Topic: I just bought a dehydrator

[Jeannine]

 Is anyone into drying stuff. It is about 20 years since I last  did so things may have changed.

I bought a 9 tray fan assisited Excalibur which I know is available over there so maybe someone has one??

I have heard it is the best thing for kale chips which I have done in the oven.

XX Jeannine

[Duke Ellington]

I have been thinking of buying one so I would be really interested in what you think of yours Jeannine.

duke

[Jeannine]

Duke, I did a lot of research and this one came out tops. It was not cheap but it has a fan at the back which is best and the trays slide out of the front like drawers.

I had an old Excaliber many years ago , in fact so long ago I have forgotten a lot about it but it did work fine.

I have another one, round, with trays that sit on top of each other and no fan but I think it is useless , everything I tried in it came out wrong so it is stuck in storage now, it was a secondhand cheapie.

This one is rated pretty high of you do some investigating.

 I am going to try it with bananas this week.

  Ilove homemade jerky so am hoping to get good results with that.

XX Jeannine

This is mine, well m ine is black but thus is the UK site

    http://www.detoxyourworld.com/acatalog/excalibur_9.html

[Buster54]

Hi Jeannine I bought the Excalibur 9 tray late last year and so far have done beef-pork and ox heart jerky-onion powder-fruit leathers,this year I want to try drying tomatoes-garlic-carrots-swede-celery and whatever as I also have a vita-mix to buzz them into powder or blitz them raw to a mush as I want to try to make my own powdered soups and crackers to snack on,I also bought off ebay a mandoline slicer to get everything as thin as possible,just need to make myself a diy jerky gun as the snacking sticks seen on the net might be a little more gentle on me old gums

[Toshofthe Wuffingas]

I want to play around this summer with making a passive solar dryer from cardboard boxes! I reckon one box with slotted shelves fed from beneath with an airflow from a shallow tray covered with clear plastic on a tilt to the sun, maybe even with a tallish flue on top to encourage a flow. If I get round to doing it, I'll report back.
I've tried drying tomatoes in the past with poor results until I read about washing them in vinegar. It really did prevent moulds last year and I got two jars of sun dried tomatoes last September in the open on grids. Once dried, they went under hot oil, again to prevent moulds and I am still snipping them up into salads, I had some yesterday. I grow the Roma type for drying. If anyone knows better varieties I will try them next year

[Jeannine]

Sounds good Buster. Can you get the liquid smoke flavour where you are that you would use on your jerky.

I used to have a Vitamix before I went over to the Uk for 8 years and let ot go..good machine.

My Kenwood Mayor and attchments handles pretty much all I need to do now.

Tosh, good luck with your home made one, it should be fine except for meats which need a more standard drying time.

Has anyone made kale chips in ther dryer. I have done them in the oven but not the dryer yet.

XX Jeannine

[Buster54]

Yes Jeannine seen the liquid smoke flavour on Amazon and Ebay here in the UK upto now I have been using hot n spicy - chinese and barbecue dry marinades on my meat and store the jerky in vacuum sealer bags