Food drying - Dehydrators (merged)

Ken68

Coming to the end of this seasons drying, just the pears to do and maybe onions if Lidl do their cheap 5kg offer again.

floss2

My new dehydrator has arrived today and I have a million French beans to be turned into haricot beans for storing. Any idea how long I should do them for?

Thanks,
Floss

Ken68

Hi Foss, are they already dry from going to seed ?, or if green until they are brittle. My book says 8 to 12 hours. 1" pieces.
I let runner beans go to seed still on the plant and when dry store in sweet jars.

floss2

Ken68 wrote: »

Hi Foss, are they already dry from going to seed ?, or if green until they are brittle. My book says 8 to 12 hours. 1" pieces.
I let runner beans go to seed still on the plant and when dry store in sweet jars.

They've all gone to seed, the pods are spread out on the dining table starting to dry a bit but I will de-pod them all today & put the first batch in to dry.

Ken68

Normally let them dry off on the plant, but if you have picked them before then de-hydrating is the next best step. Or leave them in the pod unenclosed to dry off naturally. I chuck all of mine into an big bucket.

catherinerflynn

Hi there, I've been debating over and over in my head about buying a dehydrator, and also which one to get. There is now an Andrew James Premium dehydrator on sale on Amazon for £47.99. It's square, which is appealing from the point of view of cutting grease proof paper for making fruit leathers. Has anyone got one and can recommend?

Also, would you recommend buying one if you have kids, is it useful for making snacks for them?

Thanks for any inspiration!

Ken68

It's all down to square footages per £ spent.
The Excal is not now good value, have seen similar units half the price,for the same size, though unknown brand.
It is really only a fan heater enclosed in a box. A competent DIY 'er could make one.
Will never replace a freezer and the faffing about on some foods is just too much.

DigForVictory

Just because a child has been sold a neat strip of sweetie, you do *not* have to make your fruit leathers perfectly square.
You do need to make them edible.
Buy a dehydrator you can afford, be canny with cling film for leathers and require any (young or old) "shape-ist" to try with their eyes shut first...

floss2

DigForVictory wrote: »

Just because a child has been sold a neat strip of sweetie, you do *not* have to make your fruit leathers perfectly square.
You do need to make them edible.

However it is certainly easier to make them on a rectangular tray rather than a circular tray.

catherinerflynn

Oh indeed, I'm not bothered about the shape of a fruit leather for my four year old, but I am wondering about the fiddliness of pouring blended fruit liquids into the tray of one of the circular dehydrator models... They have a hole in the middle so you would have to fiddle with the cling film to fit the doughnut shape tray!

Anyone doing this already, am I over-fussing about the prep work?