Dehydration of Foodstuffs.

[SydVaper81]

As many of you that have crossed paths with me in the chatroom will know, I have a dehydrator and very much enjoy using it. 

 

I am wondering if anyone else here has one, or makes dehydrated foods in other ways?

 

What are your successes and failures?

 

Any interesting creations?

 

 

Successes:

Passionfruit.

Banana.

Banana and passionfruit together.

Vanilla/cinnamon/nutmeg apples

Dried kaffir lime leaves

Strawberries with stevia

Pineapple both plain and with lime leaf & chilli,

Plum slices

Apricot.

Mango slices, thin, no skin. 

My specialty - Tomatoes with a little oregano, rosemary, sugar, salt, pepper, sumac and chilli. They go crispy, so concentrated and delicious.

Grapes - Mainly the smaller dark ones. Nice sultanas.

Carrots. I mainly did these for my dog for treats as he loves them, but yeah, they're pretty nice.

 

Of course, while I haven't used my current upgrade dehydrator for this yet, I make 2 types of jerky...well, more, but these are my go-to's.

*Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, paprika. 

*Worcestershire sauce, a little watered down sweet bbq sauce, habanero extract/sauce, chilli, corriander seeds, pepper, and crushed pineapple adhered to the surface.

 

 

Failures:

Peaches

Watermelon - looks cool, tastes feral.

Avocado...I had to know...it's absolutely horrendous. 

Rockmelon

Ham 

 

I'd like to work out how to make a nice chicken jerky...putting it in raw it kind've just turns into plastic...I might steam it up to temp next time, but I'm uncertain of the 

texture and structural integrity.

Lamb doesn't really lend itself to dehydration that well, it's got no bite to it, just falls apart. 

 

 

So there, talk about dehydration here. 

 

 

 

 

[SydVaper81]

So today I'm making my tomatoes for someone - added paprika to the usual mix. 

 

There's Bananas in there too.

 

Pineapple pieces cut myself from the whole fruit, dressed in ground chilli/salt/lime leaf and ginger - The savoury/sweet/spicy thing actually really works.

Also full slices which I've left the core in (it just turns out a bit chewy, not unpalatable) with sugar on two, and chai powder mix on two, and cinnamon and nutmeg on four.

 

SO many apple slices that have been soaked in a little lemonjuice and vanilla essence all night.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but apples seem to have different stages - you can semi-dry them to the point they get to around the texture of "dried apples" (though mine don't look the same? they must do something commercially)

but how we like to do them is in 1/2 cm slices, and keep them in there to the point they actually become like apple "chips". Like the tomatoes, they actually go crispy...though they're not in any way burnt. Just super concentrated. 

The sweet and tart flavour they exude while chewed is delicious.

 

Also trying out my dehydration/rehydration/redehydration project very soon too. 

Starting with apples. Rehydrating 3 ways in 

*Mango Nectar

*Apple Juice

*Orange Juice...or maybe pineapple. Maybe both.

Then re-dehydration for them, to see if I can't get mango/orange/er...apple flavoured apples.

 

Will advise.

 

Another thing I didn't mention was herb drying.

Works a charm.

I want to try this on spring onions. 

 

Other thoughts are to making my own dried onion and garlic. 

Perhaps if I did some fine garlic slices in chilli oil that could be something too.

 

Anyways, just rambling about it here...

[canetoad]

Pretty brave trying to dry a watermelon. End up with a grape? 

 

Have thought about a dehydrator but don't really have enough use for one. Was mainly interested in drying strips of meat and liver for dog treats.

[SydVaper81]

Ha, I figured I'd have to give it a try just to see the final product. 

If it actually tasted good that would be a bonus.

 

Well, I put thin-ish slices in, maybe a half cm thick. 

What I got was something that looked like, paper thin almost. Like a roll-up that didn't bend. Kind've translucent. 

 

 

They're pretty good for concentrating flavours though, if you made ice-cream or cakes, dehydrated fruit is pure win.

Of course then there's jerky...awesome protein with little to no fat that tastes SO good.

 

Dog treats eh? I have considered the same. I mean I do carrots for mine already but like you I had considered liver/kidneys and the like for him too.

 

Place smells so good right now.  

[pisspotgrower]

oi buddy iv looked, at Harvey norman, Bing lee, the good guys, joice main and every other bloody shop around....where can i actually walk into a shop check em out n buy 1.....cause atm im making beef jerkey in a convection oven at 70 oC for like 7 hours would ruther a better way.

 

Cheers mate

[SydVaper81]

I got mine for a bithday gift, the chick grabbed it off ebay. 

 

Mine's something like this one

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/10-TRAY-FOOD-PRESERVE-COMMERCIAL-DRYER-DEHYDRATOR-/251240334892?pt=AU_SmallKitchenAppliances&hash=item3a7f17462c&_uhb=1

 

The only actual shop I've ever seen them at is ALDI, but they had comparatively much smaller ones. 

[SydVaper81]

So I don't know if anyone's still looking at this topic anymore, but anyways...

 

I'll be drying out a bunch of different herbs we bought at coles, yknow those little sealed boxes of them...got them cheap so yeah...

 

I've tried pears...I don't like pears...dehydrating them doesn't do much to help this. They're quite hard. 

I even tried slicing and soaking them for hours in a mixture of (initially) hot water, honey, clove, and nutmeg...it tasted a little better 

but the texture is quite honestly shithouse. 

 

Got into bananas that might be considered "over ripe" but really they're brown/spotty on the outside, inside theyre fine. 

The sugars are much more developed, and when dehydrated it's almost like you get a natural caramel chewiness around them. Much sweeter too. 

 

That's it for now. 

[Nattychile]

Interesting topic! Now you got me wanting one.

 

Is your dehydrator any good to dry up cannabis properly, or does it get too hot in there?

 

Btw, if you want cheap herbs avoid Coles entirely and hit your local asian shop.. they're like 4 times cheaper

[nici]

We've got a Sedona dehydrator and love it! I've done:

Corn

Apples

Jalapenos

Mother of herb

Pear

Various fruit leathers

Kale chips

Sweet potato chips

 

And that's about it atm.... Wanting to do some biltong soon and experiment with making onion powder etc for flavorings

[SydVaper81]

How does corn go?

Do you do it on a tray? 

 

YESSS....chillis I want to get into, kind've like slice them and make my own chili flakes. 

Something like habanero, jalapeno, birdseye and one of the less spicy banana chillis to get a nice blend...usually chilli flakes are just the one sort, to have a variety would go off. 

 

I've yet to really dehydrate any herbs, even though I said I would...ha, procrastination for no apparent reason.

 

Though I found that apple slices soaked in lime juice with just a pinch of salt and chilli work a treat, seriously you should try it. 

 

 

Btw, if you want cheap herbs avoid Coles entirely and hit your local asian shop.. they're like 4 times cheaper

 

I agree but, with a lot of asian shops/markets, you don't have the more european style herbs...like if I wanted parsley, thyme, rosemary, it likely wouldn't be in there. 

I'm with you in terms of things like corriander and thai basil etc though, good suggestion. 

 

...and still, my large dehydrator has yet to make any jerky...hanging out...just have not had the time available.