Karen Murray 1 post Nov 16, 2007 12:47 PM	Rich, I had a really bad week. All 12 of my mini calla's turned transparant (this is what I did, tell me what I did wrong. Pretreated with colorsafe 2500 1-2 ratio, let them dry and buried them in silica beads) and the roses I had in the same batch pillowed. I have seen it in my tulips and now in some yellow and lavendar roses. How can I avoid this from happening? My drying cycle is 18 days. I am still fighting with the Gerberia's too. In short I will have to replace the entire load. Thanks for your help, Discouraged Karen.
Cindygirl2u 6 posts Nov 17, 2007 7:01 AM	Hello Karen I am not Rich but I have had the same exact problems as you to the tune of several thousand dollars in replacements flowers and the guilt I felt for replacing the orginal flowers my customers brought in, not mention the waisted time because I had to run another load to do the replacemnts. I do not say you need to do what I did to solove this problem as my solution creates another. I will only tell you that after converstions wth dryer across the country this is what I came up with. The problem the solution creates is that your turnaround time is greatly extended. But I have not had to replace one calla/flower since I started this practice. Callas: after treatment and air-drying under a fan until the calla is well dry I stuff (loosely) the centers with cotton balls (which can be reused) While they are drying, I poke holes in the base of the calla and mid way up the back. But not to far or the holes will show. Then take a plactic container, drilled holes in the lid and upper lip to allow moisture release, lined it with rolled batton ( quilting material) poured in the silica, pushed the calla into the silica (not burying it comepletely)then covered the entire container with soft tissue (which can also be reused) put on the lid and processed. After processing and post treatment, I hit the callas with a little pearly dew shimmer to give them a really rich look and it adds whiteness to the bloom. You have to be careful not to use to much though. Then I use a yellow paint to do the little yellow tail, ( I don't remember the actual name). On my samples, I take the yellow thingie out and replace it with a triple pearl pin. For all other lillies, I do pretty much the same but with more paper less silica. Orchids: I don't pre treat, but do just about the same as above, except where I used tissue on the callas, I use less tissue for support between the petals and center bloom) and then cover that with more batton, put on the lid and process. Roses: I dry all my roses in egg carton bottoms (not the foam ones). For small orders I use the kind you buy your household eggs in, for large orders,I use the commercial flats. Which I obtained by going to a local small restaurant and asked them to save thier flats for a week. They fit nicely on the racks of the dryer and allows the rose to dry perfectly straight. It also allows you to pull up and hold in place the little green thingies around the guard petals on the rose. For fully open roses, I use the cup take out drink containers. I save all the containers I get from drive through. :) My friends save their egg cartons for me so I didn't have to buy a case of them. it works great for me. Then, none of my light colored roses and this is particular to yellow and lavender are put in the front or along sides. I putthem right down the middle in the back, never up front by the door. Others may say I am going to extemes, and maybe I am, but somewhere in what I have said you may find a solution for yourself. I just got pretty tired of losing money to replacement flowers and being frustrated. I will be looking for a second machine because as I said, my turnaround time has doubled. But my flowers come out great now.
Cindygirl2u 7 posts Nov 17, 2007 7:05 AM	Hello again Karen, oops I forgot to say one very important thing. My current drying time is 21 days. If you want specifics on how to program the cycle contact me and I will email you the spreadsheet for drying cycles of anywhere between 11 and 21 days. As I said, my best product is using the 21 day cycle.
infinitybouquets 2 posts Nov 17, 2007 3:34 PM	So, I love what the last messenger has said! I am already using some of these techniques and they seem to help a lot. I do not pre-treat mini callas but DO poke many holes at the base, bury the base of the flower in silica beads, and I also place them in a container with a lid. Put them in the very back of your machine! This is so crucial. When I am loading, I always concentrate on placement of certain flowers. Cymbidiums and callas do better where it is dark and cold. Check your runtime and where you have placed your hours. You can keep an 18 day run cycle but only if your concentrating most of your hours in the first 10 segments. I think my first few segments are almost 38-40 hours each. The goal is to slow down dry time while the flowers are still frozen. Ask Rich to walk you through this....it's pretty simple to check and to add/change hours. One thing you might do to increase profit and/or cut down expenses is to charge your clients who have orchids and callas a small fee. You can explain to them that you need to run your machine 3-5 days longer because these flowers needs more drytime. They always understand because everyone knows how expensive electricity is! If 8 of your 10 clients in that run have them then you've just helped yourself pay for replacements and the longer drytime. Always keep back-ups around too....during the slow season it's good to dry any problem flowers you may require later on. GOOD LUCK!!!!
Karen Murray 2 posts Nov 19, 2007 1:51 PM	Dear Cindy2u, Thank you so much for your suggestions and help. I just got back from the wholesale house with all of my replacement flowers. I'm still so ticked! but appreciate your suggestions, and I am ready to make those adjustments. I would really like to have your drying spreadsheet. I am going to change my segment times to match what you do. It sounds like you are having some good results. You can send it by fax to my husbands fax machine 801-489-3400 or email at murzap@hotmail.com Once again thank you both for your help.
Rich48 2 posts Dec 10, 2007 4:29 PM	Hi Karen, Since I don't view this message board everyday I missed your Nov. 16th posting. Since then we have communicated, but I felt I should share some informaton here as well. First of all, both of the ladies who did respond to your plea for help the very next day, have freeze dryers exactly like yours, both are using fairly long drying cycles in their programmable units, and both try lots of new ideas and make rational decisions based on results. Most of the flowers you have been having difficulty with really process better in the back half of the freeze dryer where it is not only colder, but as the temperature is raised, it comes up in a slower, controlled manner. These are a few suggestions for drying the flowers you mentioned: Gerberas. We almost never have difficulty with gerberas unless they are really old, and I'm assuming your replacements were fresh. We follow a very regimented procedure to prepare them for drying: 1) Hydrate them well, 105 to 110 degree water with a floral preservative. If necessary set them in a frig over night to harden them off. 2) Dip the heads in Quick Dry Polyset at a 1 part Polyset to 1/4 part distilled water dilution factor. Let them dry for about 15 minutes. Watch them closely as after about 15 minutes the petals will start to reflex forward or backward, and you really should finish processing them before this happens. 3) Cut the stem off close to the calyx. We only leave 1/4 inch of stem. With a large corsage pin, poke a minimum of 5 holes from the back of the calyx, all the way through the front of the bloom. These are vapor paths that the water vapor can travel through and get out of the flower. 4) Set on your trays and load into a freezer or freeze dryer. Tip for gerberas: I have heard from people who had their gerbera petals droop down and look unusable. Put a 4 inch stem on them with a drop of hot glue, and then spin them over hot steam. The petals will take their original shape. Let them air dry, post-treat,and color enhance if necessary. Mini Calla's: We were having difficulty with some of the new hybrids until we started using this process. We are trying to bring the temperature up in our machines from -20 degrees to about + 70 degrees. In doing this we add enough heat energy to excite the ice crystals in the flowers, and get them to change state from a solid to a gas (water vapor). One of our problems of course is that most of the floral dryers don't have heating systems in the specimen chambers. Also the flowers are sitting on trays in a near perfect vacuum, so we can't warm up the atmosphere, as there is none. Over the years people have used all different types of products next to their flowers to try and conduct heat energy into the flowers. Some clients have used shredded tissue, cotton batting, minute rice, etc. We were looking for something that would be easily reuseable and came up with the idea of using very small silica gel beads. We use them as a heat transfer agent and not a drying agent. 1) Hydrate them well with warm water at 105 to 110 degrees, and a floral preservative. 2) We pre-treat them with Colorsafe 2500 at a very thin 1 part CS2500 to 3 parts distilled water dilution factor. 3) Let them dry thoroughly. Cut the stem off until its only about 2-3 inches long. Dry the stem separately if you need it in the finished design. Then we poke holes in the backside of the stem and up about to the center of the flower. We poke the corsage pin all the way into the center pistil several times. 4) Nestle the calla lilies into a tray with about 1 1/2 inches of silica gel beads in it. Do not completely cover the callas as the weight of the beads may leave impressions. We are working on a product that will open cell structure in callas and orchids, and hope to have it ready for the FPS in Vegas. Several of our very seasoned clients are testing it now. Tulips: As you know we have a product that is called Tulip Saver. This is basically a cell opener, that will break down the waxy cuticle on the outside of tulip petals. This product really works well for all varieties of tulips. 1) Hydrate the tulips with luke warm water and a floral preservative. If they start to open, just put them in a frig overnight to harden off. 2) Pre-treat them with Tulip Saver at a 1 part Tulip Saver to 10 parts distilled water dilution factor. Let the product dry for 15 minutes. Repeat two more times. 3) Clip the tulip blooms off and set them upright on your trays, and load into a storage freezer, or freeze dryer. We normally discard the stems. If we need the stems for the final design, we will process some daffodil stems and substitute them as they are much more durable. I am surprised that you had trouble with yellow and lavender roses. We just pretreat them with Quick Dry Polyset at a 1 part polyset to 2 parts distilled water basis, and let them set for about 15 minutes, and load them into either a storage freezer or freeze dryer. If you are having trouble with them "ballooning" or "pillowing", its because the ice crystals were changing to water vapor faster than it could migrate out of the tissue. Normally this would only happen if the product was not pre-treated, or if the roses were close to the plexiglass door. Being next to the door poses a double problem. Plexiglass is a poor insulator and even covered may let in more heat energy than we would like during the primary drying. Also, most freeze dryers have a heat ring very close to the front of the machine. This keeps ice from building up on the specimen chamber gasket and impeading a good vacuum forming. This additional heat can be very destructive. We have dried tens of thousands of yellow and lavender roses, and it really should not be difficult. However, it could be just a placement issue. Hope this helps. I do appreciate both Cindy and Robyn helping you with procedures that are working for them. Rich 623-977-8900
KEEPRR 1 post Apr 14, 2008 3:25 AM	---------- Linda-Les Memoires Hi I'm new to the message board & as I was reading all the old postings I came across the one from Cindygirl & would really love to have your timetable for the longer drying times. Could you please fax it to 239-395-3375 or email it to linbrck@aol.com. I'm having some of the same problems & I'm getting ready to try a new load with some of the suggestions I've read here. Thanks so much Linda

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