Food Dehydrating

[6mm win lee]

Does anyone do it? It doesn't look too difficult but is it worth it as a prepper compared to just purchasing stuff?

[kungfustyle]

We were given a dehydrator for Christmas and started using it. Thing is, it takes about 10 to 12 hours to dehydrate something. Not all, but a good amount. Easy and very little into the process. If you don't have a mandolin style food slicer it helps to maintain uniformity. Couple pounds of strawberries and about three bananas in a blinder makes fruit leather and its a fantastic snack. Sliced apples or pineapples have fantastic flavor, also a great snack. Tried about half a cup of peanut butter and 6 bananas and made some great fruit leather, that one has to be kept in the fridge. So three months in and yes we like ours and we are looking for more fun like jerky.

[MrWolf]

We picked up a Cosori from Amazon. Bit expensive but we have future plans for it. We have also done apples, pineapples, etc. and made some very good venison jerky. Mine is easy. Once you have it sliced or marinated, place em on the trays and come back next morning. Takes around 14 hours if I remember right. Good luck
Ron

[WebMonkey]

we dehydrate A LOT, or what i would say is a lot.
certainly a lot of prep work.

veg/fruit/jerky

and all that work is good for one season at a time.
i'd have to have SO much more equipment to make enough to long term store.

good stuff, but takes prep work and large scale dehydrator.

just my opinion, not a pro.

[CastingFool]

We have a dehydrator, and have made venison jerky, and dehydrated apple slices. The resulti g apple chips are vacuum packed on half gallon mason jars. They last a long time. And ,yes it takes a while to prepare the food and the dehydration process is long, but the results are worth it, IMO.

[Minerat]

Just don't do onions inside the house. You'll have to have the drapes cleaned. We buy the a dried apricots and tart cherries from Costco and dry them more, they are even better.

[Winger Ed.]

I've done it some, mostly with jerky.

I don't know how long my home made stuff will keep, so for long term storage items,
I buy them from companies that have it all figured out.

[rick benjamin]

Plumbs, apples, grapes, cherries, pears, meat. put them in zip-lock baggies, date, and put them in a freezer. I eat them for snacks. Since dog treats were poisoned, I make dried snacks from stew meat.

[rancher1913]

we used to dehydrate a lot. wife has 4 excalibers as well as a bunch of others. she got a freeze dryer one christmas and now uses that exclusively.

[jdfoxinc]

I make my own jerkey from flank steak or London broil. Dry cure with ahmish curing salt, freeze and slice in my cheap slicer. Lay out on trays sprinkle with some variety of Mrs. Dash, usually with added crushed red pepper. Dry for 12 + hrs.

[wch]

Does anyone do it? It doesn't look too difficult but is it worth it as a prepper compared to just purchasing stuff?

I make jerky quite often but I don't use a dehydrator (using that takes all day), I use my oven which has a dehydrator setting on it.
4 hours at 175F does the trick.

[johniv]

We dry a lot of apples. We both like em. Have done other stuff, but dried apples are my favorite.

[Bobbers]

Growing up we mostly canned but also did a lot of dehydrating. We did fruits, vegetables and yogurt.

[Hogtamer]

Ditto on using the oven...lots of goose and venison jerky dried on a rack over a 1/2 sheetpan on ovens lowest setting, bag and repeat.

[archeryrob]

I dehydrated celery just to store it as when you want to make soup you got to run to the store and we keep minced dried garlic and onion. I don;t do it for prepping but 3 packs of celery filled six trays on the dehydrator and when dry it couldn't fill a sandwich bag. I had some recipes for dry celery powder (which is expensive) and I can crush this myself or throw a table spoon or so in a soup pot to let it re-hydrate.

[farmerjim]

I have done persimmons, and made eggplant jerky. I have tried tomatoes, but they did not work very well. I will try some onions as I have about 500 pounds from the garden.

[GhostHawk]

Last week I grabbed an old window screen. Went out to my mint patch with a pair of scissors. Covered the screen with foot long springs of mint. Slipped it into the cab of my Jeep Cherokee Larado. 2 days later I sat on our deck stripping the dried leaves off the stems into a box. Then scrunched all the leaves up, worked the whole batch through a sieve using the metal to break up the leaves. When done I had maybe half a sandwich bag of mint leaf powder perfect for adding half a teaspoon to a batch of sweet tea. Cost me nothing but time.

I have dried my own apples off the tree, peeled, cored, sliced. That does require a dehydrator and power. But Died apples make a good healthy snack.

Comes down to time vs money, which do you have in more abundance?

If it is time, then yes, dry what you can get your hands on. Make jam's, jellys with local fruit sourced free or low cost.
If it is money, better off buying it.

[BrassMagnet]

We were given a dehydrator for Christmas and started using it. Thing is, it takes about 10 to 12 hours to dehydrate something. Not all, but a good amount. Easy and very little into the process. If you don't have a mandolin style food slicer it helps to maintain uniformity. Couple pounds of strawberries and about three bananas in a blinder makes fruit leather and its a fantastic snack. Sliced apples or pineapples have fantastic flavor, also a great snack. Tried about half a cup of peanut butter and 6 bananas and made some great fruit leather, that one has to be kept in the fridge. So three months in and yes we like ours and we are looking for more fun like jerky.

I guess I need a mandoline food slicer.
Does anyone have a good procedure for pitting and preparing prune plums for drying? It is just an incredible amount of work the way I did it in previous years. No fruit this past year.

[echo154]

I have dehydrated ground beef...cook it, drain it, rinse it good. I vacuum seal it. I've eaten some almost a year later......not like fresh but still good for chilli, sloppy joes....etc. I do jerky in my smoker outside. My brother gave me some goose jerky he mad in his smoker.....darn good. Apples are easy.....bananas not as easy and will mold quickly, gonna try dipping some in lemon juice first see if it helps....it does with the apples. I also dry herbs left over from my garden when the weather turns. One of the boss'...er wife's tv cooking shows had them using the microwave to dehydrate herbs....not sure on time or technique.

[GregLaROCHE]

Has anyone tried drying fish like fresh tuna or salmon?