Home drying fruits- recommend a unit

[1Admin]

Looking at trying some home drying again, haven't in years. Set on the Excalibur line of dehydrators.

Any recommendations on models? Experience with them? Etc.

This may not be the best way to go for us as I'm seeing pretty high wattage on most models. However a smaller model that does much less at a time would be a PITB also. Sometimes it's easier to do large runs when putting up food just to save labor, at least it is for us.

Any recommendations? We used a cheapie unit for a while years ago but got really poor results from it.

TIA

[manowar]

i purchased the 9 tray excaliber last year and use it allot, like it for dehydrating ground beef the most. i tossed the idea of the 5 tray around, but honestly if i am going to dry something might as well do it up. we are now on a time of use electricty so weekends are the least expensive to use and thats when i cook and use the dehydrater
manowar

[miked2345]

Hey, I'm curious on how you dehydrate ground beef..... I assume you cook it first?? What grade of beef do you use? Very lean? Do you salt it or anything?
Are you putting it up for long term storage after dehydrating it? What kind of shelf life?

-Mike

[monkeybird]

There is a recipe for 'hamburger rocks' on the end times report website:

"Hamburger Rocks" are small chunks of cooked, dehydrated, fresh beef. They will store effectively for two or more years. Once rehydrated by soaking one cup of rocks in two cups of boiled water, the pre-cooked meat can be used in any recipe. It is delicious for tacos, spaghetti sauce, hamburger helper, tamale pie, lasagna, or your favorite recipe. It is very difficult to distinguish from fresh hamburger in a meal!

http://www.endtimesreport.com/hamburger_rocks.html

I haven't done this myself, but I heard on another forum it works well. I believe there is also a YouTube video on making them. The main thing is to be sure to get as much fat out of the hamburger as possible.

[Rmplstlskn]

The main thing is to be sure to get as much fat out of the hamburger as possible.

What is a HAMBURGER without fat? :-(

Not sure I like TEOTWAWKI...

Rmpl

[manowar]

i use a lean ground beef when it goes on sale .99 a pound, i mix with bread crumbs, it helps absorb moisture when rehydrating mix with herbs and spices brown in cast iron skillet then put in dehydrater at 165 for 2 hours then 125 till powder dry.
according to hoods woods it will last 5yrs on shelf and 20 to 30 yrs in the freezer.
i like to use powdered mushroom soup a meat or veg stock and the dried meat plus bacon fat to cook an excellent meal at very light weight.
i found this skill from the backpackingchef.com/dehydrating-meat
i now have about 50 lbs put up every sale i plan on adding more.
manowar

[protus]

ive had good luck trying to break my 4 tray american harvest. it still works LOL

i'll try and get the power usage info for you.

[610Alpha]

I just got a magic chef given to me....I am going to experiment with it. I'll keep you posted.

[1Admin]

We bought an Excalibur to experiment with also.

On the whole "do you really need "fancy" equipment" thing-

Yes I know we can dry stuff in the sun. We can also make soap from ashes and cow fat, and have. However running a couple businesses, trying to keep this board up, homestead, raise puppies, homeschool, helping older relatives, training 3 days a week, church and related activities, etc. tends to keep a family just a little bit busy. To that end, spending $3. on an 8 pack of Ivory soap makes a helluva lot more sense than constantly making soap. Do we know how to do it, yep and have before, not just read about it. Do we do it regularly? Nope.

Their is a matrix wherein your TIME has to be considered in the NOW. Spend $3. on an 8 pack of Ivory soap and keep up with business, other work, training, etc. or devote half a day to making soap?

Even in the PAW we will have many things to do. Those people that think they will have time to sit around and braid cord for half a day to get maybe a 20 foot section have never really fathomed- definitely haven't practiced- having a real deal security detail that is run 24/7. Should you know how to make cord- without a doubt and you should have done it, not just read about it. But should that stop you from spending $30. for a 1,000 foot roll of 550 cord? How many DAYS of braiding cord would it take you to make 1,000 feet of lesser quality cord? Even if you were somehow able to make that cord now in a DAY'S time, your labor for that day would be worth $30.00, congratulations.

Also, everything has a trade off. Use some power off a solar system that usually never lacks power to run a dehydrator INSIDE A BULLETPROOF DWELLING, or lay out dozens upon dozens of trays OUT IN THE OPEN essentially highlighting the fact that you have plenty of food for anyone that might be around???

Personally I'll take the security of doing it on the down low and not advertising the place as a potential soup kitchen. And we are waaay further off the beaten path than most probably are.

So when you see someone buying a piece of equipment that perhaps YOU don't see the need for, maybe, just maybe they have other concerns than you. Or they are looking at the situation in a MUCH DIFFERENT context than you are.

If you think you'll have weeks upon weeks to just sit around braiding cord, playing yahtzee and letting all your food dry out in the open in what amounts to a huge "Soup kitchen Here!" billboard for all to see, well frankly your idea of bad times differs greatly from my idea of bad times.

Recently I was in the "big city" and was at a book store. Found a couple of "preparedness" books that I did not have. Paged through them and were really not impressed but figured why not, I'll read through them and write a review of them for the site. Maybe it will save others money if the books suck, or it might help folks find a decent book.

One of them is "Just in case" by Kathy Harrison. The wife saw the book sitting around the house. I mentioned getting started in it (pretty disappointing read). The wife said "you can look at the cover and realize this lady hadn't thought through security at all." I took another look at the cover and sure enough, here's the "mom" happily putting away cans right in front of an open window, another drawing shows a mom and two kids sitting around (playing yahtzee no doubt, cause isn't that what you DO in a bad situation??? LOL) with candles going, fireplace burning brightly- and the darn drapes wide open. Yet another drawing shows the house light up like a beacon at night. Sure enough, practically nothing in the book about security from what I read.

So for the "I'll make everything myself crowd" understand that their is a downside to everything and spending a week to make the same 1,000 feet of cord that I can buy for $30. isn't a good use of your time. You want to do that, go for it! If you think they'll be plenty of time to sit around and do that in the PAW, I sincerely hope looters are blind and can't find your place. I'm not counting on that for our situation though.

[610Alpha]

Speaking of the time matrix, the mrs and i have been talking about couponing but it seems like every site wants you to download some java applet to print the coupons. That left us with trying to find already printed coupons and after hearing stories of how some women spend hours every day couponing we were like "forget about it". We will just continue to do our basic shopping at Sams and keep our eyes peeled for deals and coupons (not go crazy to get them i.e. we won't be dumpster diving for them) on stuff that we use.

Looking forward to the book reviews.

[monkeybird]

1Admin - I agree with your philosophy completely. I do not make my own soap, braid my own cord or do hundreds of other things survivalists are suppose to do. For the last two years I've focused on food, water and protection - that's about all I can manage, there's a lot to learn. While I'm very impressed by some of the things my fellow members can do, I know that for right now - for me - other things are more of a priority.

I'm really interested in the performance of your Excalibur. I've watched all the Excalibur lady's videos and they are excellent. Nowhere does she mention the shelf life of home dehydrated food, and this is a major concern to me. Most links I find say 2 years or so.

Those videos are why I purchased an American Harvester dehydrator. (Just couldn't justify the $200 + until I know what I was doing). I dehydrated a variety of foods. The best end result was the potatoes, they came out super crisp and a loud snap. The frozen vegetable also did well. Bananas came out crisp, apples leathery, pineapple sticky (?)

I put the food in glass canning jars for over a month to be sure no mold was going to grow. Then I bagged them using a Food Saver. A year and a half later, everything still looks good.

So, if your Excalibur works better than the less expensive brands, I want to know. Dehydrating my own food would save a lot of money over buying #10 cans.