Drying or Dehydrating Food

[yellowsnow]

Originally Posted by AK-Cathy

I'll look into the solar plans. I'm sure that there is a solar or 12V fan that would be fairly straight forward to install in a solar dryer. Has anyone used straight sunlight and screening for drying? And what type of things have you guys dried? I'm thinking mostly fruit but chopped bell pepper and celery seems interesting.

I'm sure it can be done and our ancestors survived it. I live in a very low humidity place and food would dry here. But even with screens, there's a possibility of contamination from insects and mold. Spores and bugs are everywhere and I'm not fanatical about it but I want as little of it in my food as possible. I would go solar before I would do just sun and screens.

I've done a lot of veggies and I used to make a stew in a bag. Just add meat. The bag contained pepper, a little bouillon, dried spices, tomato, carrots, celery, onions, and mushrooms. I kept it in vacuum sealed bags and it worked quite well.

Vegetable leathers are interesting and useful too. Really good for tomatoes and peppers. Not good for things you want to be chunky and identifiable. Here's the general process for tomatoes. Remove the skins and pass through a grinder/strainer to remove seeds and get an even consistency. Then pour into a chinois and let it drain. This takes off a lot of the water and lets you have more concentrated flavor. The liquid that drains off is good in soups/stews. After it drains for a while I add some lemon juice and spread it on plastic trays that fit in my dehydrator with an offset spatula. A butter knife will work too. Dehydrate till it's like a fruit leather. Some veggies will stay bendable and others are crispy and breakable like a chip. I break/tear them up and store in vacuum sealed bags. I get out one at a time and use them for things like spaghetti and sauces. Fruit leathers are pretty much the same process.

[MissingAll4Seasons]

One of the cheapest dehydrators I ever had was the back window of my car in TX As long as I put bug screen over the food and wound the side windows down to get ventilation, it certainly got hot enough in the vehicle 9 months yearly to dehydrate fruit & veggies.

In humid WA, I either had to leave it in the sun with a fan blowing across it (summer) or leave it next to my fireplace with a fan blowing across it (winter).

In super-humid SC, I had a box with a 60w lightbulb and a fan... still less power consumption than a commercial electric model.

It's really arid where I'm at in AK, so dehydrating isn't too much of a problem. Just leaving something out long enough will dehydrate it. When we need to dry something fast, we normally salt it and hang it by the firepit.

If it takes more than a few hours to dehydrate the food, you just need to treat it against spoilage and bugs for the time it takes to dry it... salt/brine, sugar, acid dip (citric/ascorbic acid, lemon juice or vinegar), and smoking/cure (nitrates) all works. Salting definitely works the fastest... an hour or two in salt layers and then a few hours in sun and wind by a smokey is normally all it takes to dry meat. For fruit, sugaring works the same way (minus the smoke ). It doesn't really add overpowering flavor, just using the salt/sugar to draw the moisture out of the food.

[Poncho_NM]

Originally Posted by AK-Cathy

I'm interested in food drying but other than herbs and flowers I have not done this as a food storage method. Since I really like most dried fruit I would like to start thinking about drying as another method of food storage. Any experience out there that would like to share? Thanks in advance.

We bought an inexpensive small electric dehydrator about 30 years ago, after a few years someone gave us another one they no longer used. We used them on and off for about 10 years then eventually gave it to our grown daughter. We dried a lot of sliced fruit; apples, bananas and mangoes... Also made some beef jerky during the summers (the smell of drying beef gets to you in a closed up house).

I have seen some of the solar dehydrator, even here in sunny New Mexico, my family and a few friends still prefer electric versions.

Take a look of the models at Amazon.com and the reviews; here is a small inexpensive one: http://www.amazon.com/Nesco-American...8581536&sr=1-3

Good luck, it can be enjoyable to do at times...



Rich

[lifelongMOgal]

It was similar to this one linked below but set on a frame tilted at about a 45 degree angle.

Building Using Midwest Solar Food Dryer-Sue Robishaw-drying food sun solar

solar herb dryer made from old window:
http://makeprojects.com/Project/Solar-Herb-Dryer/377/1

Greenhouse as solar dryer for large scale:
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__...anjai_2009.pdf

[emilybh]

Originally Posted by AK-Cathy

I'm interested in food drying but other than herbs and flowers I have not done this as a food storage method. Since I really like most dried fruit I would like to start thinking about drying as another method of food storage. Any experience out there that would like to share? Thanks in advance.

There is a lot on YouTube. I watched a ton of videos on that last night and watched tomato sauce and soups being dehydrated.