If your food never gets dry you may need to try filling your trays less full or doing thinner slices of food. If you do not believe food prep is the problem, there might be a problem with your heaters or vacuum causing the food not to dry completely.
- First power on your freeze dryer. Press the leaf logo button in the top left corner to navigate to functional testing. Click the ‘Heat’ button to turn on the heat. Watch the tray temperature reading in the top left of the screen to see if the number rises indicating a temperature increase. Feel the heater pads to see if they feel warm. If the heat is working, the problem might be vacuum related. If the heaters are not working, please follow the steps outlined in these videos in order to pinpoint what is causing them not to heat:
How to Check Reset Button & Test Heaters: https://youtu.be/ZHm88pMh118
How to Check Shelf Wiring & Re-Test Heaters: https://youtu.be/5yjjQvhw7WI
- If the heat is working, turn off the heat button and click ‘Vacuum’ to turn on the vacuum pump. Watch this video to run a vacuum test and ensure that all the steps are followed:
How to Run a Vacuum Test:
- If your vacuum pressure is able to drop below 500mTorr within 15-20 minutes then there is no problem with your vacuum. You may need to add more dry time from your customize screen menu before starting the batch. If you vacuum pressure could not drop below 500mTorr, we would recommend the following next steps.
- If your vacuum pressure was above 1000mTorr, please see the following video: https://youtu.be/nVvTP_MoQ0M
- If your vacuum pressure was below 1000mTorr, we recommend updating your software to our latest version by clicking this link: https://harvestright.com/software-update-2/
- If you still cannot get your food completely dry on the latest software, we would recommend watching this video showing how to check for small vacuum leaks that could be causing the problem: https://youtu.be/V8waJpZ19XA
