Freeze-Dried Candy Yield Calculator
Candy isn't fruit — it barely loses weight in the dryer, it just puffs up. Pick your candy type and load weight, and see what actually comes out: post-dry weight, water lost, and how many bags that fills.
How the math works
Freeze drying removes water and nothing else — sugar, and therefore almost all of candy's weight, stays put. The whole model:
water removed = load weight × water content %
full bags = weight after drying (oz) ÷ bag size (oz)
typical water content: gummies 15–22% · marshmallows 15–18%
taffy & caramels 7–15% · Skittles-type 3–7% · hard candy 1–3%
(fresh fruit, for comparison: 80–90%)
A trace of moisture (~1%) stays in the candy, so real yields land a hair above these numbers. The bigger practical surprise is volume: candy roughly doubles or triples in size while losing only a sliver of weight — which is why the right mylar bag is a size question, not a weight question.
Candy yield FAQ
How much weight does candy lose when freeze-dried?
Only its water: gummies lose roughly 15–22%, marshmallows 15–18%, taffy and caramels 7–15%, Skittles-type shelled candy 3–7%, and hard candy 1–3%. Fresh fruit loses 80–90% — candy is a different game entirely, which is why it's such a good product to sell by weight.
Do Skittles lose weight in the freeze dryer?
Barely — they're only ~3–7% water, so a pound of Skittles yields about 15 oz of finished product. The transformation is in texture and volume: the centers puff, the shells crack, and they roughly double in size.
Why does freeze-dried candy get bigger but lighter?
Under vacuum, the water inside sublimates — ice straight to vapor — and the escaping vapor inflates the candy's structure before it can collapse. The result keeps nearly all its sugar mass but ends up porous, airy, and crunchy.
How many bags do I get from one batch?
Load weight, minus the water loss for your type, divided by bag size. Six pounds of gummies at 18% water is ~78.7 oz of finished candy — about 26 three-oz bags. Feed that number into the batch cost calculator as your bags-per-batch override.
🛠 Gear this calculator assumes
- Harvest Right home freeze dryer — the machine most candy sellers run; the medium size fits ~5–7 lbs of candy per batch.
- Digital kitchen scale — weigh a real batch in and out once, and replace our defaults with your numbers.
- Resealable mylar bags (3 oz) — the standard retail packaging.
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