So I hauled about 10 bags of groceries down to the basement, put them away, looked through one of the shelves and took stock of conditions. I pulled a jar of cream cheese and the 4 bags of yogurt. I also pulled the "shelf stable" ham pieces - you know the kind you can get in the store that's filled with preserving shit and then vacuum sealed in a bag? Yeah, that stuff.
The yogurt was... brown. The clear plastic bags (as expected) aren't a perfect air/water barrier and it seems that after two years of storage that they were not up to the task. They still were "air tight" in appearance but not a good enough barrier. As said, this was expected but now I know at least "2 years" is a bit too long to expect them to hold. Squeezing the yogurt "powder" revealed that it wasn't much powder any more, more like a really dry but barely moist clump that looked like powder. I didn't even open them; they went right in the trash.
The ham was... brownish with spots of something that grew inside of it. I bought them in 2017 and were small pieces, $1 each, purchased just for this experiment. They were still air tight but the condition tells me that when they were packaged, sanitary conditions weren't top notch. Those went in the trash as well.
As for the other items on that shelf that I prepared/preserved myself, the green onions are starting to go a little brown but are still perfectly dry. They're freeze dried and sealed in jars so I expect that this is pretty much normal being two years old.
As for the cream cheese... It's fine. I popped open a jar this morning. Smelled fine, texture fine, still dry. It takes surprisingly little water to rehydrate and does well just stirring with a fork. The end result is a cream cheese that is light and fluffy, almost as if you had taken beaters and whipped the shit out of it. A blender would have done better as there were small lumps but that is because of it being mixed with a fork. It has a very slight cardboard-ish taste, certainly not fresh but it doesn't taste off in any other way. I put some on a bagel this morning and I'll let you know if it kills me.
In any case, it seems that the clear plastic for vacuum sealing is good for less than a year or so, mylar bags 18 months to two years (tops) and jars much longer. I'll keep this in mind as I start making my "home made MREs."
So, I'm getting ready to make a bunch of compact/portable meal kits for the truck and car and just camping in general. It had been on my To Do list for a while now to review and assess the condition of the freeze dried foods that I had squirreled away just to make sure that they were usable if it ever came down to it.
I had some freeze drying failures which, looking at what failed, seems like it was a malfunction in the freeze dryer (as found by the manufacturer this past summer). I figure this is the case because certain entire batches were "mushy". I lost 3 quarts of green peppers, two quarts of tomatoes, two quarts of mushrooms. Those were in super fucking thick mylar bags and careful inspection did not reveal any failure in the bagging materials.
I did lose a single 5-pack of biscuits due to vacuum seal failure. I opened them to check and they were still dry as a bone but... yellowish. I figured it was a sign that oxidation caused oils in the biscuits to go rancid and taste-test confirmed (that was nasty, by the way, don't eat shit with rancid oils/fats).
I have concerns about pork sausage but I figured that was a possible failure when I started since sausage tends to be a high fat food anyway. I haven't opened the bag yet but the sausage patties are flexible and they should not be. It's possible that it's just that the fat is keeping it flexible and has not gone rancid since it still has a tight vacuum seal. I'll know when I open it tomorrow and taste a crumb. Unfortunately, there's not much of a way to test that otherwise and I'm still concerned about botulism (food poisoning) since it thrives without oxygen and you can't taste it. My plan it to taste a crumb and if it doesn't seem off to test a half or quarter patty and see if I have any ill effects. I'll update if I do.
But other than that, all the other foods seemed to have lasted 2+ years so far. I opened several other bags I was concerned about. Specifically refried beans and ground beef because they seemed "mushy" in the bags but they're fine. All dried and crunchy when removed so they were resealed and put back in rotation.
I did open a bag that had pizza that I freeze dried 2 years ago. The cheese has gone a little yellow but it's otherwise fine and tasty. I had wondered if I needed to rehydrate it but it's pretty damned good as is so I plan to get a few more to freeze dry for meal kits.
As for the eggs (since I had posted about that earlier), I still have around 12 dozen stockpiled. They are well oiled and I'm keeping an eye on them. So far no problems.
Once I replace the spoiled foods, I'll start making my kits.
On a further note, meat loaf freeze dries very well and is pretty damned tasty. The freeze drying process seems to intensify the flavor.
Once I have all the food bits in place, I will make full "MRE" kits ideal for long term storage and ready to use should I need them in any event.
