Dehydrated food guide

[Globetrotter.uk]

I must start using my dehydrator for other stuff apart from jerky. I was looking for a good book or website as a guide. Any help please.

 

[markie*mark0]

I'd be interested too

 

[andythecelt]

I'm afraid I can't suggest any books but I did a lot of googling on the subject and like a lot of things you can often find better info online if you're able to separate the wheat from the chaff. One of the best sites I found was http://www.backpackingchef.com/ He has some great recipes and a lot of useful information on making dried meat that will rehydrate more easily, for example adding breadcrumbs to beef before cooking and drying it (tried it and it seems to really work). I do a lot of dehydrating, so much that I bought an Excalibur machine. I love it, so much more convenient to use. I buy things that are reduced in bulk, I dried 10 kilo of potatoes one day for example. Dehydrated yoghurt is fantastic, so is custard.

 

[Native Nathan]

@ Andythcelt
any chance you could do a video tutorial on your dehydrating?
I'm trying to convince the misses to let us invest in a 9 tray Excalibur

 

[slowworm]

Is this any help as an introduction? I must try an use our dehydrator far more this year.

http://www.downsizer.net/Projects/Processing_food/Dehydrating_Your_Produce/

 

[lub0]

This 3 part video series is what really got me in to the idea of dehydrating food... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxVpIHre2ao

 

[andythecelt]

To be honest I lack the time and video equipment to do a tutorial but really if you read through the site I posted you'll know as much as I do. The excalibur is a great machine, I have the 5 tray model and to be honest it's big enough to dry huge amounts of food. The 9 tray model may well be overkill unless you're supplying large numbers of people in my opinion. It's a bulky thing to store too. If I fill all 5 trays I find that after a couple of hours the food has reduced in bulk enough for me to fit it all on 2 trays for the remainder of the drying time, freeing up 3 trays to start a new batch. Being square the trays take a lot more than round dehydrators, I was surprised at how much more it'll take.