CBee wrote:Strive is dehydrated not freeze dried. So it'll take longer to re-hydrate, but not by much.
This wasn't our experience. One of the Strive curries we tried was barely rehydrated after 40 mins of boil-sit cycles. While we froze our butts off in a tent being slammed by wind, snow and sleet on the way to Recondite Knob. Not good. The remaining meals we had were promptly gifted to people who didn't know any better
Backcountry usually good in 15-20 mins (depending on the meal) and Alps freeze-dried about 15 mins. Can shorten the rehydration time a bit by keeping it in the pot and giving it a second heat cycle, but these days I much prefer to simply dump boiling water into the bag, stuff the lot into a thermal pouch and let it sort itself out while I do other things.
Our home made dehydrated meals manage this fine in 10-12 mins, but we do put a lot of effort into steaming/par boiling/pressure cooking everything first before dehydrating, and keeping the pieces small... especially with meat.
Freeze drying does help a great deal when it comes to maintaining more satisfying chunks of food. We seriously looked into home or DIY freeze-drying when Alps' prices went through the roof (not their fault, for the record, the freeze drying operation significantly increased their charges) but the smaller, vaguely affordable domestic units aren't known for their reliability. DIYing something from scratch requires either lots of dry ice on hand, or some serious engineering chops. Maybe one day...