Using dehydrated food

Folio

I dehydrated a huge pile of rhubarb a few weeks ago and was amazed how a pile that covered the draining board only half filled a ziplock bag. Now my amazement is under control I realise I have no idea how much to rehdrate when I want to use it. Anyone have any idea how much dried weight reflects the original fresh weight?

alltrustgone

Can't help from experience as I've not dried rhubarb yet. Checked in a couple of dehydrating books I have (both American so unfortunately volume measures rather than weight) but they're not consistent in their expected yields.

One book has a recipe for a mixed fruit pie which calls for 2 cups dried rhubarb slices or 3 cups of fresh cut rhubarb. The other book has a recipe for a rhubarb only pie requiring 1.5 cups (375ml) dried rhubarb, and in the rhubarb dehydrating instructions says that one cup (250ml) dried yields about 2 cups (500ml) cooked/fresh rhubarb equivalent.

Does that help at all as a starting point. Have to say though that it's an imprecise science, and am not that confident of the books guidance.

Because I've been where you are today, I try now to remember to weigh the raw prepared batch of whatever I'm about to dry, then weigh again when dried, and keep a log of each batch. For instance I dried 6 green peppers recently. Raw prepared they weighed 610g. Dried weight was 40g. So average weight of 1 whole pepper dried is only 6.6g, or roughly 6.5g dried for every 100g raw weight, and that's how I'll use them in any recipe. But the one dehydrator book that gives an idea of yields on peppers says 2tblsp (30ml) dried pepper equates to about 3 tblsp (45ml) of fresh. They seem very different ratios to my actual results, so I'm very cautious of what the books say, maybe I'm overdrying. Makes my head hurt trying to compare them, hence why I want to build up my own log, and concentrate on finding scales capable of accurately measuring 6g! Sorry no clear cut answer. Good Luck.