Pam, you and Jim are just the "bomb". You combine your scientific knowledge with common sense. Also, your sense of humor is killer. We can never thank you and Jim enough for all you share with your community. ❤

I have no idea how anyone could be mean or unpleasant to you, you are such a star with all the knowledge that you share. I have no doubt that you have inspired and encouraged so many to prepare food for storage in a safe manner, and saved so many From not only costly mistakes, but sickness as well. I just want to say I believe your contribution in this field is stellar, and I just adore you.

Oh my goodness just about everyone who reconstitutes freeze dried foods literally eyeballs the water really according to what they like. Thank you for being so gracious to the cry babies. Love your channels ❤

Well, people are lazy and want you to do the work for them. You do a great job. Don't listen to those people! I have learned so much from you and respect your knowledge!

I also believe that science says "work smarter, not harder" ;). Lovely video

I ran out and bought 10 lbs of cream cheese so I could freeze dry it. It took about 35 hrs and turned out amazing. I now have 5 quart jars of cream cheese powder sitting on the shelf. Thanks for the information. Great job!

I have freeze dried a lot of cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, shredded cheese, heavy cream, ice cream sandwiches. Cream cheese is one of my favorite, comes out as a powder and rehydrates perfectly. 😊 Don't worry about being precise on your freeze drying items as you might have a exceptionally muggy day and not need as much water as you would on a very hot dry day. People look for any reason to ridicule and cause another unneeded grief. Be yourself show your failures and your wins and that makes you human in perfection❤

You, my dear, are just a treasure trove of knowledge. I enjoy your videos very much and I feel that your science while it is over my head is very valuable, and I also appreciate your candid sense of humor. You do you! I will continue to watch because I enjoy you both.❤

It was so lovely to see the joy on your face after solving the 'problem'.....:) xxx

I have my freezer dryer for a little over a month and I am having a blast filling our pantry shelves with long term food for our family. I will be adding powdered cream cheese to the pantry. Thank you and Jim for all of your instructional videos. Have a blessed day.

Thank you and Jim for all you do for the freeze drying community (actually all of us) and the common sense you apply. Love this recipe. You are loved!

Great video Pam and Jim. I am not mathematically inclined so I just do the eyeball method and wasn’t sure what I would do when I need a “cup” of the product. Thank you for going through this whole process. I can now powder a whole tray (or 4), put in a jar and know how much to use for a given recipe. And do it for other food items too! You two are the best!

My sister asks me all the time how long to dry items, how long to rehydrate, how much water to rehydrate, and I keep telling her “I just fly by the seat of my pants”, lol.

I can't believe anyone would complain about you not being "scientific " enough for their liking! I appreciate you going through the trouble of trying to please these pains in the backside, but if I were you, I wouldn't have bothered! What's that old saying? You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. Just do you, and the people who love your channel will be satisfied with everything you and Jim bring to the table! 😊 Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

I fell in love with you at Rose Red Homestead, and now I find you over here. Yay! I so appreciate your commonsense, practical approach to food preservation and economical living. Sending you all kinds of love! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience!

You are so smart, gracious and fun! Thank you for sharing your skill and knowledge! Love from Oxford, AL

😆🥰 Thank you SO much for doing this, Ms. Pam. I have been wanting to start freeze drying dairy. This video has me set on a more correct path in my thinking, storing and how to rehydrate! I never would have considered hot water, because we think of cheese as a cold product that is then melted. Thanks for this critical thinking skill!

Thank you for the information. I dry all my vegetables from my garden, all my spices like basil, etc…and have done eggs, snacks, ice cream sandwiches, and a lot more. You just took the worry out of cream cheese. Thank you for being so knowledgeable.

Oh rose you need to link this to the rose red channel. I would have come here also a long time ago for freeze drying! Thank you!!

Great video. I have FD'd the gallon cans of nacho cheese from costco and then package in small 3/4C volumes and it rehydrates beautifully with boiling water. One suggestion would be to use an oxygen absorber AND vacuum seal the jars.

Thank you for the very helpful video. I do have a couple of suggestions. 1 Never let the vacuum pump turn off while there is a vacuum in the chamber. This will eliminate any chance of vacuum pump oil being sucked into the chamber onto the food. Number 2 will support this procedure. 2 Never let the freeze dryer officially finish and hold the food frozen. This can be done by setting the extra dry time to 24 hours. At any point during this time, the food may be checked by "pausing" the freeze dryer. A open the drain valve, after 5 seconds turn the Vacuum pump off with the switch on the pump itself B Weigh the food, otherwise check it, or rotate the trays close and latch the door C Close the drain valve then turn vacuum pump's switch on The freeze dryer should continue processing where it left off. At any point in the extra dry time the batch may be be ended by using the cancel button. Again, I thank you for all your informative videos.

Thank you for figuring out it needs boiling water. Now I know how to do this as well as sour cream and such.

This is so exciting! I'll be buying 12 cream cheeses to put in my freeze dryer "Mr. Cool"! Thank you both from the bottom of my heart for all the work you did for this video

Great video! I never thought to FD cream cheese. A new project! We always add 12 hours to the process just in case things finish while we are sleeping or gone from the house. When we are ready to check the food, we simply cancel. This avoids our finished food from refreezing, which indeed would add more moisture.

Prof Pam⚘️ You are Wonderful... You Always teach us...I felt like I was back in my nursing lab 😊 Thanks Prof Jim, great video.. Blessings❤ Always #teamcantrell

Thank you for this! Now I know how to reconstitute my buttermilk..with hot water!

We’re new to the freeze drying world! My wife and I purchased our Harvest Right on March 7th. We just watched your video and can’t say thank you enough because we go through cream cheese! 😁

heavens to mergatroid! You are one hardworking, brilliant lady!!!

Pam you and Jim are awesome ❤❤

Great trick with the hot water...

As an engineer I loved all the math lol.

We need more of this!!

This will be great! I can have cream cheese to make cheesecake!

Well Done! I am proud for you too!

This is wonderful, and you Pam, and Jim are wonderful !!! You have given me the courage to both start pressure canning, and also to purchase a freeze dryer. Your willingness to share youre infinite knowledge has changed my life. I can’t thank you enough

so exciting to learn about the hot water - I had a cow, we fdd cream, cream cheese, yogurt etc and the texture was always horrible . . . lol I used cold water!!!!!

As a freeze drying person myself, it is not precise. It is like cooking. You mess with it until you are satisfied.

Thank you dear . I’m gonna do some cream cheese . GODBLESS sweetie

Oh my goodness, I’m so happy you did this experiment. My cream cheese reconstituted was always grainy. Thank you so much for your scientific mind. I’m now going to reconstitute some cream cheese using boiling water. 🎉🎉🎉

Excellent video Jim and Pam.

Love your excitement when you figured out your reconstituting dilemma!

Wow, watching this just about sold me on purchasing a freeze dryer, lol. Thanks for sharing there is dry cream cheese powder. Thanks for all the giggles during the video. This was fun, yes!!

Thank you for your experimenting. I have some freeze dried cream cheese and now know how to reconstitute it properly - boiling water! I don't measure anything either - but will start with these measurements you have calculated. Again - thank you!

I have been watching your RoseRed Homestead channel for a very long time. I don't know how I missed that you have Trail Grazers too. I just got a freeze dryer and trying to watch videos to learn. This video is amazing. I am excited to try cream cheese and learn more from you. Thank you for sharing all your amazing knowledge!

❤ to everything within the first 5 minutes !

You two are a godsend. Thank you so much for all time you spend doing emergency preparedness & sharing with us. I am just beginning to freeze dry a few items. Is there a reason you use glass jars vs Mylar bags? Thank you so much!

It will thicken as you chill it - so refrigerate just as all cream cheeses are kept.

We are like you we just ball park it and we have always been find get videos

Thanks Pam! You’re a great teacher. Awesome to see everything worked out! I don’t set my extra drying time for 2 hours but for 12 hours. That way it keeps drying and not going into freeze mode adding moisture

I always reconstitute with boiling water. I have a bunch of cream cheese in the fridge for my daughter to make me some keto cheesecake, so this is good to know. Thanks. I noticed you changed your channel name, too.

Great video. I just took my cream cheese out of the freeze dryer and did the calculations. Mine came out to 120 grams of water per 8oz of powder. A little puzzled by this and i went back and looked at the weights of my cream cheese prior to putting it on the tray. The package says it weights 226g. But the actual weight in some cases was much less. So mystery solved. Either way it came out great!

Thank you so much

I think I would have done a million times better in school if I had you for a science teacher.

Your cream cheese revelation was genius!

Thank you. I have been waiting for a cream cheese video! I appreciate your work.

Thank you so very much!

Smart thinking! So thankful for your scientific minds!

excited about getting my freezer dryer and doing this

Pam, you (as well as Jim) are truly a treasure to this community ... as well as Rosered Homestead. ❤ I love the way you handle the snarkiness ( for lack of a better word) of the occasional poster who can't find a real reason to criticize, so they resort to trying to bully. Brava for accepting their challenge so brilliantly with great results after using "all of that scientific knowledge" that you possess. I admit, when you mentioned that you were freeze-drying cream cheese, the first thing I thought was that it would turn out grainy. I have frozen it and it never gets back to that smooth creamy consistency ... it's OK in dips and cheese balls that have other ingredients, but I haven't baked/cooked with it. Which leads me to this 😊 Would you be willing to try cooking with reconstituted cream cheese? Maybe just a simple pasta dish or some soup? It seems that when I add it (NOT freeze-dried) to my Broccoli 🥦 Cheddar Soup 🍲 it always looks like it's curdled. 🤷‍♀️

The Kelvin lab. LOL

Thank you so much for this video. There is a sale on cream cheese this week, I think you know where I am going with this! Thank you, thank you! suzie

Excellentip about rehydrating powedered FD cream cheese with super hot water to melt the fat! Wow... I' do the method of more time till it no longer changes or drops... I measure/weight at each point.. I've never ever had any tray gain weight..

Absolutely fascinating. The commenter who thought you weren't scientific sure does not understand that even humidity in the air can affect baking or dehydrating. Your scientific ballpark is great for all the rest of us! I am going to share this video with my freeze drying siblings. Thanks for all this detailed analysis.

I find everything dehydrated or freeze dried is better mixed with body temperature then put in fridge to get cold.

I wondered about the fat content not emulsfying when you were tasting the first batch! Yay me...I'm learning and thinking through things!

this is great. thank you for yhe measurements to make a brick again. i too use it that way in my recipes. About how long do you think the shelf life will be?

Thank you! I have lots of cream cheese in the fridge and hadn't even thought of freeze drying it. I appreciate you and Jim taking the time to share this info.

Thanks for all that work. Humidity and other factors go in to this, which you are aware. Going by seat of my pants seems to work fine for me. Like making bread flour will never be the same. Hot water makes total sense. Thanks

I just love that you worked through how to get cream cheese shelf stable! Now, we can add to our food storage, and have a luxury that I thought was impossible before. Thank you, Pam! ❤

Rewatched after the Schmear video. The Boiling water is so nice to know. I've FDd cream cheese now. I looked at your videos and you've not FDd cheese. I've grated my cheeses I've bought in bulk. Some people comment it doesn't rehydrate to be like cheese and am thinking about the hot water. Need your scientific input for adding FDd cheese into recipes.

I’m not wanting to be argumentative - like you said we all need to follow our own path. I feel confident that for long term storage of freeze dried food as close to zero moisture is the only acceptable measure. There are dangerous “germs” (fungus) that don’t need a lot of moisture but can and will survive on a tiny bit and ruin, perhaps make unhealthy moist packed food. I love all you brings and find myself thoroughly confounded with your freeze drying approach. I’ll keep going for zero! PS, consider changing your default dry time to avoid getting any moisture from the melt-refreeze processing.

Hi have you tried using warm water, then let it set in the icebox.?..GOD BLESS

This is so exciting!! The knowledge is immeasurable and priceless! Thank you both. …And keep YOUR style the way that works for YOU. ~Sharon from Florida

"Perfectly smooth!" Loved seeing the joy of an experiment working out.

JUST PURCHASED MY FREEZE DRYER, HAVE NOT GOTTEN IT SET UP TO USE BUT WILL IN A DAY OR SO. THANK YOU

Just added cream cheese to my "to do" list! Thanks again for all that you two do to educate me!

I do weigh my stuff , but mostly to see how much they have lost, rehydrating, the seat of my pants works pretty good. lol. we all do it differently. good video, the cream cheese and hot water would have baffled me. thanks to you and Jim.

love your channel I always learn something new thanks 🙂🌻

I'm sorry that you and Jim have to deal with rude people... If someone doesn't like your channel or happy with the way you do things, they don't have to watch! Don't sweat the small people, you keep doing you Ms. Pam.. You are amazing(Jim as well).. You both rock.. please don't entertain the snide remarks or explain yourself to them.. Just consider the source and be done with them. However, I did enjoy seeing you in your element... The amazing teacher in you never leaves you.. Thank you for making learning fun and easy,, even for someone like me!! Enjoy your weekend.. Stay and healthy and be safe. ❤ (COVID is horrible.. my husband and I both have it🤧)

Hooray! You solved it. You are a treasure.

I rejoice with your end experiment. You are genius. Experimenting is the best way and takes less time..lol

Good job Rose. I just got a FD and just did ice cream sandwiches which turn out wonderfully and now I want to do cream cheese. Thanks for doing all the work.

Humidity moisture in the air makes a huge diff in rehydrating ,I assume

Awesome!!! Love this. Thank you

Thank you! I was wondering if this was possible but hadn’t tried it yet.

I dont have a freeze dryer yet... but I want one. Im wondering if the powdered cream cheese would work to flavor, butterless butter cream frosting and comply with cottage laws, orcwould it still have to be refrigerated after adding it to the frosting? Lol id probably just eat that like candy... love cream cheese.

Thank you :)

Awesome video Pam & Jim!

You are awesome! Thank you so much for all your hard work. It makes my work so much easier.

Hi Pam & Jim, can you tell me if this can be dehydrated at all, as freeze dryers are horribly expensive in my country, also if not, do you have a theory as to why not? Thank you in advance. I LOVE your teachings. :)

Awesome 🎉 thanks

Great info and I’m so excited for the cream cheese. Thank you

What a silly complaint! And how thick or thin our rehydrated things are is up to us and what we like, or our use. I suppose something like cream cheese and it's use in baking might be more important to know it's close to accuracy. I weigh my trays, before and at the end, twice. I find the end weighing twice is all that's important for me in determining trays are done, since some things have not been dried in the middle of the tray. Interesting that yours went up more than mine, which shows all machines and ice melt differs, cuz mine only change by 1. You are right, I found my trays do not weigh the same! I value what you do. Thank you.

❤ great discovery! Nice work!

Pam, Some of my different freeze dried products. While great at time of removing from the machine are light and crunchy. I put the product into vacuum packed mason jars: some with and some without O2 absorbers. Now after 6 months on the shelf and looking good. I opened and tried both the bananas and carrots. They were not crisp and actually were a bit leathery. Have you heard of this and a possible solution? I haven't tried descant, storing in a darkened room or milar bags. Thanks in advance. J. C.

Awesome. Thanks for show this.

I love this idea. Honestly, I have several bags of this already but I'm going to do more. I picked up a 20 lbs tub of cheeseball from an outlet which I put in "Elsa" with the plan of making cheese spred when reconstituting.

Thank goodness! I freeze dried whole milk and was very disappointed by that grainy texture! I could only use it for cooking but not for drinking.

Excellent video. My FD sour cream rehydrates grainy. I will use boiling water to rehydrate next time. I'm anxious to FD cream cheese.

Will it ever end? Love what you do. I was thinking that you would have to cool the final product but didn't think about adding boiling water. Great job.