Food Dehydrator Suggestions

[benjamming]

There are 2 options on this page for an electric food dehydrator. I'm not sure who really makes these. I don't want the sun option one. These don't appear to use a fan.

Lehman Electric Dehydrator

The other option is from Nesco. The Fd-1010 is the one that is liked best of all their products. This one is expandable but the trays are expensive. Do you ever really have to worry about flavor mixing that Lehman's uses as one of their selling points?

Nesco FD-1010

Which way would you recommend and why?

Thanks.

 

[JHZR2]

what are you dehydrating?

 

[benjamming]

We will be dehydrating fruit, herbs, & meat.

 

[flacoman]

Give this a try:
Get a pizza stone or cast iron pan and put it in the bottom of the oven. Set the oven to "keep warm" or 150F for about 45 minutes or so. Load the food to be dried on cake cooling pans and leave the oven at 150 to re- equibrilate for about 10 minutes.Turn the oven OFF and turn on the light. This will maintain about 110-120 for 10 hours. Try a few sliced berries for starters and let us know how it plays.
HTH
Jorge

 

[benjamming]

Our oven won't go that cool. That isn't practical for the amount of food from fruit trees.

 

[flacoman]

Ohhh. I was thinking along the lines of a few pounds of jerky!

 

[hr1940]

I had a dehydrator with a fan and I was pleased with the results. I can not remember the brand name but I gently washed the trays after I used them. If you have a lot of things to dry you will probably fill the dehydrator and not have to worry about various flavors. You have to leave space between the food for air flow.

 

[crinkles]

Originally Posted By: flacoman
Ohhh. I was thinking along the lines of a few pounds of jerky!


tasty. where i used to live, people would hang TONS of meat from their garage roof to dry. usually wild antelope meat. tasty as heck.

 

[LAGA]

I use the Alton Brown method of dehydration for my jerky, but I think it will work for fruit also. Lay the food on PAPER furnace filters and then strap them to a box fan. It takes about 24 hrs to make some jerky (depending on temp and humidity). This way you don`t have the heat to change the flavor and texture of the meat.

 

[Shannow]

crinkles, the big joints were called biltong ??