Food dehydrator
 

Wife picked up a cheapo at a yard sale today (2 bucks new in box.. used once?). Plastic, mr coffee., what ever. I was reading the manual about fruits shelf life, one year is what it said, probably with out oxygen absorbers.

Anyone doing this, looking for tips....

Re: Food dehydrator
 

Not sure about shelf life of dehydrated fruits. I understand that a big benefit of dehydrators is food preparation without warming foods over about 110 degrees or so. This leaves the enzymes in the food alive, and the food contains much more digestable nutrition that way. There are many "raw" food cookbooks that contain receipes for delicious meals.

Tonight I had lasagna made with zucinni instead of pasta, brazil nuts, garlic and cashews prepped in food processor made the "cheese," and the red sauce was made in a food processor along with sun dried tomatoes, garlic cloves, parsley, and basil.

Dehydrated it at 110 for a couple hours, and it was delicious.

Re: Food dehydrator
 

Over the years I have bought two - a fairly cheap one and another not so cheap...........in neither case did it dehydrate evenly or well.........and yes, I cook, and so I sliced everything extremely thinly - it made no difference.

My bottomline with the machines was that in the long run - the oven worked best.

Love to hear other responses and, most importantly, if anyone has a dehydrator they think works really well!

Re: Food dehydrator
 

I got my mom one of these for X-Mas last year. I bought the 2900 series. I also have one for myself, only a smaller model. These things are far superior to the standard round dehydrators. If you get into dehydrating food and enjoy doing it, you may want to check one of these out.

http://vitalityplus1.com/images/ed2900.gif

Re: Food dehydrator
 

Mine were bouth round ones - how much was that? I didn'st see a price on the link (tho I am still looking)

Re: Food dehydrator
 

Have one got as a gift some years back, only thing I ever made was beef jerky, not bad though. Never tried the fruit thing and we ate the jerky as fast as we made it.

Re: Food dehydrator
 

Excalibur dehydrator is a SUPER tool for food preservation.
We've made jerky, fruit leathers, dried fruits and vegetables with ours over the years. Been a while, not eating much meat these days. Made turkey jerky once. There are lots of groups to search out there for recipes/marinades etc.

The Excalibur will process lots of food and has a nice temp range. If you have lots of oven racks, fine mesh stainless can also serve for drying. Thing with most ovens is they don't offer temps under 200F. The excal will range from 70-140F. Long exposure to low heat is what preserves food values, higher heat cooks out nutrients etc.

Homemade jerky packed in ziplocs will last a couple years or longer. Main thing is to be sure all moisture is gone from the food. Best to trim all fat off meat as well. Cut your meat fairly thin, marinate overnite, place on racks and run at 135F for 18-24 hrs. Best jerky is hard enough to use for a nail.

Got fruit in abundance, cheap find at the farmers mkt? Render your produce and store it! Ripe fruit makes good fruit leather. We make granola in the oven, but you could do it in your dehydrator. Could make your own trail bars and protein bars too. With poly sheets over the racks, you could make candy bars.

Very versatile machines. Excal is the best.

Re: Food dehydrator
 

I didn't buy directly from that site. I was able to find a brand new one on eBay for considerably less. I think I paid $179 for it? And that was last winter. I think the strangest thing I have ever tried with mine was dehydrating watermellon. Oddly enough it turned out decent. You have to cut the slices at least 1/2" thick because it shrinks so much. There are quite a few things you can do with an Excallibur that you can't do with other typical dehydrators. My mother has used it to make dough rise quicker. I guess you can even make yogurt with them too. I think I'll pass on that one though :wink: .

Re: Food dehydrator
 

I have one of the round stacking ones and it is lousy. I don't even try to use it anymore. Next time I have yard sale it is going.

I really like dried fruits and was disappointed my setup didn't work. That Excaliber looks like a serious appliance and it sounds like it will get the job done.

I've been making my own granola and the ingredients are expensive...drying fruit would cut the most expensive ingredient by a good amount.

How much does the large one cost...the link didn't post prices?

Re: Food dehydrator
 

Cabellas sells some restaraunt grade units that work great . . .

300 -400 usd