How many pounds per tray in a freeze dryer?
Harvest Right rates its home machines by fresh food per batch. Dividing that by the number of trays gives roughly 1.5 to 2.5 pounds of fresh food per tray on the small, 2 to 3 on the medium, 3 to 4.5 on the large and 5.7 to 7.1 on the X-large. The table has the exact figures and the tray area behind them. The Countertop 360 (four trays, 5–9 lb per batch) isn't in it because I couldn't find its tray area.
Capacity by model
| Model | Trays | Fresh lb per batch | Fresh lb per tray | Tray area per tray | Dry lb at 10% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small | 4 | 6–10 | 1.5–2.5 | 109 sq in | 0.6–1 |
| Medium | 5 | 10–15 | 2.0–3.0 | 135 sq in | 1–1.5 |
| Large | 6 | 18–27 | 3.0–4.5 | 185 sq in | 1.8–2.7 |
| X-Large | 7 | 40–50 | 5.7–7.1 | 322 sq in | 4–5 |
Fresh pounds per batch and total tray space (434, 675, 1,107 and 2,251 square inches) are from the Harvest Right FAQ. Tray counts are from Harvest Right's replacement tray sets (sets of 4, 5, 6 and 7). Per-tray figures are my division, rounded.
Why the range is so wide
A tray fills by its area and the rim height. Dense food packs more pounds into a tray than light, airy food. The FAQ's loading advice points the same way: spread food "in a single, thin layer", don't stack it, and keep it below the rim. It also says "smaller batches produce more consistent results" and that overloading makes batches longer.
So the top of each range is a full machine of dense food, and a load of light food sits nearer the low end.
Fresh weight versus dry weight
Most of what goes in comes out as water in the drain bucket. Iowa State Extension's AnswerLine gives one example: "A 10-pound bag of fresh apples weighs about one pound after freeze drying." The last column uses that 10% for every model. Foods that hold less water to begin with keep a larger share of their weight, so their dry yield per batch is higher.
This matters for money because store-bought freeze-dried food is sold by dry weight: the label gives the net weight of what's in the can or pouch. A batch of 12.5 lb of fresh apples is about 1.25 lb dry. That is the number to compare with a can or pouch from the store, and the one the freeze dryer cost calculator divides by to get cost per pound.
The surest figure is your own: weigh a loaded tray before the batch and again after. A few batches of notes like that tell you more than any table.
Pounds per year
Harvest Right's FAQ also says customers freeze dry up to 1,800 lb of fresh food a year on the small, 3,000 on the medium, 5,000 on the large and 10,000 on the X-large. On the medium that is 200 or more batches of 15 lb, or about four a week, every week. At fewer batches the payback stretches out, which is why it depends so much on how often you use the machine. The page on whether a freeze dryer is worth it shows payback at 1, 2 and 4 batches a month, and what it costs to run one covers electricity per batch.