Dehydrating Food for Storage

We have dried our summer produce for over 30 years now.  It hasn't been always perfect but we have certainly been moving to perfection.  We started by just dehydrating apple slices in the summer's sun.  We have a little too much liquid sunshine around here so it wasn't very practical to put a cookie tray on the south side roof of the house with a net over it to keep out the bugs and birds.  We had to remember to take it in every night and we couldn't always count on the weather to be right for drying.

We have dried foods in an oven--mostly fruit leather which I will talk about later.   Oven drying can be tricky but if your oven will go low enough (150 F. degrees or less) you can do it there.  We would set the oven on the lowest temperature and leave the oven door open a crack.  We found that if you had a small fan on one side of the oven blowing over the food and out the other side that the time to dry the food decreased.  This of coarse, used a lot of energy and sometimes the results weren't worth the effort.  Convections ovens can be used nowadays, with better success.  You just have to keep the settings under 150 F. degrees.  The more air circulation the more effective the drying.  A close-grid cooking rack would be perfect to use to place the food on, as it would let the air flow under and above the food.

I had my husband build me a dehydrator out of wood about 30 years ago.  We followed instructions we had found in a book and it had all the bells and whistles for back then.  There were air holes at the bottom and top, 10 trays that slid in and out, made out of screening.  We even had a heating element, small fan and a thermostat at the bottom where it would suck in the air and heat it up and blow up through the food.  All these early attempts did produce dried foods, but not quickly.  Usually something like apple slices would take from 2 to 3 days or if we tried something hard like grapes, over 5 days.  Many times the food would go bad before it dried.  When we finally purchased a commercial dehydrator, we noticed the difference immediately.  It was like night and day!  We finally took all the trays out of the homemade one, turned it on its side and used it as a toybox.

The difference it makes to use a real dehydrator is due to the fact that commercially sold dehydrators have be technically developed and tested so that they work energy efficient and save time and money.  Now the foods would dry in 8 to 10 hours or for the harder items like grapes, 20 to 24 hours.  No more guess work nor food going bad!

There are several features to look for in a dehydrator:

• Make sure it has both a fan and a heating element so that the air is circulated.
• Do not buy a dehydrator made out of metal.
• A thermostate that checks the temperature constant\ly is necessary to keep the temperature even.
• Stacking models are much easier to clean as you won't have to crawl inside to clean like you would have to if you had a box shaped one.
• Stacking models can usually be increased and decreased in size depending on how much you need to dry at one time.
• Make certain it can be repaired, if worse comes to worse.  Many appliances cannot, but we can repair the models we have sold.

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Most foods will dehydrate overnight.  We use this phrase "overnight" to mean 6 to 10 hours.  (depends on how long you sleep)  We always dried our foods while the kids were asleep so the same amount of food would be in the dehydrator when it finished.  If we dried the food during the day we would notice that several pieces were missing when we went to take it out, as the children would sneak some for themselves. 

Dehydrating Fruits

• Most fruits you just cut up and put in on the mesh sheets in the dryer and take it out 8 hours later.  We try to keep the slices or wedges the same size so that it will dry at the same length of time.
• Fruits that oxidize in the air and turn brown, like apples, peaches, pears etc. you can dip the slices in a bowl of cold water with several Tbsp. of lemon juice, drain it, then place on the mesh sheets
• Use mesh sheets when you dry fruit so it will be easy to remove once it has dried
• You can tell fruit is dry by the feel.  It should be leathery or brittle depending on the fruit
• Waxy skinned fruit like grapes, blueberries, cherries and plums will require poking to let the air inside it and will take much longer to dry.  (up to 24 hours in a good dehydrator)
• When your remove the pit from the plum, but them in half and turn them inside out.
• Blueberries and grapes can be plunged into boiling water for 10 sec to 20 sec. depending on the size, and into cold water and drained,  to check the skins before putting on the trays.
• Soft or overripe fruit can be used to make fruit leather or fruit rollups (see picture below).  Puree the fruit in the blender and add 1 Tbsp. of honey for every cup of puree.  Make certain to spray fruit leather trays with non stick spray or grease lightly, so the fruit leather will come off easily.
• Dried fruits will keep 2 to 3 years in a container

Dehydrating Vegetables

• Vegetables you eat raw like onions, green pepper, tomatoes, cucumbers, you can slice and put on the trays to dry.
• Vegetables you eat cooked like peas, beans, corn, carrots, broccoli, you can steam blanch for 2 min. before putting in the dryer.  You will retain more flavour and colour if you do.
• You can powder vegetables like broccoli, or cauliflower and add to a thin to medium white sauce to make a cream soup fast and easy.
• Dried vegetables take overnight to dry and will keep 1 to 2 years in a container

How to Dehydrate Casseroles and Saucy Entrees

Yes we can dry several main course dishes such as Baked Bean, Spaghetti Sauce, Stew, Chili or Mac and Cheese, providing they have some kind of sauce.  This is great for people who camp, bike, hike or canoe as the food is already prepared and you just add water.  We use the fruit leather sheets to hold the food while drying and it usually only takes an overnight period to dry these items.  To use them we like to put it in a thermos or pot and add boiling water (just enough to cover the food) and put a lid on it for 10 min.  You will have your dinner already for you when you open the pot.

How to Dehydrate Cheese and Eggs

Yes we can dry these too!  Cheese can be grated onto a mesh sheet and place in the dryer with the tray under the cheese containing paper towel.  The cheese doesn't loose moisture it looses oil and it drips down to the tray under it so the paper towel can catch it.  The dried cheese also is done over night and can be stored up to 1 year.  We like to powder it in the blender and use it  to make cheese sauce, or sprinkle on a casserole. 

Eggs can be dried either whole, whites or yolks.  You will need to whip them up so they are thick enough to remain on the fruit leather sheets while drying.  Again they are done overnight and placed in the blender to powder and into a container to keep for 1 year.  We use them in camping for cake mixes, scrambled eggs, pancakes etc.  1 Tbsp. of egg powder and 3 Tbsp. of water equals one egg.

How to Dehydrate Meat and Fish

You can dry meat and fish either cooked or raw.  The meat or fish being called jerkies.  Basically you "Cook" the meat with with a marinade and the fish is "cooked" with a brine or cure.  Both are done overnight before placing in the dryer to dry in 6 to 8 hours.  Cooked meat and fish also can be cut into bite size pieces and dried overnight as well for use in stews, soups or casseroles.

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