dehydrator

[lifeistooshort]

So I bought a dehydrator about two years ago. Tired it once and it took forever and the courgette crisps I was trying to make didn't really end up crispy. I am wondering though if maybe I am not using it properly or if I am missing a trick.

So for the novice that I am, how are you using your dehydrators and why?

Thanks Prof I think that book will need to go on my Christmas list!

A bit late to the party here, but ValiaH there's a really excellent online pamphlet covering low tech preservation methods including bottling.

Home Preservation of Fruit And Vegetables published by MAFF (lots of copies on ebay for under a fiver) is also really good - not exciting, but tables of pre-treatment, processing times for safe storage etc.

Thanks Sadik that looks really informative! I'll have a read through. I'm only just beginning with preserving so low tech is fab.

Indeed if anyone is interested there are 44 of the agrodoks covering everything from preservation of meat & fish through using donkeys for tillage to small scale beekeeping.

Thanks, Sadik.

Canning is awesome. Unless you're preparing for a scenario without glass or rubber (I'm not).
You dont need a dehydrator btw.

If you live in a hot climate the sun is enough (my nonna used to do that).

Apples, prunes, pears, stringbeans and others can be dried in a stove or in other ways (trad. Overnight with the restheat of baking).

But if you don't want white fruit to be brown you need acid and sugar or honey.

For me, it's a question of volume as much as anything else. Fruits and vegetables tend to come in en masse and I suspect that canning would be the best method of preservation if faced with a great deal of produce. (I include glass jar storage in the 'canning'.)

Good luck tomorrow by the way.

We can a lot of stuff it's very effective, we have approximately a 3 month food supply canned. We also use a dehydrater for fruit and meat to make our own jerky

Could you dehydrate by hanging in the greenhouse in the uk summer? We have an electric pressure cooker but not fancying a shed load of jars if we need to bug out.

Yes you could, certainly smaller things anyway. Dehydrating in a car on a hot day is also easy.