Store your meat for years without problems. Dehydrate and vacuum seal your meat, to create one of the best methods of storage possible in your kitchen.

1. By Ken Jensen

2.  Adding chicken/beef stock adds more flavor
 Small pieces rehydrate more evenly

3.  Choose Choice/Tender Cuts to reduce toughness
 Less Fat – Fat goes rancid
 Cut into small pieces
 Cook it – thoroughly
Drying makes it easy to set up meals
 Dehydrate all ingredients
 Add all of your ingredients
 Make meals and vacuum seal it. Freeze until you want to go hiking.
 This is great for hiking meals for overnight or multi-week hikes.
 Designed for use for month long hikes.

4.  Dehydrate ingredients
 Freeze the ingredients you are not ready to use
until you can make meals
 Take it out and let it sit to return to room temp
before opening (condensation)
 At room temp – you can open it
 Make meals and re-vacuum seal it. Freeze if
desired.
 Meals preserved this way have been good up to 8
months after packaging them

5.  When vacuuming, use O2 absorbers
 3-mil bag

6.  Ground Beef
 Sliced Ham
 Shrimp
 Tuna
 Crab
 Chicken

7.  Called gravel by backpackers – doesn’t rehydrate well
 Add breadcrumbs to the raw meat – allows liquid to
penetrate it better
◦ Turns out tender every time
 Only use lean ground beef with fat below 15%
◦ Lower is better
◦ Usually labeled as ground round
◦ Grass-fed beef is usually 7-10%
 Prepare it
◦ Each pound, ½ cup bread crumbs (can make
◦ them yourself)
◦ brown over medium heat, fully cooked
◦ blot with papertowels while cooking
◦ press between papertowels after– remove oil
◦ Dehydrate at 145F on sheets until hard
◦ If drying for long term storage, no bread crumbs (soaks fat)

8.  Sliced 1/16 in thick
 Slice into Strips of ¾-1”
 Dry at 145F for about 6 hrs
 Blot oil every couple hours while drying
 Usually chewy when hydrated
◦ Boil 2 mins to help soften it up

9.  Frozen/Precooked/Peeled
 Thaw in refrigerator or cold water
 Slice into small pieces
 Dehydrate at 145F for about 6hrs
 No moisture remaining when cut

10.  Solid white tuna in water
 Drain water
 spread evenly on tray
 Dry at 145F about 6 hrs
 It will be crispy (yes it stinks!)

11.  Imitation crab
 Pull apart into small
pieces
 Dry at 145F about 6 hrs

12.  Great for Chicken Salad
 Low Fat Canned Chicken
(looks like tuna can)
rehydrates best or pressure
cook your own
 Drain can
 Rinse fat away with HOT water
 Pull chunks apart to smaller
pieces
 Dry at 145F about 8 hrs

13.  Press Cook a Potato
◦ Peel and cube 4 oz potato
◦ 1 ¼ cups fat-free chicken broth
◦ ½ tsp salt
◦ Heat until salt dissolves
◦ Press cook high for 3 min, then set aside but don’t release
pressure
 Cut and Tenderize the crap out of 1 lb the chicken
 Mash potato
 Add chicken and any other veggies you want for flavor
 Add lemon juice from one lemon slice
 Press cook for 10 minutes
 Don’t release, let it release on its own
 Dehydrate at 145F till dry, about 4-6 hrs

14.  Temperature
 Light
 Oxygen
 Moisture

15.  Use a good quality vacuum sealer with 3-mil
plastic sealing bags
 I haven’t tried this, but heard you could use a
brake bleeder from harbor freight to seal
your jars when there is no electricity.
 Any long term storage should be below 5%
moisture. It will easily snap and won’t stick
together.

16.  Iron pellets in a plastic jacket
 Absorbs most of oxygen, leaving nitrogen (inert gas)
 300cc absorber per gallon of product
 Not same as desiccant. That is for moisture.
Moisture
 Careful to remove ALL moisture – Botulism
 Moisture content = Initial weight of food - dry weight of food / dry
weight of food X 100%
 Heat kills botulism
 Botulism isn’t a concern on truly acidic foods, so 30% moisture on
oranges and tomatoes isn’t a problem.
 30% on Meat would be a major problem
 Most fruits should be dehydrated to 20%, whereas veggies to 5%
moisture
 Use desiccants if you would like to continue to remove moisture
◦ Again not the same as an oxygen absorber

17.  Mason Jars
◦ Airtight and you
can see the food
◦ You can use
vacuum sealer
attachments to
remove most air