Lock in the harvest. Keep it for years.
Blue Alpine Medium and Large home freeze dryers, with five stainless trays, a 1-inch acrylic door and pre-programmed recipes. Sold, shipped and supported by Summit Freeze Supply.
A countertop-friendly footprint for smaller households and first-time freeze-dryers. Price depends on color and pump choice.
Double the tray area of the Medium, for big gardens, bulk buys and batch-cooked meals. Price depends on color and pump choice.
Freeze-drying removes moisture by sublimation, so food keeps its shape, color and flavor. Three stages, one button.
Load up to five trays and close the 1-inch acrylic door. The chamber freezes everything solid.
The rotary vane pump pulls a deep vacuum, so ice turns straight to vapor without melting.
Gentle heat finishes the cycle. Seal it in mylar with an oxygen absorber and shelve it.
Average cycles run 12–20 hours, depending on the load.
Rotary vane, ready to connect
Sized to your dryer
Easy release, reusable
Plus an impulse sealer
Genuine Blue Alpine parts in six categories, from compressors and door seals to touch screens, fittings and fasteners, each listed by SKU.
Still deciding? We can talk you through sizing, power and setup.
The Medium runs on a standard 120V, 15-amp wall outlet. The Large needs a 20-amp breaker and a 20-amp receptacle, and most household outlets are 15-amp, so check your circuit before delivery.
The Medium averages 8 lbs per 24 hours on five 9″ × 13″ trays. The Large doubles the tray area and averages 16 lbs.
Average cycles run 12–20 hours, depending on how much you load and what you are drying.
Every freeze dryer ships with a premium vacuum pump and oil, five stainless steel trays, five silicone mats, 50 mylar bags, 50 oxygen absorbers and an impulse sealer.
Yes. Vacuum pump, refrigeration, electronics, body and door, plumbing and fastener parts are listed individually by SKU in the Parts shop.
Everything you need to know before you buy, from sizing and power to storage and maintenance.
Blue Alpine freeze dryers pull the water out of food at home, so a batch of strawberries or a pot of chili can sit in a sealed bag on a shelf instead of taking up freezer space. There are two Blue Alpine freeze dryers, the Medium Select and the Large Select. Summit Freeze Supply is an independent, authorized reseller of both. We also carry accessories, and replacement parts by Blue Alpine part number. Below: how the machines are built, how the sizes compare, and what each one needs from your wiring. Further down are running costs and how to store what you make.
If you’ve already picked a size, both machines are in the freeze dryers category. Everything else, from trays to screws, is in the freeze dryer shop.
Blue Alpine builds its machines in Idaho. The frame is extruded aluminum. The door is a 1-inch-thick acrylic panel, so you can watch the trays for the whole cycle without opening anything. Every vacuum fitting is barbed (no crimped fittings), and threaded joints are sealed with gasket material rather than Teflon tape.
For refrigeration, Blue Alpine freeze dryers use R1270, a natural refrigerant based on propane. Blue Alpine describes it as future-proof compared with R404 or R410. A circulating fan inside the chamber pushes cold air across the trays to blast-freeze the food. Also inside the chamber is a P100 filter, the 3M 2097, which stops particles from reaching the vacuum pump. We sell that filter in packs of two.
The software runs on PID control and solid-state relays. It arrives with food recipes already programmed, and you can change every one of them, including the pressure limit each recipe works to. On the vacuum side, a solenoid in the pump keeps oil from flowing back into the chamber.
Both Blue Alpine freeze dryers run the same software and come with the same kit. They differ in size and in the power they pull. Every figure below is Blue Alpine’s own.
| Specification | Medium Select | Large Select |
|---|---|---|
| Trays | Five 9″ × 13″ (quarter-sheet) | Five 13″ × 18″ (half-sheet) |
| Average output | About 8 lbs per 24 hours | About 16 lbs per 24 hours |
| Most per batch | Up to 15 lbs (about 1 gallon) | Up to 25 lbs (about 2 gallons) |
| Size (W × D × H) | 20″ × 21″ × 30″ | 24″ × 25.5″ × 34″ |
| Weight with pump | 110 lbs | 130 lbs |
| Circuit | 120V, standard 15A outlet | 120V, 20A breaker and 20A receptacle |
| Maximum draw | 13 A (1,560 W) | 17 A (2,040 W) |
| Average draw | 9 A (1,080 W) | 12 A (1,440 W) |
| Average cycle | 12–20 hours | 12–20 hours |
| Price | $2,995 | $3,995 |
The Medium Select plugs into an ordinary 15-amp, 120V outlet. For a lot of homes, that settles it. Its five trays are 9 × 13 inch quarter-sheets, a standard pan size. The bottom tray gets a higher-wattage heating pad than the others so it holds the same temperature as the trays above it. Blue Alpine also runs each Medium through several hours of QC testing before it leaves the factory. With the pump it weighs 110 lbs, so use a counter or cart rated for that.
The Large Select has exactly twice the tray area of the Medium, on five 13 × 18 inch half-sheet trays. Blue Alpine puts its average at about 16 lbs of food every 24 hours, and one batch can go up to 25 lbs. The compressor is a 1/2 HP Cubigel with 14.3cc displacement. Blue Alpine says that gives roughly 28 to 43% more cooling capacity than competitor brands. The trade-off is power. It peaks at 17 amps, more than a 15A circuit is rated for, so it needs a 20A circuit.
The Medium Select is listed at $2,995 and the Large Select at $3,995. The product page always has the current figure. Each machine comes as a full kit:
That’s enough for a first batch, start to sealed bag. The pump in the kit is the same model we sell on its own: a double-stage, oil-sealed rotary vane pump with a 3/4 HP brushless motor and a built-in analog vacuum gauge. It is not an oil-free pump, which is why oil comes with it. Extra bags and trays are under accessories when you need them.
Freeze drying, or lyophilization, takes the water out of food without cooking it. At very low pressure, ice turns straight into vapor. That’s called sublimation, and the Wikipedia entry on freeze drying has the physics if you want them. On these machines the recipe runs three stages in order. You don’t time anything yourself.
Spread the food in an even layer, slide the trays in and close the door. The refrigeration takes the chamber well below freezing while the fan circulates air. The water in the food turns to ice.
Now the vacuum pump drops the pressure in the chamber. The ice sublimates instead of melting, so the food holds its shape. Most of the cycle is spent here.
A small amount of heat goes into the trays to drive off the moisture that’s left. Average cycles on Blue Alpine freeze dryers run 12 to 20 hours from start to finish. Thin apple slices sit at the short end. A full load of stew sits at the long end.
Check the outlet before the machine arrives. With the Large, it’s the part of setup most likely to need an electrician.
Both Blue Alpine freeze dryers want a level surface that will carry 110 to 130 lbs. Leave air space around the cabinet and room beside it for the pump, which measures 13.9 × 5.4 × 12.3 inches. Keep the hose between them short. Blue Alpine warns that hoses longer than 5 feet tend to cause errors. Room temperature matters too, because the refrigeration dumps its heat into the room. A hot garage in August usually means longer cycles.
Power is the main running cost of Blue Alpine freeze dryers. Multiply the average draw in kilowatts by the hours in the cycle, then by your rate. Here’s that math at $0.15 per kWh and a 20-hour run:
Treat those as rough numbers. They come from Blue Alpine’s average draw, not from a meter on your machine. A 12-hour fruit batch in the Medium works out nearer $1.94. Dense loads and a warm room push the figure up. The other things you’ll keep buying are pump oil, mylar bags and oxygen absorbers.
You don’t have to pick one. Blue Alpine freeze dryers make sense alongside a freezer when you want light food that keeps without power: trail meals, an emergency pantry, a glut of garden peppers, a deer that won’t fit in the chest freezer.
On Blue Alpine freeze dryers, the first run should be a boring one.
Write down what went in and how long it took. After five or six batches you’ll know how your machine behaves in your room.
Most foods with a moderate amount of fat and sugar freeze dry well:
Leave out things that are nearly all fat or sugar. Butter, honey, jam and syrup won’t dry properly. Cut everything else into even, bite-sized pieces, because thin layers dry faster and more evenly than thick ones.
Dry food only stays shelf-stable while moisture and oxygen stay out. Oxygen is the main cause of spoilage in freeze-dried food, since the oils in it can oxidize on their own. That’s why the kit has mylar and oxygen absorbers in it, not plastic zip bags.
The bags we sell separately are 8 × 12 inches and 7 mil thick, with a gusseted bottom, and each one holds about 2 quarts. Their aluminum layer is 12 microns. A higher ratio of aluminum to plastic is what stops oxygen getting through. The bags block odors too, onion included. Each pack of 50 comes with 50 oxygen absorbers rated at 300cc.
Skip clear-front bags, which don’t work for freeze-dried food. Glass canning jars do work. They’re heavier and they can break, but you can reuse them. Sealed and stored properly, a lot of freeze-dried food keeps for years. For home preservation safety in general, check the National Center for Home Food Preservation.
Once you’re running batches back to back, a spare set of medium trays lets you load the next batch while the current one runs. That set is five 9 × 13 inch quarter-sheets in 304 stainless. Large trays are 13 × 18 inch half-sheets, a standard baking-sheet size, so extra pans are easy to find at a kitchen store. One catch with the large silicone mats: they fit Blue Alpine’s current tray only, not trays shipped before December 2024.
For repairs, the replacement parts section lists each part for Blue Alpine freeze dryers under its Blue Alpine part number. It’s split into four groups:
Upkeep on Blue Alpine freeze dryers is mostly cleaning and oil.
When something wears out, find the part number in your owner’s manual or on the part itself, then search the catalog for it. If the manual has gone missing, we sell a printed copy for $5, and Blue Alpine offers it as a PDF.
Read reviews for the details, not the star rating. Look at:
No review knows your outlet or your floor space. Settle those with a tape measure and a look at the breaker panel before you order.
We’re an authorized reseller, and the machines sit in the same catalog as their supplies and parts. So when you need bags and a fan, it’s one order. When a part number doesn’t match, there’s one place to ask.
There’s more on who we are on the about Summit Freeze Supply page.
No. The pre-programmed recipes cover common foods, so a first batch mostly means loading trays and choosing a recipe. Editing settings can wait until you know how your machine runs.
Get the Medium if all you have is 15A outlets, or if space is tight. The Large is for people who can supply a 20A circuit and want about twice the food per batch.
Yes, and with oil for it. The kit also has five trays, five mats, 50 mylar bags, 50 oxygen absorbers and an impulse sealer.
No. Blue Alpine freeze dryers freeze the food as the first stage of the cycle. Trays that go in already frozen can cut the total time, mainly with wet or dense food.
You can stop it. Food that isn’t dry all the way through will spoil in the bag, though. If the middle is still cool or soft, give it more drying time before you seal anything.
No. We’re an independent business and an authorized reseller of Blue Alpine products. Blue Alpine is a trademark of its owner.
Call +1 (443) 514-5708 or send us a message. We’ll help with sizing, power and getting your first batch right.
