Seeking info on food dehydrators

R

richard-in-cincy

Well-known member
I will be a member of an organic food co-op this summer and will have more than we can use. Since I'm not quite ready to go into home-canning, I was planning to freeze some things and thought dehydrating would be an easy and cheap alternative.

I'm interested on what you dehydrate, anything that doesn't dehydrate satisfactorily, hydrator recommendations, and how you use the dehydrated produce. TIA!

Also interested in other summer produce preservation methodologies!

 
Instead of just listing stuff, here is a long shot book-finding opportunity

Richard, I have two books that will be long shots for you to find but do try because one in particular is my "bible" for preserving everything- also for making cheese, soap, grinding grains, smoking foods, you name it.

As for a dehydrator, the best one I ever used is the one I have now- it is a Harvest Maid, is round with many layers stacked on top of the unit that has the fan.

Ortho Books- soft cover
"A Guide To Preserving Food For A 12 Months Harvest"
1975 was the first printing. I doubt seriously that it is still in print but if you can find it, pay ANYTHING to get it. The publisher was Regensteiner Publishing Enterprises for Ortho Books, Chevron Chemical Company, Ortho Division. It was $3.98 when new-LOL. The book follows the teachings of one lady from Gilroy, CA named Mariel Dewey who, I think of as a modern day pioneer woman.

The other one is a Sunset Book- also soft cover
"Canning Freezing & Drying"
Lane Publishing Co, Menlo Park, CA
first printed in 1975.
Loaded with good info- not as in-depth or interesting as the other book but still very, very good. You may be able to find this one fairly easily- I have seen different editions of it over the years.

 
Great!

Book looks fantastic and just found a used copy for $8 with shipping. Thanks for the recommendation; I can't wait to look through this book!

 
Also, info on vacuum food sealers

the dogs vs. the ones that work, which ones have replacement bags that are easy to find and not outrageously priced, etc.

 
Get thee to Costco

It will be interesting to see what others say but I like the Foodsaver vacuum sealer. I got mine at Costco years ago. I saw the other day that Costco carries the newer version of the one I have. Not too expensive, replacement bags easily found. My Foodsaver really does work well.

 
But remember, the Food Saver is not a preservation method; Think of it as a storage method. . .

You MUST dry or prepare to freeze things you wish to store in a Foodsaver bag/vacuum-sealed jar/bottle.

The Foodsaver is NOT a substitute for proper food preservation methods.

Keep the above in mind and the Foodsaver is really dandy, and safe too.

 
We dry plums, pears, apples, cherries, and tomatoes. We'd also dry strawberries but end up eating,

freezing, or making jam from all we have. We have raspberries and blackberries too, but these are too seedy to dry. They'd make good fruit leather.

Dried tomatoes can be used in recipes for sun-dried tomatoes. The other fruit we take backpacking and give away for Christmas (it's very popular). And we eat a lot of it plain.

Drying produce takes a fair amount of preparation time. You need to cut them into fairly uniform pieces. Then you need to babysit the dryer, rotating the pieces that are drying more slowly.

I freeze beans, corn, chopped onions, chopped peppers, roasted tomatoes, whole tomatoes, berries, as well as tomatillo sauce and various kinds of tomato sauces. You can freeze squash or tomato puree.

If you like jam but don't want to bother canning, just make freezer jam.

 
And then pick up bags & canisters at Kohl's.....

they have them 40% off every time you turn around. The bags are priced fair at Costco but they don't often have all the canisters and I do like using those so you can open and close constantly.

 
Just bought a dehydrator at Kohl's and thinking about returning it....

when I got to looking at instructions and such, the ones like the Ronco and such that you see at BB&B, LNT, & Kohl's take forever to dry things. One of the ladies at work says she just uses the oven and considering that I have a convection oven, I am thinking that might make more sense. My understanding is that the good ones are more expensive and have a fan rather than using convection air flow - haven't fully researched exactly what all I am saying here but I am thinking that if you really want to do some dehydrating, look on ebay for a more serious one. Heck, my grandmother just made fames with screens and sat them outside and then Alton brown made them for herbs by placing the herbs on those pleated air filters and using bungee cords to hold them to a cheap old fashioned box fan.

 
I bought a Delonghi convection toaster oven last month and it comes with a dehydrator function,

although I haven't tried it yet - it comes with three nice drying racks. Has anyone ever used one of these before? I want to give it a try when the good summer produce comes in!

 
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