/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>19238214
so the whole point with freeze drying is that you can skip the liquid-to-steam transition. liquid water has a capillary action as it wicks through the food, fucking up the structure. if you go to a solid, and then straight to steam, you can drive the water off without significantly affecting the overall structure.
you can boil water at room temperature if you pull even a not-that-extreme vacuum. which is why you freeze first, then pull the vacuum. i don't really understand why vacuum microwave drying would be significantly different than just pulling a strong vacuum on otherwise room temperature food, but i will look into it.