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Easy Way To Dehydrate Food At Home

 

How To Dehydrate Food At Home For Long-Term Storage

Home Dehydrating

Home dehydrating is one of the simplest ways you can put food away for long-term storage yourself. It’s been done for centuries and has kept many a family fed through road trips, food shortages, or just simply through the winter. Home-dried food is easy to store, has a decent shelf life (3-5 years if stored properly), and is lightweight and easy to transport. 

Depending on what you’re dehydrating, you can either eat your dried goods straight (most fruits and some dried meats), or you’ll need a fair amount of water to reconstitute them (something to consider if there’s a shortage of potable water). Most dried foods keep a fair amount of their nutritional value (if dehydrated properly) and can add a lot of diversity to any food cache.

 

 

What You Need

Home dehydrating needs very little in terms of special equipment. In ancient days people simply used the sun and wind. These days most people prefer to buy or build a food dehydrator. Other than that, there’s really nothing specialized you need unless your recipe calls for it.

 

What Foods You Can Dehydrate

Many, many different types of food can be dehydrated for long-term storage. Historically, dried fish and meat was a main staple for a number of different populations. Other foods you can dehydrate include fruit, vegetables, seaweed, mushrooms, onions, garlic, and many others.

 

How To Dehydrate Fruits and Vegetables

1. Wash all of your equipment thoroughly with soap and water. Everything from your knives and cutting boards to your dehydrating trays needs to be clean and as sterile as possible.

 

2. Choose produce that is at the height of its ripeness but not yet starting to go downhill. Fresh-picked is best, but if you’re buying the produce at a store, make sure that it’s in optimum condition. 

 

3. If you’re drying for long-term storage, you’ll need to blanch greens, corn, beans, carrots, peas, potatoes, pumpkin, broccoli and cauliflower. (Steam your food for about 5 minutes and then rinse with cold water.) This will prevent the enzyme polyphenol oxidase from turning your food brown and sometimes change how you food tastes. Fruits can dipped (soaked for about 5-10 minutes) in either a lemon juice bath or ascorbic acid (usually 1.5 tablespoons of ascorbic acid to 1 quart of water).

 

4. Remove and seeds or pits. For herbs, leave them on the stems to dry. (You can remove them from the stems afterwards.)

 

5. Slice your food between ¼ inch to ½ inch thick unless your recipe calls for something different. The thicker your slices, the longer it will take to dry. Also, slices thicker than ½ inch may dry unevenly.

 

6. Place on trays, making sure that the individual pieces don’t touch each other. Note: your food will shrink as it dries, so if you’re dehydrating something like corn, make sure that the tray holes are large enough to hold the shrunken kernels.

 

7. Set your trays in the dehydrator and turn it on (if it needs electricity). If using a commercial dehydrator, set the temperature for the correct setting for whatever you are drying and let the heat/air do it’s magic. Some food can take a long time to dry—from 6-8 hours for things like apples, to 14-20 hours for things like potatoes. Some people like to let their food dry overnight so that it will be ready in the morning (if you’re drying something that takes less than 8 hours), but others prefer to monitor their food more closely. If you want to ensure even drying and you’re using a dehydrator with a fan, it’ll be important to rotate the trays around every so often. 

 

It’s also important to note that all drying times are just as estimate and that you’ll need to check on your fairly consistently to see if it’s done or not. (Over-dried food isn’t particularly appealing—not only does it become brittle, but it also loses a fair amount of nutritional content.) The goal is to make the moisture level as low as possible in whatever you’re dehydrating. If your vegetables are brittle, they’re done. Your fruits, however, will probably be more like leather.

 

8. Check for Dryness. Once your food is finished drying, it’s important to make sure it’s truly ready to be stored (otherwise known as “conditioning”). Simply place your dried produce in a glass jar and seal tightly. Set it aside for about 10 days and then check to see if there’s any condensation in the jar. If there, is, your produce is not yet done and needs to be set back in the dehydrator. If it is, it’s ready for long-term storage.

 

10. Place your dried food in an airtight container. Label your food and make sure to include the date. Store in a dark, cool place that’s free of moisture. (Ball now makes dark green jars for food storage, perfect for making sure less light reaches your food.) For long-term storage it’s best to vacuum seal your foods and include an oxygen absorber.

 

Inspect your foods regularly, checking for mold growth, discoloration, etc. Dehydrating doesn’t actually kill the organisms that cause food to go bad—it just deactivates them. If moisture returns they’ll definitely get back to work.

 

Dehydrating Meats and Fish

There are a few other things one needs to know for dehydrating meats. First, only lean meats are fit to be dried at home an even with lean meats, you’ll need to trim all the fat off of them. (Fats will make the meat go rancid if there’s any contact with oxygen.) You’ll also need to use a high quality dehydrator, as most don’t truly maintain the temperatures they claim to. (Research at the University of WisconsinMadison found that only the Garden Master and Excalibur dehydrators maintained their heat consistently.) If you’re using a more primitive method, make double sure you’re doing everything per the directions specified.

 

1. Wash all of your equipment thoroughly with soap and water. Everything from your knives and cutting boards to your dehydrating trays needs to be clean and as sterile as possible.

2. Procure quality lean meat. Trim the fat off and slice thinly (about ¼ inch thick). Tip: to make meat easier to slice, try freezing partially freezing it. If making chewy jerky, slice the meat with the grain. Make sure to remove any bones that might be present in fish.

3. Place on trays, making sure that the individual pieces don’t touch each other. Set your dehydrator to the 145° – 155°F range.

4. Dry for 6 hours (or more depending on the dryness level you’re going for).

5. Place dried strips on a baking sheet and set in a pre-heated 275°F oven for 10 minutes. (This will bring up the internal temperature of the meat strips to 160°F and kill any pathogens that might have made it through the dehydrating process.

6. Set out at room temperature until completely cooled.

7. Vacuum-seal and store with the appropriate oxygen absorbers.

8. Label and make sure to include the date. Store in a dark, cool place that’s free of moisture. 

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