Food drying - Dehydrators (merged)

Toxic_Lemon wrote:

Yes, it can be used for meat! You can dry anything you like - even liquids!

Just had a thought: what's the point of drying meat for the dog? Mine will swallow whatever I give him whole! :rolleyes:

:rotfl: Yeah mine too. My main reason for buying this was with the idea of making tripe sticks for my dog. He luvvvvsss them, so i hope it will work doing them. Only thing is i dont know what it is or where to get it from to make tripe sticks. I know i ask for tripe and am most likely to get it from butchers (would you agree) but ive also heard that tripe can be had from many different animals and also it is got from various parts of the animals (lung, stomach etc). So what would you recommend i buy?

You can get minced tripe. I forget where someone told me you can get it. But that would probably form a good basis to dry.

I bought tripe once - ONCE is the clue! NEVER EVER again. You have never smelt anything like it in your life! :eek: I don't care how much dogs love it - I'm not cooking it again.

I make biscuits for my dog too. In answer to the question about why dry it, I find it's easier and cleaner to have a pocket of dried treats or biscuits rather that carting around a greasy mess of old leftovers on your walks.

My Tchibo dehydrator arrived today. :j I'm very excited and looking forward to using it.

moggins wrote:

You can get frozen tripe from most independant pet shops. I used to have to cut the stuff up and cook it every weekend, I must be the only person I know whose Saturday job (and Sunday) was working as a kennelmaid!

I know the stuff you mean as i have brought that for him thinking he would love. He wouldnt even try it. I left it down for him for a while too, i think he may have tried to eat a bit but then spat it back out actually. So what the difference is i have no idea.

I buy him those hard dry natural tripe sticks which look all different shapes and sizes, not the uniform looking skinny sticks that you get about 10 or 20 of in a pack. These are sold by weight and you get 100g in a pack for about £1.09 depends where you get them. The pound shop had a great buy, they were doing 200g packs for £1 so everytime i went in i would buy what they had of them. They have since said they are not doing them anymore though. The same as my local Jolleyes store had a 200g pack for £1.29 which was quite a good buy but that supplier no longer doing them so the only option now is 100g for £1.09.

Toxic Lemon you made me laugh about the smell, they do absolutely reak (!!! spelling) when they are dried so god knows what it must smell like when its fresh :eek: We keep the packs of tripe sticks hanging up outside and everyone that visits gets to have a whiff of them because if they havent had a sniff already we always say 'just have a smell of this' holing the bag under their nose :rotfl: As they have no idea what they smell like they have a good ole sniff then cough and splutter when they realise what a pong!!!

I should have thought about this before i ordered the dehydrator because im just beginning to imagine what on earth it must smell like.
'Fresh tripe in the dehydrator with a fan and heat blowing the smell about eveywhere' omg what on earth was i thinking of :eek:

lil_me wrote:

I'm going to try making some biscuits, just googled and loads came up to try, now I have 2 dogs will be worth while.

Mine's a really simple recipe.

Whiz up 100g leftover meat (I can normally pick this much out of the remains of the stock carcass) with 1 egg in a food processor or hand blender,

Add 50g oats, 150g flour and enough water to make a pastry-like dough,

Roll it out to between 5mm and 10mm thick, cut out biscuits using a cutter and bake in the oven at 180 until they are dry (normally 60mins if using raw meat, or 45 mins if using cooked).

Every dog I know loves these, even the fussy ones! They are quite crunchy so not really suitable for older dogs with less than a full set of teeth!

If you don't have any leftover meat, use meat stock instead of water.

I don't bother with the cutters anymore unless I'm making them for presents. I just roll out to fit a baking sheet then score into 1cm squares with a knife before they go in the oven then break them up when they are cooled.