Can someone talk me through the process of dehydrating hamburger? I'd like to make spaghetti or some other meals with hamburger, but want to know how to do it. Everything from how to place it in the dehydrator to how to rehydrate it in camp.

Also, will it rehydrate to the same amount? (i.e. Does 1# of fresh hamburger placed in the dehydrator equal 1# of rehydrated hamburger in camp?)

quote Jackfish: "Can someone talk me through the process of dehydrating hamburger? I'd like to make spaghetti or some other meals with hamburger, but want to know how to do it. Everything from how to place it in the dehydrator to how to rehydrate it in camp.

Also, will it rehydrate to the same amount? (i.e. Does 1# of fresh hamburger placed in the dehydrator equal 1# of rehydrated hamburger in camp?)"

I tend to only dehydrate the whole meal ahead of time- like the spagetti- but if you want to do the whole meal at the camp site this process looked pretty good. Dehydrated Recipes

This also seemed to cover the topic well Backpacking Chef- dehydrating meat

My process:

Brown 1 pound ground beef (or the amount you need) into small pieces. The leaner the better. I usually use 85/15.

When done drain fat and rinse VERY lightly with water and then pat dry with a papertowel. You want to remove some of the fat, but not all of the fat. If you take out all of the fat it will lose alot of flavor. Just remember the fat is what will go rancid-so if you want a longer shelf life you should remove more fat. Using this process and keeping it frozen until entry gives me burger that I have safely used 4-5 days in.

Place on dehydrator tray at 160-165 for about 4 hours. You will know when it is done when it looks like grapenuts and is fairly hard.

Put into Ziploc, remove as much air as possible and freeze if it is a day or more before your trip.

At camp take a covered pan and put dehydrated burger in and cover completely with water. I like to do this at least 90 minutes before I start dinner. It will rehydrate to about the same volume as what you started with-I would say 90%. The longer it is in the water the more it rehydrates. You should check it a couple of times and add water if necessary.

The hamburger will never be exactly the same taste and texture of burger that you did not dehydrate but it is close. The more fat you remove through rinsing the blander it will be. The longer it rehydrates the closer to the original texture it will become.

Hope this helps.

I brown the hamburger like I would for adding to a boxed dinner, spaghetti sauce, etc. Rinse with hot water, drain it well, then out spread evenly in a dehydrator. Once completely dehydrated, put into ziplocks - I break up 1 lb. per ziplock. Keep it in the freezer until trip time. When preparing for use at camp, I've found it's easiest just to pour water right into the ziplock with the dehydrated burger. Add much more water than is needed, zip the bag shut squeezing out as much air as possible, then place into a pot/pan or double bag it. You can use cold water if you allow extra time for rehydrating. Warm water will speed up the process. Either way, it's important that the burger is fully rehydrated or it will be chewy. Not a problem if you plan ahead. Once the burger is full hydrated, simply unzip a corner of the bag and pour out the excess water. Ready for use.

Pete,
Exactly what Bogs and Snake have said, however I prefer a good lean hamburger, ground round or chuck or another cut of meat if you can grind it yourself. Brown it well and rinse well, I pat it out dry on paper towels. You can add some spice to it before placing it in the
dehydrater that will add a little more flavor since it will not taste like fresh hamburger when you rehydrate it. I generally, dehydrate it and vacumn pack it and put it into the freezer until I take it with me. You can use the plastic bag you store it in to hydrate or place it in a pot of water and cover with a lid (if you are going to be in camp while it is hydrating, I do not know if the odor would atttack anything if it was left out or not) until it is rehydrated.

I use it in spaghetti sauce, taco, or whatever I use hamburger in and it works fine.

A reminder, it will almost look like large course coffe grounds when dehydrated, and will take several hours to rehydrate.

Good luck with it and have fun!

I dehydrated ground venison last yr. Seasoned it while it was cooking just like I was going to serve it right then. Due to the low fat content it dehydrated well. Tasted fine to me :). Good Luck!

~Kristy

I use one pound packages of 93 to 94% hamburger and package up each pound for a meal. I do not wash off after cooking, but I do pat it on paper towel.

I have posted this site before, but here is a video from bwcacast.com that gives you an idea what it should look like. I do not let it go for 24 hours like they do in the video. Seems for like 4 - 5 hours.

Dehydrating Hamburger

I do break mine up more with a fork while cooking. It resembles grape nuts when it’s all dry from the dehydrator. Some people call it gravel.

When done I put it into the fridge until I’m packing up to go. I do like to put it into some boiling water to help speed up the reconstituting process.

Pretty much what everyone else said. I prefer 90% Lean so not much fat to satart with. I always risne my burger off after cooking. I drain the fat and then rinse it off. I figure what the heck it's getting spagetti sauce, mac and cheese, hamburger helper sauce or something that is going to give it flavor?

I Think the 90% is about right in figuring what you lose when you rehydrate. So I always cook up just a little more then the recipe calls for since I know there is a little shrinkage.

I also pack all my hamburger in the trip in zip locks and freeze them in the freezer, till I leave for the trip. I also put them in 1 lb increments on the tray when dehydrating. Then I know what I got in each zip lock.

When I package it up, I put 1 lb in each bag and then put all the bags in a larger zip lock so ALL Burger is together in smaller bag inside larger bag.

One other thing on a side note. I dehydrated spagetti sauce last year also and man did that work well. Took a while but comes out like a fruit roll up material. Tore up and put into zip lock and rehydrated. It was darn tasty !!

I am going to do Pizza Sauce the same way this year.
SunCatcher

I have dehydrated burger in the past. Very lean to start with, break it up small...etc. But this year I'm going to buy a can from the can sale. Goes until January 14th.

It won't rehydrate to the same volume exactly, but it's the same amount of actual food; it's easy to put in too much if you're doing freezer bag cooking type meals because it looks like such a small amount when it's dehydrated. Follow the recipes, or if you are just taking it without an actual recipe, have it separated by how much it originally was so you can figure out how much you want. Hope that makes sense.

per well-rounded cup dehydrated ground beef (grape-nuts)= 1 lb. rehydrated meat (approximately)

My take: Bah! Hamburg!
I dehydrated gd meat for 1st time a couple of months ago. It's lightweight but bland after reconstituted.
OK used as filler for rehydrated spagetti sauces, tacos and such quick stuff. Rehydrated, it lacked it's usual appeal as the flavor of beef is in it's fat content. I've decided to stick with foiled chicken, tuna, shelf stable bacon & summer sausage in recipes after this batch of gd meat is used up.

I wonder if it has any nutritional value left once dehydration. I guess it does, as so many seem to use it.

Ditto to what everyone else has said. It realy is easy.

After rehydrating, add the burger to the sauce. Since it will further rehydrate in the sauce, add extra water to it.

How are you doing the sauce? Dehydrating that too? Again add more water. When I rehydrate in the field I err on the side of too much water. Much will steam off while cooking and thinner sauce will have a tendency to burn/scorch less. Water is good. While cooking, keep checking it and add more water if it is not thin.

quote nojobro: "I have dehydrated burger in the past. Very lean to start with, break it up small...etc. But this year I'm going to buy a can from the can sale. Goes until January 14th.


It won't rehydrate to the same volume exactly, but it's the same amount of actual food; it's easy to put in too much if you're doing freezer bag cooking type meals because it looks like such a small amount when it's dehydrated. Follow the recipes, or if you are just taking it without an actual recipe, have it separated by how much it originally was so you can figure out how much you want. Hope that makes sense. "

so... those are 10 lb. cans of food? that are dehydrated? I am assuming you just separate/freeze them according to what you need, right?

Not 10 pounds of food.

They sell bulk freeze dried in what is known as a #10 can. A #10 can is the size of those bulk size cans of condiments, veggies etc that you can find in the commercial section of some groceries.

Each can contains about 10-12 cups of freeze dried food. In the case of Hamburger it is probably close to the equivalent of 8-9 pounds of burger prior to being dehydrated. Price is not too bad if you like the convenience and will use it up. Probably ends up about the equivalent of $4.50-5.00 a pound.

Remember a few years back when Jack Link sold foil package hamburger? It was the same kind of thing as foil packsged chicken or tuna.

The stuff looked and smelled like Alpo when you opened it, but I didn't think it was too bad mixed into spaghetti sauce or something similar. It was handy.

That would be why I was asking. Thanks Bogwalker. And no, I don't remember those. But I've only been looking at this type of stuff for maybe a few years now. Sounds gross, though. Alpo? hahaha

I remember the Jack Links pouches. I think I first learned of them through Bannock, I never was able to find them where I shopped. I agree Alpo is a good analogy to how the stuff looked. Taste was better than it looked. It had a little spice added to it if I remember.

quote bogwalker: "I remember the Jack Links pouches. I think I first learned of them through Bannock, I never was able to find them where I shopped. I agree Alpo is a good analogy to how the stuff looked. Taste was better than it looked. It had a little spice added to it if I remember.
"

The foil pack hamburger came on one trip with us. As I recall, we sat under a tarp in the rain with a couple hundred mosquitoes while enjoying our Alpo tacos. Ah...the memories :)

quote snakecharmer:

"The foil pack hamburger came on one trip with us. As I recall, we sat under a tarp in the rain with a couple hundred mosquitoes while enjoying our Alpo tacos. Ah...the memories :)"

This is hysterical. We all have similar stories, and we look back with such fondness, to something that really kind of sucked. And we still go back. Dream of going back, in fact. I say, bring on the Alpo Tacos, the mosquitoes, the tarp, the rain! Oh yeah!

;-)

I don't know what it is about it, exactly, but it's got me hooked...

The can is a lot of burger. I plan to re-package it into smaller portions into vacuum bags, and perhaps I'll put it in the deep freezer if I'm sure those bags are sealed up tight. I think I'll pack it in the smaller size bag and then put the whole thing in a larger bag, just to make sure. I'll use it up in a couple years.

$30.37 for 12 cups of freeze dried hamburger. Oh, yeah. My favorite freezer bag cooking recipe uses 1/4 cup and makes 2 servings...we'll be in the burger for a while, I think. ;-) And adding beefy spaghetti to our menu, for sure.

quote Bannock: "Remember a few years back when Jack Link sold foil package hamburger? The stuff looked and smelled like Alpo when you opened it... "

LOL... I remember that stuff. Your description of it looking and smelling like Alpo is spot-on. It never made it to the spaghetti. It went straight into the garbage can. Whoa...

My can of meat arrived. My co-worker was really worried about me, I think.

;-)

I do the same brown, drain, rinse, pat with paper towel, dehydrate. I use venison as it's very lean and I like the flavor. I read one post that said it took hours to rehydrate. I find that in my Hamburger Helper for example, I put the beef in with the water and milk and as it's warming the meat rehydrates pretty well. By the time the meal is cooked the meat is perfect. Maybe half hour tops.

I have also dried breakfast sausage using the same method(s) above for hamburger. It's great with an easy to make breakfast burrito in the morning.