Peak Refuel Biscuits & Sausage Gravy

This is a serious, and seriously good, breakfast—one of my absolute go-to's.

I love this meal. It's almost as good as a good restaurant biscuits and gravy—much better than some of the sad, heavy, gloopy stuff I've had at less-reputable diners, ha ha.

Preparation and Taste:
I followed the package directions; 1 and 1/3 cups boiling water, stand 10 minutes. I also followed their "pro tip" and crumbled up the biscuits before adding the water. I my opinion, this may (???) have been an error? I want to try this again, but next time I want to crumble the biscuits on top of the stirred sauce mixture before closing the bag and letting it sit.

You see, everything rehydrated well, except some of the larger biscuit chunks—and that provided some inspiration. With the biscuits stirred into the sauce and the hot water and left to sit, the smaller biscuit bits were fully softened, right down to sogginess. The larger pieces had a perfectly rehydrated core surrounded by a soggy layer. And the largest pieces added a crunch center—and that was brilliant.

Even the soggy bits tasted excellent, mind you. This is no way a complaint about the rehydration of the biscuits. I'm just curious if not mixing the biscuit right down into the sauce during rehydration might add some of that toothesome texture that I so love.

As for the other components, the gravy was a good consistency, and the sausage crumbles rehydrated perfectly.

The flavor was strongly peppery, without overwhelming the gravy, the sausage, or the biscuits. It really was just about perfectly balanced.
God, I think I'm in love :)

Packaging:
The packaging is a little bulky—but this is because the biscuits are freeze-dried WHOLE, just as if they had come straight out of the oven. Unlike other freeze-dried biscuits and gravies I've had. Brilliant.

Nutrition and Satiety:
This meal is serious fuel. 1100 calories for the whole bag. You had better mean business, eating this.  It was perfect for me, as I was planning a 13+ mile day and this kept me going all the way to lunch in spite of high mileage with a lot of elevation gain.

Speaking of which, for as big as the meal was, it was not a gut-bomb.  I did not feel overfull or logy, but set out on the trail almost immediately, with no ill consequences.

The calories from this meal come from lots of protein, fat, and carbs—unsurprisingly. Protein runs 34g; carbs 51g, and fat a whopping 85g. But that is fuel.

Likewise, it's not short on sodium at 1780mg or 77% r.d.a.—but once again, I was pulling big miles and elevation gain on a hot day. That sodium was a necessary cushion.

Recommendation:
Absolute. This was the best thing I put in my face on this trip. Including the breakfast at the diner on the way to the trail head, which came rightfully highly recommended. I don't know that I would eat this for every breakfast on a backpacking trip, as variety is good. But this will ALWAYS be in the bear vault going forward.

UPDATE 2023.08.19
The second package only had 1 biscuit!  That made me sad.  But it had more sausage!  That made me happy!
I did try waiting to crumble the biscuit on top of the stirred sausage-and-sauce to see if the "steam" would provide sufficient rehydration to the pastry, but this lead to completely un-rehydrated biscuit and was pretty much entirely unsatisfying.  In future, I will simply roughly quarter the biscuits and stir them into the sauce as recommended.

Background

Joshua has been hiking, backpacking, and car-camping for more than four decades. He is based primarily in the Pacific Northwest, but has hiked throughout the US, with forays into Hawaii, Canada, and New Zealand.