Long term dehydration prep for a PCT thruhike

[Anthony Meaney]

Thanks Gary.

[rick .]

I'm starting a spreadsheet to compare the options out there. If anyone cares to add to it for the greater good, our stomachs/wallets will appreciate: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiEKUPm1goqxdE50YUNfbFliakFVbkpzd21WTlRuMWc&usp=sharing

A lot of the suppliers only give info in one measurement (cups/ounces/servings) so just put in what they have and I will work on the analysis columns ($/oz). The goal is a list of cost per dinner to compare options.

Home-dehydrated info is needed as well, keep the weights in dehydrated weight.

[Gary Dunckel]

I really like the MH pasta Primavera as a base for tasty meals–add FD chicken or beef (or fresh trout?) and peas or green beans, + olive oil, + garlic powder or some other favorite spice).

Also, consider their Seafood Chowder as another base, to which you can add some foil wrapped crab, garlic & tomato, or whatever else you like. To me, this is all about finding great ingredients, hopefully freeze dried, maybe some fresh stuff, the right spices, and enough canister fuel to make it work. That's where the MSR MiniMo stove/pot shines, as I can perfectly simmer whatever I want. Yum to the max, I say, or why bother to cook at all? The option is to eat a ProBar and call it good?

[jscott]

+1 on the MH pasta primavera.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

PP is easy to make!! You can even do it FBC. Give me a few and I can post a recipe on the site – I went looking and yep, I have one in Trail Cooking: Trail Food Made Gourmet :-)
And mine isn't 2 cups of liquid with some pasta floating in it……

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

I know this is a little old, but in my opinion it is better to dry special items only. It's really more financially economical to purchase freeze-dried or dehydrated things than to make your own. So only make things you cannot buy or that you can make better than what you can buy.

The suggestion to make or acquire things you can add to store-bought food is a good one. The staples of a thru-hike: ramen, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, can really be perked up with your dried food extras.

My tastes were crazy on my thru-hike. All I wanted to eat was mac and cheese or cous-cous. The mac and cheese I made from ordinary elbow macaroni or orzo to which I would put a whole packet of Knorr Alfredo or Four Cheese powder and cut up chunks of Swiss Grueyer cheese. To the cous-cous I added a pouch of tuna or chicken breast with some curry powder, raisins, pecans and mayonnaise packets I got from mini-markets. I thought it was the most delicious thing ever so I made it at home once. It was not as good as I remembered. Other than these two meals, I only wanted to eat grapenuts cereal with walnuts or pecans and Nido, cheeze-its, cookies, gummy bears and reeses pieces.

[Terry Sparks]

Hi Katy,
I cooked and dehydrated all my dinners and made my breakfast from scratch for my PCT thru last year and I'm happy to share the things that worked well for me.

1. I made up 15 different dinner menus for variety, this kept me from getting tired of any one meal.

2. I ground all my meats, including beef, chicken, pork and some fish, then seasoned and cooked, put them in a colander to squeeze out the fats, ground them again to smaller grind and then I dehydrated them. This allowed for a much shorter re-hydration period, usually 10 min. in cold water then added hot water and a cozy for 10 minutes or less.

3. Because I was doing bigger miles, I added fats to every meal with powdered butter, powdered heavy cream, powdered cheddar cheese, powdered sour cream, powered cream cheese, doubled up on Nido, coconut oil, olive oil and the like. This year I'm adding coconut butter to my ingredient list (thank you Piper!).

4. Breakfast ingredients were: Oatmeal, Chia, Flax,Hemp Seed Hearts, Teff, a nut, a dried fruit or berry, powdered heavy cream, powdered butter and doubled up Nido. This gave me about 900 calories per breakfast and would have two of these per day.

All powdered dairy products were purchased online, Amazon.
Edit- Nido was purchased at a retail store.

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

Wow, all that dried butter and stuff sounds awesome. That menu must have served you well.

Listen to Terry. I met him on an overnighter before he did the PCT and he was concerned about making the mileage. Then he went out there and was hiking 40 miles a day! He's a beast!

[jimmer ultralight]

Terry, Some good meat prep info there.

A few questions-

What sort of grinder do you use?

and

What is the weight of fresh lean meat at start vs the weight of dried – i.e. -what is the yield?

[Terry Sparks]

Hi Diane, thanks for the complement!

Jimmy, I have a heavy duty Kitchenaid stand mixer with the meat grinder attachment and that works very well for my needs. If you don't have that available, there are many inexpensive grinders that should work for our applications.

For the weight of the meats all I have right now in my notes;
Chicken breast, boned and skinned, 280 calories, six ounces, uncooked.
Dehydrated- 1.9 ounces per my scale= 140 calories per ounce (est.)

My educated guess is, after dehydrating the different meats for the hike, the end result was about 1/3 of the original weight of the meat except for fish, which seemed to lose roughly 50% of it's weight, if my memory is correct.

I don't consider myself to be a gram wennie and never bothered much to weigh before and after dehydration. The only numbers wanted to know was an estimate of calories per day I had available in my pack to consume to keep me hiking.

[Charley White]

Pardon if long since addressed, but how do they do it? Saw powdered butter once listed online and my taste buds tingled, but I assumed it was really just flavoring, since oils don't have H2O to dehydrate. I carry clarified butter, but can't utilize in the morning cold. If there is now powdered fat and oil, I need it!

[Charley White]

dbl P

[Katherine .]

http://www.packitgourmet.com/ButterPowder.html

Ingredients: Butter powder (cream, salt) and dry buttermilk.

Haven't tried it yet. But just placed an order w/them for some other stuff.

[Terry Sparks]

A cheaper alternative for powdered butter is Amazon. I usually buy the 2.25 pound can, which has gone up in price but, at $29.99 and free shipping, I haven't found any other supplier that can match it.

Also, the powdered heavy cream, powdered cheddar cheese (think good deli cheese, not the stuff in Kraft Mac & cheese) the sour cream, cream cheese and other items can all be found on Amazon.

Enjoy!

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