Reporting back from dehydrated heaven!!!
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Nice one andy. Tell me all about your first batch of dehydrated goodness when you do it. Have fun and Im glad i persuaded you do get one. Have fun dehydrating loads of stuff.
Lol I shall mate. I'm rather partial to jerky and making it in the oven is a total faff. All the best
Andy
Andy
I have indeed. I've only just started experimenting but, this far, it's proving to be a good bit of kit
. I can, however, foresee a problem looming ~ additional kit purchase (for proper storage).
The two most surprising things I've found (so far) are just how much things shrink and the intensity of flavour.
Finding out about bark's something which came as a pleasant surprise ~ loads of scope with that idea
.Link to making barks ~ http://www.backpackingchef.com/potato-bark.html (not the best pics)
I've a pineapple doing its thing at the moment and the dip test is looking very promising
. A couple of punnets of strawberries are waiting to go in when the pineapple's done ~ but as the smell of strawberries dehydrating is almost enough to make the anosmic drool
I might leave that job for over nightI looked at (drooled over) the Excalibur range (http://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/) but, as a complete newbie to dehydrating, I thought this one theatre where cutting my teeth in the gods was definitely the sensible option. Having had a short play an Excalibur is now on my 'One day!' list
.
I'd have edited this into my previous post but I thought due to the time lapsed it'd be better as an addition than an edit ....
Although the thickness of the slice and dice will affect drying time the biggest influence on how long dehydration will take is ambient humidity ~ you're moving moisture away from the food stuff and humidity will slow the process.
....Although the thickness of the slice and dice will affect drying time the biggest influence on how long dehydration will take is ambient humidity ~ you're moving moisture away from the food stuff and humidity will slow the process.
I dont need a dehydrator i dont i dont i dont i don't
could this be written off as a kitchen tool i wonder......
could this be written off as a kitchen tool i wonder......
And you won't find yourself in need of a vacuum sealer either :bluThinki .....
Erm ... it *is* a kitchen tool
As is a vacuum sealer :evilangel:
(can you tell what's next on my list?
)
Mine too
that's what I like, it's pretty forgiving and you don't need to follow a recipe, I just throw the sauces and spices together without measuring, the only thing that I find really matters is letting it marinate to allow the flavours to get into the meat, I usually go for 24-48 hours.Another thing to watch out for is making sure that it's not over-dried, the times I've left it too long and the jerky is on the brittle side it's not as tasty, it's far better to be a little chewy so I check it every 30 mins or so once it has been in there for a few hours.
As for dehydrating meat, the smaller the chunks are the better, I've tried dehydrating a pasta sauce with minced beef and it didn't rehydrate that well, it was edible but a little chewy. I think a better way is to dehydrate the sauce and meat separately. I have also heard that mixing some fine dry breadcrumbs into the mince helps and using the leanest and lowest percentage fat meat you can find, I can only assume the reason is that the breadcrumbs draw the fat from the meat which makes it easier for the water to be absorbed into the meat come rehydration time.
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I read here that it doesn't matter what cut you get as long as you trim the fat before dehydrating. I just picked up some beef strips.
http://joemacho.hubpages.com/hub/Homemade-Beef-Jerky-Recipes
http://joemacho.hubpages.com/hub/Homemade-Beef-Jerky-Recipes
Mmmmm. Ever tried it with shoulder Rik? Found this recipe, from the survival forums.
The shoulder [chuck] is probably the cheapest cut I think. So I wondered if there was a big difference in taste/quality.
http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=153598
I'll probably give both a go. [As meat really has shot up in price over the last few years]
Just finished my second experiment in making apple leather.
Both batches of leathers were made from the same pan of ingredients ~ four cooking apples, one rather aged medium sized orange and two middle aged lemons.
After cooking and blending a portion was applied to the dehydrator sheet and the excess transferred to scaled jars for safe storage.
First batch tasted good, but made gold leaf seem overly thick . Had an unfortunate tendency to fuse to teeth and gums.
So, too much water in the mix. The excess went back in the pan for reducing.
Second batch tastes just as good as the first and has a notable physical thickness to it . Possibly applied to the dehydrator sheet a smidgeon too thick :bluThinki , but practice and all that jazz .
Both batches of leathers were made from the same pan of ingredients ~ four cooking apples, one rather aged medium sized orange and two middle aged lemons.
After cooking and blending a portion was applied to the dehydrator sheet and the excess transferred to scaled jars for safe storage.
First batch tasted good, but made gold leaf seem overly thick
. Had an unfortunate tendency to fuse to teeth and gums.So, too much water in the mix. The excess went back in the pan for reducing.
Second batch tastes just as good as the first and has a notable physical thickness to it
. Possibly applied to the dehydrator sheet a smidgeon too thick :bluThinki , but practice and all that jazz .nice one phil. I need to try barks soon. That does taste good and would rehydrate really well on the trail.
This evening I remembered we had a food slicer tucked away in a corner. Similar to ...
(pic from here ~ no connections, just giving credit for the shot)
Bit of a blast from the past, but regular thickness in slices will aid dehydrating .
Made mincemeat* of a pineapple
.
* Well ... a yellow pineapple sliced type mincemeat anyway .
Thinly sliced pineapple core's quite nice, if a little fibrous. Time will tell as to whether it's a binding agent
.
(pic from here ~ no connections, just giving credit for the shot)
Bit of a blast from the past, but regular thickness in slices will aid dehydrating
.Made mincemeat* of a pineapple
.* Well ... a yellow pineapple sliced type mincemeat anyway
.Thinly sliced pineapple core's quite nice, if a little fibrous. Time will tell as to whether it's a binding agent
.
I've been lucky enough to find a couple on special. First one was chunked, this one's sliced ~ this one seems to be drying in a more controlled fashion
.i would love to seen some pic of the food. (just so i can drool over it)
That's the thing with dehydrated foods, they tend to look like the mummified scrap that rolled under the kitchen cupboard six months ago. Totally uninspiring and, if it were served up without you knowing what it was, you'd complain _quite vocally_
. Once you know the taste explosion ...I've also done an experiment with tortilla wraps. I now have a nice box of bread crumbs
~ they'd past their best by date, but looked and smelled good and so got whacked in (125 for about four hours) for a trial . As they're made from a herb wrap they'll need making up for savoury stuff .
