Contact Summit Freeze Supply
Questions about sizing, power, an order or a replacement part? Call, email or send the form and a real person will get back to you.
Before you get in touch.
For freeze dryer support, call us on +1 (443) 514-5708, email sales@summitfreezesupply.us, or use the form on this page. Our freeze dryer support covers choosing a Blue Alpine model, orders placed with Summit Freeze Supply, setup, cycles that aren’t behaving, and replacement parts. The rest of this page covers the common questions, so you may find your answer before you need to write.
How to reach freeze dryer support
- Phone: +1 (443) 514-5708. Good for sizing, setup, or a problem you’d rather talk through.
- Email: sales@summitfreezesupply.us. Good for parts questions, because you can attach photos.
- Contact form: on this page. Fine for anything that isn’t urgent.
To check an order’s history and status yourself, sign in to My account.
What to send with a freeze dryer support request
Detail up front saves freeze dryer support a round of emails, and saves you the wait. Include whatever you can of this:
- Your model: Medium Select or Large Select.
- Your order number, if you bought from us.
- What was on the trays, and roughly how full they were.
- What happened: any message on the screen, how long the cycle ran, and which stage it stopped in.
- Photos or a short video of anything that looks wrong, like frost patterns, the door, or a hose connection.
- Part numbers, if you already know which part you need.
Freeze dryer support before you buy
Freeze dryer support is most useful before you order, when getting the size right costs nothing.
Size. The Medium Select has five 9 × 13 inch trays and averages about 8 lbs of food per 24 hours. The Large Select has five 13 × 18 inch trays and averages about 16 lbs. Smaller households and first-time owners tend to be well served by the Medium. Big families and homesteads usually need the Large.
Power. A Medium is happy on an ordinary 15-amp, 120V outlet. The Large needs a 20-amp breaker feeding a 20-amp receptacle. If you aren’t sure what you have, the breaker for that room should be marked with its rating, and an electrician can confirm it.
Space. Medium: 20 × 21 × 30 inches, 110 lbs with the pump. Large: 24 × 25.5 × 34 inches, 130 lbs. Leave room next to the cabinet for the pump, on no more than 5 feet of hose, and some air space all round.
The box. Pump and oil, five stainless trays with five silicone mats, 50 mylar bags with 50 oxygen absorbers, and an impulse sealer. Nothing else is needed for batch one.
Freeze dryer support for orders
Questions about an order you placed with us go fastest with the order number attached. We can help with:
- Checking where an order stands
- Changing delivery details before it ships
- Payment or invoice questions
- Adding accessories or parts you forgot
- Anything that arrived damaged or looks wrong
If the box shows damage when it arrives, photograph it before you unpack, then contact us. Pictures of the packaging and the item make that conversation much simpler.
Setup help from freeze dryer support
A careful first setup heads off a lot of early trouble. This is the order we’d do it in:
- Put the dryer on a sturdy, level surface in a cool room, with the vents clear.
- Set the pump beside or below the cabinet and push the vacuum hose fully onto both barbs. Keep the hose to 5 feet or less.
- Add oil to the pump, to the level your manual specifies.
- Plug into the right outlet for your model: 15A for the Medium, 20A for the Large.
- Close the drain, wipe the door, and follow the first-run steps in the owner’s manual.
If the first run doesn’t go to plan, write down what the screen showed and get in touch with freeze dryer support. We’ll work through it with you.
Freeze dryer support for troubleshooting
A lot of problems have simple causes. Run through these checks before you call freeze dryer support. If none of them fixes it, tell us which ones you tried and we’ll pick up from there.
The vacuum won’t pull down
- Make sure the drain is fully closed.
- Wipe the door, and the surface it seals against. Crumbs or residue can stop it sealing.
- Check that the hose is pushed fully onto both fittings, isn’t cracked, and isn’t longer than 5 feet.
- Look at the pump oil. Top it up if it’s low; change it if it’s cloudy or dark.
- Watch the pump’s analog vacuum gauge during drying. It shows you whether the pump is pulling.
Cycles run much longer than usual
- Check that the trays aren’t overloaded and the food is in thin, even layers.
- Feel the room. Heat makes the refrigeration work harder.
- Change the pump oil if it’s been a while.
- Compare like with like. Dense or wet food takes longer than sliced fruit, every time.
Food isn’t dry in the middle
- Run it longer. Don’t package anything that’s soft in the middle.
- Cut the pieces smaller and more evenly next time.
- Leave out foods that are mostly fat or sugar. They won’t dry properly.
The breaker trips
- A Large draws up to 17 amps, so it needs a 20A breaker and a 20A receptacle.
- Keep other heavy appliances off that circuit while a cycle runs.
Before you open a panel
Some fixes mean taking a cover off. Unplug the machine first, every time; switching it off isn’t enough. Photograph the wiring before you disconnect anything, so you have a record of where each lead went. Circuit boards are sensitive to static, so ground yourself before you handle one and hold it by the edges. If any of that is unfamiliar, call freeze dryer support before you start, or get help from someone who does this kind of work.
Finding replacement parts with freeze dryer support
Our replacement parts are filed under Blue Alpine part numbers and grouped four ways:
- Electronics: PCB boards, a touch screen, a PT1000 sensor, a cooling fan, switches, Deutsch connectors and several cables.
- Body and doors: a stainless handle and a T-handle latch.
- Plumbing and filters: hose by the foot, and the 3M 2097 P100 filter discs, two to a pack.
- Fasteners and tools: metric and imperial hardware in packs of 10, with a T20 Torx screwdriver and a 5 mm hex key.
The part number is printed in the owner’s manual, and may be on the part too. Search the catalog for it. If nothing comes up, email a photo of the part with your model, and freeze dryer support will help you identify it. The Digital PCB Board (SAMD51) has no online price yet, so call or email for that one.
Checking a part before you order
A few parts can be checked with a tape measure or a multimeter before you buy the replacement:
- Vacuum and drain hose (H00101-00): 13 mm inside diameter, 21.3 mm outside, black, with no wire reinforcement. Sold by the foot at $4.50.
- Thermal switch, 75 °C, 10A, normally closed (E00116-00): the contacts open at about 75 °C (167 °F) and close again once it cools.
- PT1000 sensor (E00106-00): a platinum RTD that reads 1,000 ohms at 0 °C and rises about 3.85 ohms per degree C. Two-wire leads add a little resistance of their own.
- 40-pin FPC cable (E00153-00): 300 mm long. Flat cables have a contact side, so note which way the old one went in, and don’t crease the new one.
If your reading or measurement doesn’t match, send it to freeze dryer support with a photo before you order.
Working out what a cycle costs
Electricity is the main running cost, and you can estimate it yourself. Take the average draw in watts, divide by 1,000, multiply by the hours, then multiply by your rate per kWh. Blue Alpine gives the average draw as 1,080 W for the Medium and 1,440 W for the Large.
At $0.20 per kWh, a 16-hour cycle comes to about 17.3 kWh and $3.46 on the Medium, or 23.0 kWh and $4.61 on the Large. Swap in the rate from your own power bill. Cooler rooms and lighter loads come in lower. Beyond electricity, budget for pump oil and for bags with absorbers.
Freeze dryer support for first-time owners
Start simple. A batch of sliced strawberries, bananas or apple dries reliably and shows you what each stage looks like on the screen. Note what you loaded and the cycle time. A few batches in, you’ll be ready for full meals, meat and dairy.
Read the owner’s manual once before the first batch, even if you only skim it. Knowing how the door latches and what each screen shows makes the first cycles calmer. Keep it near the machine. The printed manual is $5 if you’d rather have paper, and Blue Alpine also has a PDF. A photo of the model label on your phone helps if the manual ever goes missing.
And ask. Freeze dryer support would much rather answer a basic question on day one than a harder one on day ten.
Accessories and fit
Trays and silicone mats are sized per model. Medium ones are 9 × 13 inches; Large ones are 13 × 18. Large mats only fit the current Blue Alpine tray. Trays shipped before December 2024 won’t take them, so check when yours arrived if they’re older. Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers work with either machine. Browse accessories, or ask freeze dryer support to confirm a fit before you order.
Checks that save a freeze dryer support call
- Each batch: defrost, drain the chamber and dry it. Clean the door. Close the drain.
- Every few batches: look at the oil level in the pump.
- When the oil turns cloudy or dark: change it.
- Each month: look over the hose and fittings, and dust the vents.
- Now and then: look at the P100 filter in the chamber, since it keeps particles out of the pump.
For background reading, Wikipedia’s article on freeze drying explains the process, and the National Center for Home Food Preservation covers home food safety.
Freeze dryer support for the vacuum pump
The pump does the heavy work in every cycle. It’s a two-stage rotary vane pump with dual cylinders. Because it’s oil-sealed, not oil-free, it needs clean oil at the right level. Check the oil every few batches. Clear oil is fine. Oil that has gone cloudy or dark needs changing.
Your owner’s manual has the oil-change steps for this pump. Unplug it first. Warm oil drains more completely than cold, so it’s easier to empty a pump that has recently run. Take the used oil to a local collection point.
Inside the pump, an anti-backflow valve closes off the system when a cycle ends, and an analog vacuum gauge is built into it. If it struggles to pull a vacuum with fresh oil in it, or sounds different from usual, contact freeze dryer support. A replacement pump is $672 if it comes to that.
Freeze dryer support for the screen and settings
The touch screen runs the whole cycle. Blue Alpine’s software uses PID control with solid-state relays, and the recipes that come loaded are a sensible starting point. You can edit them, including the pressure limit for each recipe. If a batch isn’t quite dry when the cycle ends, add drying time rather than starting over.
When the screen stops responding or shows a message you don’t recognize, write the message down or photograph it, and contact us before you start replacing parts. The touch screen, its cables and the PCB boards are all in the catalog by part number.
Food questions
Fruit, vegetables, cooked meat, soups, stews and whole meals all freeze dry well. So do yogurt drops, cheese, herbs and candy. The ones to skip are nearly pure fat or sugar, such as butter, honey and jam.
Cut food into even, bite-sized pieces and keep it thin, under the tray rim. Mats go under anything sticky. For anything new, test a small portion on one tray first and write down how it came out.
Moving or storing your machine
Prepare it first. Run the defrost, drain it, and dry the chamber completely, then leave the door slightly open for a few hours so the last of the moisture can escape. Disconnect the vacuum hose and keep the pump upright so oil doesn’t leak. At 110 to 130 lbs, the cabinet is a two-person lift, and it should stay upright too. Before the next use, check the oil and reconnect the hose, then repeat the first-run steps. If anything looks different after the move, call freeze dryer support before the first batch.
Storage questions
Package food soon after the cycle ends. Each mylar bag gets one oxygen absorber and a seal from the impulse sealer, then a label with the contents and date, and it goes somewhere cool and dark. To test a batch, break open the thickest piece. Crisp or firm all the way through, and room temperature in the middle, means it’s done.
Clear-front bags don’t work for freeze-dried food. Glass canning jars do, if you don’t mind the weight. How long a given food lasts depends mostly on how dry it was and how quickly it was sealed, so use older bags first and keep notes. Freeze dryer support can also talk through supplies for the amount you expect to preserve each month.
What freeze dryer support can help with, and where it stops
We can help you pick a model, work through the common cycle problems, read a part number off a photo and find that part in the catalog. Where Blue Alpine’s information ties a part to a model, we’ll tell you. The 120 × 25 mm cooling fan, for example, is listed for the Medium.
Some things we won’t do. If the part number doesn’t confirm a fit, we won’t guess; we’ll say we’re not sure and help you check. We don’t sell adapters for running the premium pump on other brands of freeze dryer, although Blue Alpine says the pump can work with them through one. And nobody here will ask you to work on live electrics over the phone.
Freeze dryer support FAQ
How quickly will freeze dryer support reply?
As soon as we can. If it’s urgent, phone, since that’s usually the fastest way to reach us.
Can you help if I bought my machine elsewhere?
Yes. We sell parts and accessories for Blue Alpine freeze dryers no matter where the machine came from, and we’re happy to answer general questions.
Where do I find my order number?
In your order confirmation email, or under Orders in My account.
Can I change or cancel an order?
Get in touch as soon as you can, with the order number. The earlier we hear, the more we can do before it’s processed.
What’s the best way to send photos?
Email them to sales@summitfreezesupply.us, with your model or order number in the subject line.
Are you Blue Alpine?
No. Summit Freeze Supply is independent. We’re an authorized Blue Alpine reseller, and the Blue Alpine name is its owner’s trademark.
For more on who we are, see about us. To browse, try the freeze dryer shop or the guide to Blue Alpine freeze dryers. Otherwise, call or email and freeze dryer support will take it from there.