DIY dehydrated meals

Whiteburn

Whiteburn

Thru Hiker
Bopdude said:
Yep all sounds about right, I was doing a fair amount of mince based meals and curries etc, hence the sheets, …..
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I do quite a lot of minced based meals & never bother with the silicone sheets, I just 'dehydrate' in the cooking pot as much as I can then straight on the mesh trays once its cooled a bit.
Tip: if recipe calls for adding stuff that doesn't really need a lot of cooking (e.g. frozen vegetables, tomato paste, etc) reduce the liquid in the pot as much as possible, then add these near the end, it will help thicken the mass up to make spreading on the mesh practical.
 
Teepee

Teepee

Thru Hiker
Stopping the flow of air around the food by placing on a solid sheet should be avoided as much as possible, it really impedes the drying. It's less of an issue with a rear fan, and affects drying times a lot more with a bottom fan.

I made some 1mm hole stainless insect mesh sheets for my dehydrator and dry all the things that will drop through the larger mesh on those. Mince and dried fish, leathers, veg that shrinks down small like Sweetcorn, Peas and Carrots go on them too.

To get lumps of meat to stay bigger and not break up, mixing the salt and breadcrumbs into the mince before cooking helps keep the bits together and also helps it rehydrate quicker as the bread and salt is better spread. This year, I've been cooking the mince in trays in the oven and then cutting after with a Pizza cutter...it really helps keep the meat size consistent and you can cut into strips to speed the drying up.
 
cathyjc

cathyjc

Thru Hiker
Even with an Excalibur (rear fan) - with wet food I turn it over/break it up, part way thru' to get the whole lot properly dry.
 
Padstowe

Padstowe

Thru Hiker
With so much choice & knowing faff all & assuming loads have options I don't need, I thought it best to ask here before a take a plunge on a good model.
Question, what should I be looking for in buying a good dehydrator?
 
Michael_x

Michael_x

Section Hiker
Padstowe said:
With so much choice & knowing faff all & assuming loads have options I don't need, I thought it best to ask here before a take a plunge on a good model.
Question, what should I be looking for in buying a good dehydrator?
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I know very little about these but...

I bought one a while back to play with and learn. Went for one of the cheapest, even so had digital temp and timer.

What I learnt:

I don't use it much but it works.

Wish I'd bought a model that one could get precut fitted silicone sheets set for. Cutting up baking paper sheet works but is a pain.
 
cathyjc

cathyjc

Thru Hiker
Padstowe said:
With so much choice & knowing faff all & assuming loads have options I don't need, I thought it best to ask here before a take a plunge on a good model.
Question, what should I be looking for in buying a good dehydrator?
Click to expand...

Go 2nd hand - they are simple items - a motorised fan and element with thermostat. As long as it works you shouldn't go too far wrong.

I bought a 2nd hand Excalibur, which are expensive new, but I'm glad I did as it's much more flexible - drying clothing, raising bread dough etc….
It's the old "buy cheap, buy twice". And it will always be saleable if you change your mind.
Another plus is because it's a 'box' I can store things on top of it - so the size/space isn't such an issue - I have an upside down tray on top so maintain an air gap between it and whatever.
 
Tartanferret

Tartanferret

Thru Hiker
Padstowe said:
With so much choice & knowing faff all & assuming loads have options I don't need, I thought it best to ask here before a take a plunge on a good model.
Question, what should I be looking for in buying a good dehydrator?
Click to expand...

I went mid-range price wise with a Stockli.
A good feature is the model with stainless mesh trays, so you can put them in the dishwasher to get them clean.
I bought a proper silicone mat for it but I found I prefer using the cheap silicone sheets and cutting to size.

https://www.ukjuicers.com/stockli-dehydrator-stainless-steel-trays-timer
 
Whiteburn

Whiteburn

Thru Hiker
Tartanferret said:
I went mid-range price wise with a Stockli.
A good feature is the model with stainless mesh trays, so you can put them in the dishwasher to get them clean.
I bought a proper silicone mat for it but I found I prefer using the cheap silicone sheets and cutting to size.
https://www.ukjuicers.com/stockli-dehydrator-stainless-steel-trays-timer
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I'm happy with my Stockli, seems to do OK with 6 trays.
Only trouble was with the internal thermal fuse 'blowing' & Stockli being unresponsive on the matter.
Eventually worked out a successful fix which seems to have helped many others repair theirs with the same issue.
 
Tartanferret

Tartanferret

Thru Hiker
Whiteburn said:
I'm happy with my Stockli, seems to do OK with 6 trays.
Only trouble was with the internal thermal fuse 'blowing' & Stockli being unresponsive on the matter.
Eventually worked out a successful fix which seems to have helped many others repair theirs with the same issue.
Click to expand...

cheers for that fix, only cost around a quid to save my machine from landfill :thumbsup:
 
Teepee

Teepee

Thru Hiker
I've just upgraded from my trusty old Andrew james rectangular unit. It was starting to show it's age after what must have been a year running.
The trays are cracking, the temp was slowly dropping and I'm getting bored of doing 'musical trays' to get all the food to dry.

So far, this has been good over the last couple of weeks; it's had about 30kg put through it and food is drying at least twice as quickly.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07L4NHWYG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The temp is 10c out (it runs too hot), so I'm drying all veg and beef at 45c setting and it's actually keeping a steady 55c on the trays.
Plenty big enough to do Biltong and a massive loaf of bread, I'm hoping it keeps hot enough to do proper dehydrated eggs (which need over 74c aparently). It's supposed to run at 90c and it's got a massive heating element.

No silicone sheets, but I won't miss them for my batch drying veg and meat.
 
Teepee

Teepee

Thru Hiker
The redneck vacuum jar system has been working well since I swapped to it. (A pinhole to remove the air ,sealed with aluminium) These were all sealed 1 to 2 months ago and none have leaked.
20200512_110625.jpg

There is a lot of veg, meat, and fruit here. Just one of the red jars has 4 big Celery plants in it.
 
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Odd Man

Odd Man

Thru Hiker
Teepee said:
The redneck vacuum jar system has been working well since I swapped to the system. (A pinhole to remove the air ,sealed with aluminium) These were all sealed 1 to 2 months ago and none have leaked.
View attachment 23137

There is a lot of veg, meat, and fruit here. Just one of the red jars has 4 big Celery plants.
Click to expand...

Looks amazing, what's the system you're talking about?
 
Teepee

Teepee

Thru Hiker
Lempo said:
Looks amazing, what's the system you're talking about?
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Bulk vacuum storage in glass jars.

My redneck vacuum system;
Teepee said:
View attachment 11624
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It's a rubber tap adaptor, on some pvc tube, with a drilled plastic bottle cap inside, pushed onto the intake pipe on my vacuum sealer.

You suck the air out of a supermarket glass jar through a pinhole in the tightened jar lid, and seal the hole with a small patch of Alu tape. The patch of tape seals the hole when you drag the rubber sealing cup sideways.
To open, peel the tape off to release the vacuum.
 
Enzo

Enzo

Thru Hiker
Last year I experimented with using bulk dry ingredients rather than dehydrating cooked meals.
Much easier and quicker.
Lots of mixing, rehydrating and tasting needed to get good results. I ended up with a pretty good curry. Sadly I've misplaced the recipe....
Mostly coconut powder (750 cal/100g) almond, onion, tomato, amchoor powder and curry spices. Just a matter of measuring out dried/powdered ingreadiing and being dried they don't need special packaging etc.

Anyhow looking at American Youtubers again I started looking for dehydrated cooked pinto beans, no luck as usual. Then I remembered looking up dried hummus. Mixed reviews, but worth trying I think.

Rather than buying a premade product I've bought the ingredients, chickpea flour, sesame mainly, I have garlic powder. I prefer my hummus chunky, but it's worth a try, I keep a little bottle of olive oil in my food bag which I can add.
Could be a cheap, light and easy way to make a lunchtime snack.
I could easily live off good hummus so hope it works.
 
dovidola

dovidola

Thru Hiker
With you all the way @Enzo (apart from the garlic powder yuck), I've not bought a premade dehydrated hiking meal since a decade ago, when I concluded they were grossly overpriced muck (which usually contained garlic powder yuck). Of course products may have improved since then, but I'm content to use mainly supermarket ingredients to make up my own grub, which doesn't seem to weigh that much more than the niche product.

Regarding the dried chick pea thing, aren't chick peas a pulse? As are lentils, which are ground (black lentils I think) to make urud flour, which they make poppadoms from? Just wondering if that flour, or even broken up bits of uncooked poppadom (dehydrated after all) might have an application?
 
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