Dehydrating 101

[FlyFishNut]

Just received my dehydrator - while I was backpacking last weekend my wife tried to make dried kiwi, bananas, tangerines and strawberries.
She "read the directions" and they came out mushy. I wasn't there, so I just assume she didn't leave them in long enough.

Anyway - last night I did jerky. Marinated in an all natural recipe and put it on for 9 hours thinking that would be maybe a little too short a time, but that I could just add time as needed. It was bone dry this morning. It taste great, but it is super dry - so what are "tricks" or methods to making sure the proper level of dehydration is reached? The directions aren't super detailed - and honestly with so many factors and variances involved (thickness, amount of moisture, etc) I would't expect directions can be super accurate.

Any tips appreciated and here is the dehydrator I have if this helps.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B9F7WJW?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00

Cheers,
FFN

[Mr. Bumpy]

I just started dehydrating my own meals for backpacking and am having fun. I wanted to eat a little better than ramen, lipton sides, and chicken. There is a lot of info online and here if you figger out the search engine. I think once you get some basic info then you just need to get experience doing it. So don't give up too soon. Here is a place to start.

http://www.thrueat.com/dried-basics

My wife used to dehydrate stuff and I remember her using the type of unit that you got. I remember after a while she gave it away and got a 9 tray Excalibur, which is recommended by many and it is what I've been using. My unit is about 13-14 years old and was used pretty heavily for 3-4 then stored only getting used occasionally. When I started using it last fall it worked great. The Excalibur model costs more but was apparently well worth the investment.

[One Half]

This is a great resource. Lots of good videos and tips.

http://www.dehydrate2store.com

[Vegan Packer]

There is certainly a bit of guesswork involved. Whenever I make something new, I keep checking to see how it is coming out. Once I am happy with the result, I write down whatever was the combination of temperature and time that worked.

[Silver Eagle]

I've been getting some good tips and recipes from youtube, especially from "Babelfish5", a backpacker from Texas. Good stuff so far.

[Hikes in Rain]

Lots of good stuff from Chef Glen: http://www.backpackingchef.com/

[LoneStranger]

Check early and check often is my philosophy. I never leave things unattended for long, especially towards the end of the run when things can rapidly go from perfect to too dry.

Jerky is one thing I do like to over dry though, but that is a personal taste. I want to be sure it will hold up for weeks in a hot pack and don't mind having to suck on it a bit before tucking it in my cheek like a wad of chaw :)

[FlyFishNut]

Check early and check often is my philosophy. I never leave things unattended for long, especially towards the end of the run when things can rapidly go from perfect to too dry.

Jerky is one thing I do like to over dry though, but that is a personal taste. I want to be sure it will hold up for weeks in a hot pack and don't mind having to suck on it a bit before tucking it in my cheek like a wad of chaw :)

I agree- And it won't cause mouth cancer! I was practicing a "watched pot never boils" policy, but need to keep an eye on it during the process at least until I get the hang of it.

[lonehiker]

Trial and error. Keep good notes. Use other's experiences as a baseline then adjust accordingly. And, keep good notes.

[RockDoc]

We do a lot of this, about 2 lbs of grass fed hamburger jerky/month. It's the only way you will get jerky without a bunch of sugar. We use a jerky press to extrude nice wide strips onto the drier racks. Takes about 10 hrs to dry hard and black. Drier is always better than wetter when it comes to dried meat and fruit. We use a dehydrator that you can set the blower temp on, to about 130 degrees. Speeds things up.

[Puddlefish]

http://www.easy-food-dehydrating.com/

Has a lot of food specific ideas, with minimal bloggy babbling.

[FlyFishNut]

My Green Beans turned out to be a disaster. I bought a bag of frozen green beans from Trader Joe's for $1.99.

Thawed them and then set them out with paper towels to get them dry. Drizzled some olive oil on them. Put them on 135f for 6 hours. Still moist and flaccid. Hit the timer for another 1.5 hours. Still full sized, moist and limp.

Put them on for another 1.5 hours and came back to shriveled up pieces of leather. They look like worms that crawl out on the driveway during a heatwave and dry up.

Geez - Is the tolerance so narrow that veggies can go from full sized and moist to dried out and worm sized in such a short time?

[Vegan Packer]

My Green Beans turned out to be a disaster. I bought a bag of frozen green beans from Trader Joe's for $1.99.

Thawed them and then set them out with paper towels to get them dry. Drizzled some olive oil on them. Put them on 135f for 6 hours. Still moist and flaccid. Hit the timer for another 1.5 hours. Still full sized, moist and limp.

Put them on for another 1.5 hours and came back to shriveled up pieces of leather. They look like worms that crawl out on the driveway during a heatwave and dry up.

Geez - Is the tolerance so narrow that veggies can go from full sized and moist to dried out and worm sized in such a short time?

Add any spices and dehydrate first. Carry oil separately and drizzle and mix up on the trail.

[Gambit McCrae]

I'm sure many folks on here have been drying meats for far longer then I have even been alive ,but in 2 years I have been hard at it and get more complements on both my backpacking meals as well as my Jerky then I can count. "You should sell this stuff!!!" is a comin response.


There is no secret to jerky...Your machine, thicknes, marinade times..they are all subject to effect when it is "done", there are different variations of "done"..This is my best suggestion..

Keep as many variables the same as possible..

Meat thickness: I get the butcher to precook my "agrade round roast" and then I slice it against the grain so that bite size pieces pull off the strip every time, it eliminates the sore mouth of pulling against the meat like a caveman.

Marinade time: I marinade my meat for 12 hours. Period. and I have a marinade tupwear that it goes in.

Marinade: My marinade is no secret: Dales original(NOT LOW SODIUM), water based steak sauce..Water evaporates the best right?! so stick to water based marinades and dry spices.

Get used to your machine: The more you use it the more you know it.

I know that at 8 hours of cook time on high, my meat is done on the rare side..I will sometimes put it on for another hour and then I let it sit in the rack for 4-8 hours to let the residual moisture evaporate without "cooking" the meat anymore.

Fruit: Shave as thin as you can and dry the heck out of it

[atraildreamer]

My Green Beans turned out to be a disaster. I bought a bag of frozen green beans from Trader Joe's for $1.99.

Thawed them and then set them out with paper towels to get them dry. Drizzled some olive oil on them. Put them on 135f for 6 hours. Still moist and flaccid. Hit the timer for another 1.5 hours. Still full sized, moist and limp.

Put them on for another 1.5 hours and came back to shriveled up pieces of leather. They look like worms that crawl out on the driveway during a heatwave and dry up.

Geez - Is the tolerance so narrow that veggies can go from full sized and moist to dried out and worm sized in such a short time?

Skip the thawing and drying with paper towels. After all, the whole point of a dehydrator is to remove the water from a food. Just throw the veggies on the trays while they are still frozen. This works well for corn and peas and carrots. They look shriveled and gross when done, but they re-hydrate well in a recipe. Adding oil is just going to slow down the drying process and the oil will go rancid. Save the oil for when you put the veggies in the cook-pot.

[Puddlefish]

Frenched/French cut green beans are better. They still take a long time to rehydrate, and were a bit chewy, but generally edible.

I know I had a moment of "What the heck, all my dehydrated food has shriveled down into a tiny little portion!?" Then I remembered that's pretty much the point of dehydrating for the trail.

[FlyFishNut]

Hmmmm. So what I was going for were the crunchy dried green beans that Earth Fare charges an arm and a leg for - the crunchy things that you can sit and munch on instead of potato chips! Guess veggies on the dehydrator are not for snacking but to be rehydrated later for recipes...

[Puddlefish]

Depends on how long you plan on storing them. If it's for tasty snack a few weeks from now, add the oil and make the tasty snack. If it's going to be stored for the long term, don't add the oil, which can turn rancid in that time. I have no idea specifically how long it would last, it would depend on the kind of oil, and how you store it.

[Tipi Walter]

I've home dried about anything that's not bolted down and can be dried and eaten.

https://tipiwalter.smugmug.com/Backpack-2015-Trips-161/20-Days-on-Medicare/i-Z8KkCLL/0/M/TRIP%20166%20006-M.jpg
Fresh mushrooms do well.


https://tipiwalter.smugmug.com/Backpack-2014-Trips-152/21-Days-Yellow-Mt/i-wfBsSdk/0/M/Trip%20156%20001-M.jpg
Wet organic once-frozen spinach ready for the dryer.


https://tipiwalter.smugmug.com/Backpack-2014-Trips-152/21-Days-in-the-Snow/i-bfQ2NjC/0/M/TRIP%20153%20055-M.jpg
Sliced burrito becomes snack food on the trail as it gets chewy like vegetarian jerky.


https://tipiwalter.smugmug.com/Backpacking2013-1/18-Days-in-the-Big-Frog/i-J3qwQGz/0/M/TRIP%20141%20003-M.jpg
Dried broccoli ready for the ziplock bag.


https://tipiwalter.smugmug.com/Backpacking2013-1/Green-Cove-Cabin/i-Lj6Nhg9/0/M/TRIP%20147%20050-M.jpg
A blender really helps in creating smoothies which can be dried and eaten as snacks. This is organic brown rice cooked at home and thoroughly blended with organic whole milk and peanut butter---voila---Rice Leather.

[FlyFishNut]

Depends on how long you plan on storing them. If it's for tasty snack a few weeks from now, add the oil and make the tasty snack. If it's going to be stored for the long term, don't add the oil, which can turn rancid in that time. I have no idea specifically how long it would last, it would depend on the kind of oil, and how you store it.

I'd like to make the crunchy snacks for immediate consumption! How do I make them turn out like the over priced snacks at EF??

[Puddlefish]

I'd like to make the crunchy snacks for immediate consumption! How do I make them turn out like the over priced snacks at EF??

http://wholenewmom.com/recipes/green-bean-chips/

Haven't tried them myself, but I'd start with fresh green beans and blanch them. Frozen beans never quite cook up right, I wouldn't expect them to dehydrate any better.

[Venchka]

Hmmmm. So what I was going for were the crunchy dried green beans that Earth Fare charges an arm and a leg for - the crunchy things that you can sit and munch on instead of potato chips! Guess veggies on the dehydrator are not for snacking but to be rehydrated later for recipes...

I miss Earth Fare. That's where I first found Boone Barrs. Can't wait to get back and stock up on trail goodies.

Wayne


Sent from somewhere around here.

[sarbar]

Hmmmm. So what I was going for were the crunchy dried green beans that Earth Fare charges an arm and a leg for - the crunchy things that you can sit and munch on instead of potato chips! Guess veggies on the dehydrator are not for snacking but to be rehydrated later for recipes...

Well...those crunchy ones are done 2 ways:

Either freeze-dried or flash fried. Dehydrating ALWAYS leave fruit and vegetables hard. Just an FYI.

[Gambit McCrae]

Well...those crunchy ones are done 2 ways:

Either freeze-dried or flash fried. Dehydrating ALWAYS leave fruit and vegetables hard. Just an FYI.

By flash fried do you mean coating in an oil and broiling in the over for 5 min or so?