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Re: Food dehydrators

That looks a nice bit of kit, especially for £30.

There's one review, 4 star, saying that it takes longer to dry food than anticipated - although they do say that they've nothing to compare it to.

My American Harvest dehydrator takes between 8 and 12 hours, depending on what I'm drying.

I'm sure you'll get a lot of good use out of your dehydrator Kirsten - you'll certainly save a lot of money.

Another advantage of drying your own: you know exactly what goes into your meal - no nasty chemical preservatives.

Re: Food dehydrators

Thanks for your reply and information that it has been reviewed. So far I've dried some herbs and sliced persimmons. Next project is Paul's "tomato sauce leather".

One thing that interests me about this type of equipment in general:- Surely the humidity of the intake air must affect drying time? How can one dry that intake air? Any ideas? I can't think of any drier place in the house where I could use the thing, but obviously a steamy kitchen would not help.

Re: Food dehydrators

I must admit that I'd not considered ambient humidity levels although I'm sure that would make a difference to the time taken to dry food.

I tend to use mine in the kitchen unless I'm drying curry or tuna fish flakes, they're both a bit whiffy! That's when the dehydrator is moved to the garage.

Tomato sauce leather is ideal for dehydrating, try your own favourite recipe here - in fact try ANY of your favourite recipes.

In my experience the best foods for dehydrating and rehydrating for backpacking are sauces like curry, bolognese etc., they're quick, tasty and nutritious.

A quick tip: when you bag the food after dehydrating add a pinch of the appropriate dried herbs to the bag. This helps replace some of the flavours that may have otherwise been lost in the dehydrating process.

Feel free to drop me an email to discuss further....and to compare recipes!

JJ

Re: Food dehydrators

I've only tried dehydrating Tuna flakes once......the smell lingered for days....nearly got the dehydrator banned from the house!

Been experimenting with veggie stuff.....Lentil Dahl seems to be the favourite so far.

For dehydrating the Tomato sauce you need some silicone sheets; I'd use 3 disks about 4cm smaller than the tray diameter & 2 the same size as the tray with a 7 - 8cm hole in the middle, this help to distribute the airflow over the trays.

Re: Food dehydrators

JJ, Paul, Many thanks for those suggestions. What are your direct e-mail addresses for recipe swapping? I'll gladly share recipes, and lentil dahl is perfect for me.

I've not been one to buy ready meals and preferred to keep it simple and cheap with flavoured couscous as my main ingredient most nights, but the dehydrator will enable me to vary my diet a bit more. Nearly all my camp cooking relies on adding boiling water to something and waiting, rather than cooking; this also makes the washing up easier too.

Re: Food dehydrators

Email: johnjocys (at) hotmail dot com

It should appear in full below this message.

Re: the tuna pong: that's why I use the garage!

JJ

Re: Food dehydrators

When I started dehydrating my own food I found the most difficult thing was getting the size of the pieces right so they will re-hydrate in a pot cosy without having to simmer them. It takes a bit of practice and it's worth having a couple of trial runs just to make sure you've got it right before the Challenge. There would be nothing worse after a hard day on the Challenge to find yourself faced with a meal of crunchy chicken. A vegetable mandolin and a spiralizer are useful to get even thickness of ingredients.

These days I dehydrate ingredients rather than meals. So for instance when peppers are cheap I'll buy a load slice them with a vegetable mandolin and dehydrate them. By the time of the Challenge I'll have various ingredients and some sauces dehydrated and I'll just mix them together with dried herbs or spices to make a meal.

One great snack for during the day is tomato. My preference is to use the baby plum ones. Cut them into eighths and add a little black pepper then dehydrate.

Ian C.

Re: Food dehydrators

Hi what iv found with dehydrators is meat or chicken doesnt come back very well, but if you like your meat a bit chewy then all is good, however i like my steak med :-) but if your a well done king of gent then do it. Try and hydrate jerky its almost impossible the challenge will be over time that comes back, However mince is very good in a sauce of some kind like pasta bake etc. Past experiments found food with high fat doesnt dehydrate and can spoil very quickly. Pulses are great like dahl tarka dahl yum yum. With drying fish yes it stinks like a fishermans boot but i dont see the point in it. If you go to any chinese food outlet they do lots of dry fish that you can just add to your meal as and when, plus the shelf life is long and its light. Rhubarb and custard dehydrates and comes back excellent. Buying a vacuum bag machine is a must if you want a longer shelf life...My suggestions is to experiment, dehydration doesnt have to be bland and if you like chilli use fresh!!!!

Re: Food dehydrators

Interesting, I'd not considered Chinese food outlets for dried fish, I'll nip into Manchester's Chinatown and see what can be found. Thanks for the heads-up Stefan!

I've never had much success with chicken, I find it dehydrates well enough but is a bugger to rehydrate.

Re: Food dehydrators

The trick with chicken is to slice it very thinly and cook it in a pressure cooker. The only way I've found to slice it thin enough is to put the raw chicken breast in the freezer for a few hours until it is almost solid. You can then slice it about 1mm thick before cooking it. Slice it any thicker and it won't re-hydrate properly. Oh and you need to wear gloves when slicing it or your fingers will get painfully cold. As I said this works well but it's such a faf I rarely bother. For some reason I find minced turkey breast works better than minced chicken but again it's best if cooked in a pressure cooker.

Ian C.

Re: Food dehydrators

No probs. I think chicken is a very dry meat anyway and dehydrating just makes it like concrete, like ian said mince turkey is good and even mince beef. I am planning to make some really nice stuff this time around and maybe do a kitchen sketch on top of the Monolith mountains ha ha.

Re: Food dehydrators

Thanks for your useful suggestions, Ian.