Dehydrating Food Questions

**many houseapes** · 02-25-2011, 12:34 PM

I've been wanting to get into dehydrating our own food. For those of you who do this, what is the best brand dehydrator to use? (I need one that will dehydrate alot at one time) How do you store the food afterward so that bugs won't get into it? How long can you store it before it would go bad? I'm very new to this, so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

**sunshine** · 02-25-2011, 12:59 PM

Don't know about brands - -mine is a Ronco that I got really cheap at the state fair YEARS ago.

I store my dried foods in jars with screw top lids (peanut butter, mayo, older canning jars that have small chips so I can't use in the canner, etc.)

I've kept food for 2-3 years and it was still good. . . past that, we've always ate it, so I have no idea.

**Ceashels** · 02-25-2011, 01:14 PM

OAMC, Homecanning, Freezing, and Preserving - Frugal Village Forums

There is a lot of information about dehydrators and dehydrating in the preserving forum section. You might need to do some reading and I read through the ones with the word dehydrator IN the title.

I just got an Excalibur yesterday and took it out of the box today. It has great surface area but it is HUGE!

**low-1** · 02-25-2011, 01:15 PM

I have one of those small white oval ones with the plastic trays and I use it A LOT. I think you can buy extra trays for it to increase it's capacity, but the shape of the trays makes it hard to cut liners from parchment paper when doing things like fruit leather or ground beef (the slats in the trays are too big in my opinion). Apparently they sell reusable tray liners for them, but I've never found them. And no matter how big you go, you always wish you had a "little more room". So..... I'm planning on building one similar to this one:

(EEERRRRR!!! I need 15 posts to post URLs. Just copy and paste the following into the address bar and replace the (dot)s with .)

www(dot)backwoodshome(dot)com/articles/sanders63.html

Instead of the special "heating bulb" I'm just going to use a couple (or 3 or 4 depending on how big I want to make it) 100W incandescent bulbs on a dimmer switch for a thermostat, and just use an old meat thermometer in the top to know what the temperature is. I may try to get fancy and put a temperature controller on it, but will most likely just start by using the thermometer and dimmer switch.

Large scale, commercial sized dehydrators are expensive!

Come summer time, I might try to build a solar dehydrator from some old unbroken windows I found at the dump.

**low-1** · 02-25-2011, 01:22 PM

As for storage, it depends on what it is but I use a lot of old glass spaghetti sauce and jam jars. I find plastic bags tend to allow moisture back in no matter how well sealed they are. For dried fruits, I usually just keep them in the cupboard or pantry, for "fattier" meats like dehydrated ground beef (mmmmm.... gravel), or anything with cheese like lasagna, I will keep them in the freezer until I'm ready to hit the trail. Maybe not necessary but it doesn't hurt.

I've never really had anything last long enough to wonder when it would go bad. I've had jerky and ground beef over a year old, and it anything would go bad I would imagine something like that would. I wouldn't worry too much about fruits or veggies, but that's my horribly UNscientific opinion.

**frugalfranny** · 02-25-2011, 01:50 PM

Yep.....I agree---lots of info on here........read up.

I use the smaller one..........as I didn't want the 'storage hassle' of the Excalibur.............and my little Nesco, which can be expanded, is great for me. I haven't expanded the trays yet, haven't needed to......but I did buy the fruit leather trays (on ebay-----and their website has them too) and love them.

Have used the trays not only for fruit leather but when I am doing celery leaves.......and they would fall through the holes.

**MsMarieH** · 02-25-2011, 02:15 PM

I have an American Harvester Snackmaster and I love it. It came with four trays, but I added two more.

I believe the Gardenmaster is larger and can add up to 12??? trays? Not positive.

**pollypurebred39** · 02-25-2011, 05:24 PM

-I have an Excalibur

-I use peanut butter, jelly and mayo jars to store

**HappyMama** · 02-25-2011, 06:52 PM

I have an Excalibur and a Ronco as well. Love them and store in jars.

I thought this was so cool that Yellowsublimaze made :

Food dehydrator

**jas** · 02-25-2011, 06:56 PM

This site has great info
Dehydrate2Store.com | Welcome - Educating and Helping Those Who Want To Learn About Dehydration

I use a few methods- canning jars along with the canning jar attachment for my foodsaver.

Foodsaver bags w/oxygen absorbers and mylar bags for longer storage.

Check out the site and you will get tons of great inspiration.

I have the excalibur.

**savvy_sniper** · 02-25-2011, 09:01 PM

Love my Excalibur. I bought it used from Craigslist for about 1/2 price. I using canning jars and have the vacuum sealer attachment. I also vacuum seal in bags.