Drying food

[Toddy]

Dill is best hung and air dried in bunches and then rubbed to free the little fronds….I like dill, but the dehydrator left it tasteless.

Janne ? that seems awfully thick slices for drying, but then I don't buy starfruit so have no experience of drying it. It's one of those looks pretty but there are just so many other fruits that I really like that I haven't bothered. It's usually comparatively expensive too. It hadn't occurred to me that the ones we import here are sour.

Just now we're awash with strawberries and peaches here. I've been jarring up spiced peaches for later on in the year. Absolutely lovely, but a real skiddle to get the skins off and not cook the peaches in the process!

RobsonValley ? I like my little round one, but those who really get into this in a bigger way advocate the temperature controlled dehydrators and they're all square/rectangular. Their results seem excellent though.

We find that taking the lid off seems to speed up the drying. I usually put a batch in when I'm going to be around the kitchen all day anyway, and flies aren't really a problem here, so no fuss with no cover.

M

 

[Robson Valley]

I was attempting to air dry the dill. No taste or aroma so out it went this afternoon.
The variety must be an issue, or maybe even age?

The vents in my dehydrator are underneath the bottom. The motor, heater, fan and temp controls are on top.
Start off hot to warm the load then turn it down 5C. All the details are in the book.
The instruction book says that I can add another 4-6 trays to the stack but shuffle the stack every day = no big deal.
It is still nice and compact wth a small footprint in the kitchen. The drying tomatoes have the best smell of all.

 

[Toddy]

Your's sounds rather posh
Mine is as simple as it gets

Funny stuff dill. It's like the courmarin rich stuffs that need time, sometimes.

We get a lot of sundried tomatoes from Europe. Dried they cost about a tenner a kg, so it's really not worth our while drying them ourselves. We don't grow them in any quantity, and the ones that are sold here as home grown, are very seasonal and comparatively expensive. Much, much better taste though than the imported 'salad tomatoes', even the ones on the vine, but too expensive to buy to dry. We just eat them fresh for the little while they're in season.

 

[JamPan]

Do they use quite a bit of electric if they're on for 8 hours etc...?

 

[bopdude]

Do they use quite a bit of electric if they're on for 8 hours etc...?

No, they're only low wattage, well mine is yep, I'm a shrinker convert, I do meals and biltong / jerky at the moment

 

[Robson Valley]

Mine is packed away so I'll guess the power consumption, total, can't be more than 100W for the fan motor & heater.
It can't take much to raise the temp to 60C in such a small space.

The Italian sun-dried tomatoes packed in herbed olive oil cost $12.00 for a 8 oz jar.
Obviously, transportation is the killer.
I can buy a 25lb/12kg case, fresh, picked 5 hrs down south, for $30.00.
No culinary challenge to cut tomatoes in half and spread those in layers!
Once a day, shuffle the trays. I might use a liter of olive oil, approx $12.00.
The concept is to dry enough that no amount of taste testing makes too big a ding in the finish.

 

[baggins]

Its getting to the time of year that ours will be running non stop until xmas. We dry all sorts. and make loads of fruit leathers (cherry plums are great) and jerky (beef and salmon). And once the chroming season takes hold, well, our kitchen looks like a kilner factory.
Our fav though are strawberries, they are amazing, proper taste explosions.
We only have a small round one, but it does have a temp control as well as a timer. and wire mesh racks rather than the flimsy plastic ones.

 

[JamPan]

I read somewhere if you're drying mushrooms in a dehydrator, it has to be set to fan only with no heat turned on. Though all the ones I've looked at have min 40C setting. What's all your experiences of this?

 

[Robson Valley]

Never done mushrooms. I don't eat enough to justify that.

My plastic racks are not flimsy. They don't get handled too much anyway.

baggins: What's chroming season and a kilner factory? Help an old colonist.

 

[Toddy]

Mine has no temperature control, mushrooms dry fine on it.

I have the plastic racks and they've now lasted, ehm, I can't mind, it's at least ten years though, and they're still fine.
I did cut some silicon oven tray liners up to cover the grids though when making fruit leathers.

M

 

[Janne]

Last drying before we leave.
A mix of Mango, Apple and Starfruit.

 

[JamPan]

Guys, it's all you fault. I've now bought a dehydrator! Looks like I was on eBay at the right time as I've just got a Stockli with timer barely used for £33.
Now I'll be dehydrating everything in the forest!
There's a good stock of bilberries, brambles and raspberries around at the moment which I normally make into Jam/jelly. What's the most successful thing to do with them in the dehydrator?

 

[Janne]

Guys, it's all you fault. I've now bought a dehydrator! Looks like I was on eBay at the right time as I've just got a Stockli with timer barely used for £33.
Now I'll be dehydrating everything in the forest!
There's a good stock of bilberries, brambles and raspberries around at the moment which I normally make into Jam/jelly. What's the most successful thing to do with them in the dehydrator?[/QU

 

[Toddy]

The blaeberries dry out like cranberries, so no issue. Rasps and brambles though, they're seedy. Best advice with them is to puree and strain though a sieve. One that'll catch the seeds but not the pulp, and then spread the pulp out (you might need to line the trays if they're mesh, silicon oven liner sheets work very well indeed, buy from the pound stores) To be honest I find they're actually best boiled up with apples and the whole lot pushed through a sieve to remove the seeds. The apples provide just a bit of sweetness, a good bulk, and make it easy to spread the mush out.

Try the supermarket reduced at the end of the day fruits to try stuff. It's amazing what works well

M

 

[Janne]

The billberries my mom dried were like shotgun pellets.

Good in baking, not so nice eating dry.

 

[Robson Valley]

Dried berries might be OK, soaked overnight but not eaten directly. Like Janne says, they are like bullets.
I dried Saskatoons (Service berries) aka Amelanchier alnifolia No way on earth would I eat those without soaking.

The Roma tomatoes would go crispy-dry if I left them in the dryer long enough.
Experience has shown me to dry them quite leathery then pack in herbed olive oil.
At the end of a jar, I cook with the oil!

 

[Toddy]

Mine were chewy, like cranberries. I did pick out the big ones to dry though, and just ate the rest fresh

M

 

[Janne]

Must be over drying. I guess your preference should rule!

I like the apple slices chewy. The mango is crispy on the edges, chewy in the middle, but I guess that will even out.

I store what I have dried the last week in the freezer.

Will take a small bag of the apples with me tomorrow though.

 

[Robson Valley]

When the day comes that I actually get some proper Cree-style bison pemmican made up, I'll use raisins if I need any berries in it.
Best will be late summer/autumn with root vegetables and make burgoo as the fur traders did.

I like dried fruit that's still quite leathery/chewy. All down the west side of North America, the availability of fresh and dried fruit
is so inexpensive that the drying fiddle isn't worth it. It was the obscene price of the imported dried tomatoes that got me going, nothing else.

The one thing that I did do right was to take and make written notes in the dehydrator instruction book. Done with the experiments.

 

[JamPan]

Well you've all given me a few ideas to play with.
I never knew Saskatoon meant service berry. Not sure I've seen any in the wild here though.

The pemmican has got me thinking though. Wife loves fish floss but it's expensive to buy in the Asian supermarkets here so I could make some. Also the dried shredded cabbage which is passed off as dried seaweed. I wouldn't use actual seaweed from the beaches of Yorkshire though.

End of day supermarket is a brilliant idea! I reckon I could get a big stack of strawberries to dehydrate.