Food drying - Dehydrators (merged)

Penelope_Penguin

Kickstart wrote: »

Hi Ladies
I bought a brilliant food hydrator from ebay, £45 with two free knives. I have used it and its brilliant.

Hydrator or dehydrator The former adds water, the latter takes it away

Penny. x

mrs_baggins

heres one!
http://www2.westfalia.net/shops/household/kitchen/cooking_desiccating_grilling/desiccating_appliances/193811-food_dehydrator.htm

£26.99 plus 3 pound thereabouts for postage

2cats1kid

Did those people who ordered from Westfalia get the dehydrators through OK and are they a decent product? Thinking of ordering one, but not heard of the company before, so just looking for reassurance that they are ok to deal with?

skinnygirlnot

I bought one from westfalia last year -very efficient service.
Have used it to make dried tomatoes, bananas, apple rings,kiwi and celery (which I then ground to a powder).
I am quite happy with it but as i cannot compare it to another dehydrator and I'm no expert so I can't tell you that it is a fantastic piece of equipment. For the price, though, then I think it is.

Hope that made sense.

Hawthorn

2cats1kid wrote: »

Did those people who ordered from Westfalia get the dehydrators through OK and are they a decent product? Thinking of ordering one, but not heard of the company before, so just looking for reassurance that they are ok to deal with?

Haven't ordered from Westfalia, but my first dehydrator was a similar product from what I can see. They are ok. Very basic, but will do the job. You can only do fruit/veg/herbs on them, whereas you can do just about anything on the excalibur machine. It's definately a good idea to get one of these to start out with, to see if you like what you can do with it first.
If it is the same as the one I had, it will have one heat setting, where a better machine will have several, depending on what you want to dry.
The only real downfall of this type of machine that I found, was that you have to turn the food to ensure even drying (or that may be just me being a faffer) Plus, the food goes directly onto the trays, which can make getting thinner items off a bit of a pain - the excalibur has thin sheets that you take off, and you can bend so the food will just peel off without breakage.

blue-kat

Toxic_Lemon wrote: »

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

any recommendations on dehydrating cooked meat meat to make dog training treats?

I was wondering how this would effect the storage and food safety etc.

I give my dogs a lot of treats as part of their postive reinforcement clicker training, but all too often the treats one of the dogs sick the day after dog class. He'll happily work for dog kibble 9same stuff as he gets for meals) at home and in low sensory environments, but dry biscutis aren't good enough for him in highly distracting environments, just not tasty or smelly/fragrant enough.

thanks !

Purple_Sparkles

I am considering buying a dehydrator too but could somebody please tell me if the food can be used rehydrated for use too as my son won't eat dried foods!

I was thinking of drying fruits and then rehydrating to make puddings etc... is it ok to do this?

Thanks in advance

savvy

I'm just researching all this, and from what I've read so far Purple, yes you can

purpleivy

I have decided to get my dehydrator out of the box for the first time today. How long do pepper slices and apple slices take...approx?

purpleivy

OK! peppers are in dehydrator and it's on. Let's see if someone can answer before they are starting to look funny.:rolleyes: WHat will they look like when they're ready .