Question on Food Dehydrators

[Monel]

Tomato sauce is high acid. It will not store too long canned. The same with oil content of a sauce. I would guess 2 years? I don't really know.
How do you dehydrate a Sauce?

[monkeybird]

My dehydrator came with heavy plastic liners for each tray. (You can buy them separately). I pour the sauce onto the plastic liners and dehydrate. It's surprisingly fast. After it's dehydrated, it peals off in sheets. Some people then crumbles it into a powder. I just break mine in small pieces.

http://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/media.php

Above is a link to the best dehydrating videos I've seen on the web. She is very knowledgeable and anyone who wants to dehydrate needs to watch her videos.

[ridgerunner]

That lady is a professional! I like her the best because she is not trying to sell you anything. She is a real teacher. Yeah, her videos are on that website but they are her own videos from her own website.

I also would like to get into dehydrating for long term food storage. I don't know that I want to shell out $300 up front for a dehydrator though. I have been looking at some other models that are around $100. Any body got any good suggestions?

[Monel]

You could probably build one. Perhaps using an incandescent light bulb for a heat source and 120mm computer fans. I have also seen plans for solar food dryers. It just depends on how much you want to put into it. I just ordered an Excalibur 3900.

[ridgerunner]

Nice purchase Monel. That 3900 is what I want. Did you buy it straight from them with all the freebies or somewhere else?

[Monel]

I ordered it from thru Amazon.com, $219.00 with free shipping.

[Benn Gleck]

We have the 9 tray Excalibur, it might be the same one you bought Monel.

We dehydrate tons of stuff, especially since my daughter has gotten into it. Her latest experiment was pumpkin. She bought baking pumpkins on sale dried them and then ran them through a food processor, it was amazing how many pumpkins she put into a mason jar once they were turned to powder. She used the powder to make a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving and my wife used it for pumpkin bread this CHRISTmas. I couldn't tell a difference from fresh pumpkin.

Like mentioned above we buy frozen veggies on sale and dry them. The advantage is you don't have to blanch them like fresh veggies. My wife has made up jars of mixed veggies for vegtable soup and given them to friends for a neat way to make soup, just add spices or meat and you're good to go.

We always add an oxygen absorber to the jars, don't know if it makes a difference or not but it can't hurt.

Here's my daughters favorite dehydrating site. http://www.dehydrate2store.com/

[vick]

I'm going to dehydrate some fruits and veggies and store them in mylar bags."Love them mylar bags" LOL

[Monel]

WOHO, my dehydrator arrived! I unpacked it and washed the trays. I went to Sams and bought some frozen vegetables and fruit. I am trying frozen corn, mixed veggies and some fruit mix. After putting the fruit on the trays I realize some of the peach slices are too thick. Oh well, I'll see how it goes. I will likely have to leave them on longer.

[ridgerunner]

Congratulations! Let us know how it goes for you. Fed Ex has mine on the truck headed this way!

On a side note. Is the Sam's club membership worth the cost? I wanted to start a seperate thread just for this.

[Klayton]

Tooo thick? As in wont fit between trays? Just take out one layer of trays. :) Or too thick to properly dehydrate?

[Monel]

The peach slices are thicker than the strawberrys.

[Klayton]

The peach slices are thicker than the strawberrys.

LOL and the moon is not in the sky view yet. LOL sorry couldn't resist. Your comment is too vague Monel, or is it that anything thicker than strawberry slices cannot be deydrated? I only ask because I know nothing about dehydrating...

[Monel]

LOL, What I read is that it is best that everything in a tray should be the same thickness so it will all be ready at the same time. I don't know if it matters all that much. I guess I can leave it in as long as needed. I don't think it will matter that much if the thinner things get extra drying time. Is it possible to over dry?

[Monel]

OK, I got home from work and I think everything is ready. The strawberrys are flat the peaches are a little soft, and the pineapple is sticky. I don't think frozen mixed fruit is the best thing to dry. I think a better idea for them is pureeing them then making fruit leathers. The corn and mixed vegetables are dried well. They have sure shrank up a bunch.