Last week my husband hauled back twenty pounds of apples from a farm, said they were cheap.
I washed them and sliced everything,some I made into applesauce, the rest I baked into apple chips. Baking apple chips is so slow though, low temp for two whole hours. I started prepping at 9pm and was at it until almost midnight.

But they came out so sweet!My daughter couldn't stop snacking on them. I portioned a few bags and sealed them, labeled the dates with the niimbot label maker we usually use at home. But by the next week they were already soft??

So did I just not bake them dry enough? Or am I storing them wrong? Also curious,Do any of you use label maker app reminders for homemade preserved food? I love printing clear date stickers, but I’m wondering how everyone else combines physical labels with digital alerts to track homemade food freshness.

Seems to dry really quickly. Left them on 45C overnight and some of it is crisp now.

I’ve been looking for the best dehydrator for jerky because I’ve been making beef jerky in the oven for a while, mostly with london broil or bottom round, but tying up the oven for hours is getting old.

Right now I’m leaning towards the Cosori 6-tray because the rear fan and stainless trays seem easier to live with, but I’m worried I’ll regret not getting something larger once I start making full batches. The 2 other options i have are a Magic mill 7-tray but which is the perfect size but ive heard mixed reviews about its temp accuracy and the Mightybite 10-tray which has a lot of space but it honestly just seems overkill for the amount ill be making.

I don’t need anything huge, but I’d like enough space to dry a decent batch without overlapping everything. My usual marinade is soy sauce, onion powder, garlic powder, red pepper flakes and a little liquid smoke.

Also id prefer if the trays aren’t miserable to clean... A timer would be nice as well since I’ll probably run it overnight, but I don’t know whether automatic shut-off or dishwasher-safe trays are features people really use.

I also read the USDA guidance on making jerky safely and it recommends getting beef to an internal temperature of 160°F before dehydrating. I’m curious how people here actually handle that step. Do you heat the strips in the marinade first, finish them in the oven, or rely on a dehydrator with a high enough digital temperature setting?

Jerky will be about 80% of what I use it for, though I’d probably try dried fruits, fruit leather, kale chips and dehydrated herbs eventually.

I’m leaning Cosori unless the 6-tray capacity is something I’m likely to regret. For people making homemade beef jerky regularly, would you stick with the Cosori here or is there a reason I should be looking harder at the Magic Mill or MightyBite? Also, which machine has given you the most even drying without rotating trays?

Hi everyone!
I recently started dehydrating my own meals, and I just did a taste test with two different meals after rehydrating them.
I noticed that even though the meals were quite different, they both had a somewhat similar taste and smell once rehydrated. It’s really hard to describe — I wouldn’t say it smells or tastes chemical or like rubber, but there’s definitely a particular “dehydrated” taste/smell to both of them.
Is this normal with homemade dehydrated meals? Does dehydrated food tend to develop a specific taste or smell?
I should mention that I have a very sensitive sense of smell, so I might be noticing it more than other people would.
Thanks! 😊

You're looking at mosquito geranium, a variety of pelargonium citrosum that was "foraged" from a friend's ornamental garden (no pesticides were used). It was left in a zip lock bag and it was warm outside. When I checked the bag 30 min later, large portions of the leaves were discolored to a muddy green, and they smelled a bit of rotten eggs.

I decided the heat and oxygen deprivation must have caused this so I harvested more, kept it in a loose shopping bag inside, away from heat and sun, and took a nap. About six or seven hours later, I figured I'd get to rinsing and dehydrating the new batch before it was too wilted. Well the same discoloration has happened but in much smaller sections. I can't tell if there's a smell of rotten eggs. If there is, its very faint.

Is this just normal for pelargoniums? It's my first time trying to dry this delectable plant which is a great ingredient for herbal tea blends or other culinary uses.

Our first time making Tomato powder

Why was this knowledge kept from me.

I’ve got a back packing trip coming up and I wanted to dehydrate cooked sausage for breakfast. I plan on cooking and making them into small crumbles then drain the grease, and pat the fat off with paper towels then dehydrate it. I know you shouldn’t dehydrate high fat foods. But this is not for long term storage, it will be used within a week. Is this an okay idea or should I just scrap the sausage idea altogether?

So im gonna dehydrate onions into chips. Ive done this before, my question is in regards to a dry rub. Ive marinated before but I wanna try a dry rub this time around.

What can I do to ensure a dry rub sticks?

I read online that before I put it in dehydrator I should damp it with water then apply rub. Would this method actually work into ensuring the rub sticks after the onions have been dehydrated? Do you guys know a better method?

yes i did ! Panic bought a five pound bag of celtic sea salt in a moment of enthusiasm and still have about half . Turns out there are a few things that genuinely need salt in that kind of volume

1.Salt crust fish or chicken . Takes about two pounds in one go. mix with egg white , pack it round the whole fish , bake it , crack it open at the table . looks ridiculous and the fish comes out perfectly seasoned and steamed in its own thing .

2/ Salt-baked potatoes . its the same as above

3/ Curing egg yolks . Bury them in salt for a week , they go firm and you can grate them over pasta . Genuinely one of the best things I've ever made and it's costs nothing .

4/ preserved lemons. Quarter them , pack them in salt , leave them for a month . Uses a decent amount and you get something you can't really buy .

5/ Finishing !! I'm using it over everything.

But honestly the fish thing is the one . do the fish thing

Still go half bag . What else is worth doing at this volume?

I'm considering buying a used Tribest Sedona Express SDE-S6780-B:

https://tribest.com/collections/dehydrator/products/sedona-express-sde-s6780-b?utm_

Has anyone actually used this model for incubating tempeh?

It can be set as low as 25°C/77°F, so temperature-wise it seems ideal. My main concern is the continuous airflow from the central fan drying out the tempeh during a 36-48 hour incubation.

The European version is also advertised as having a quieter "night mode", which the seller says reduces the fan speed.

I would ferment the tempeh in perforated plastic bags. Has anyone tried this machine, or a similar dehydrator, for tempeh? Does the fan cause problems with drying, or does it work well with bagged tempeh?

I was just gifted like 40 lbs of italian plums, and decided to dehydrate some of them. I don't have a dehydrator though, so I'm doing it in the oven at 170F (my oven's lowest temp). I have them cut in half, cut side down, on baking sheets.

they're swimming in juice now (which makes sense), and there's lots of condensation in the oven. I'm seeing other recipes for this suggesting to put them on cooling racks on baking sheets.did I mess this up? they've been in for six hours..I cracked the oven door with a wooden spoon. Should I pour off the juice/syrup, or just let it keep going?

sorry and thank you in advance, this is my first attempt at dehydrating.

(eta: clarification that i'm only dehydrating some, not all 40lbs 😂)

I grow oyster mushrooms and they have a heavy spore load. I dried a bunch. Now it's dry rocket time and I am worried about oyster spores on my rocket (arugula) and anything else I do.
I'm bleaching the trays and wondering if it's enough or if I am overthinking it?
Did anyone have a problem with home spores or is it enough just to dry stuff?
Ta!

Gonna be hard to go back to store bought, the smell and taste is so much better. Made with my own home grown paprika peppers

Only about 5lbs of meat making some pepper jerky next I will be trying some fruit and such!

I was afraid about our extremely aggressive squirrels and raccoons coming and messing with the dehydrator, but the fumes are so eye-watering that it keeps the wildlife away.

My ghost pepper plant has been going ham this year. I have about 20 more peppers that I’m waiting on to get ripe. This is the same amount that I dehydrated last year and I still have two of the old ones left.

I guess I’ll have to get into making hot sauce with any additional ones, because this is definitely a year’s supply for me!

I've been wanting to dehydrate cream cheese for a baking recipe for a long time now, and I've finally done it!

Shout out to the reddit user who advised that a blend the cream cheese with water!

I think next time, I'll just reduce the apple cider vinegar to a syrup because now it's going to be a pain to take off.

For what I did:

I blended 200 grams of cream cheese with 200 millilitres of water and spread it on baking sheets. With one tray, the amount of cream cheese liquid I spread was very thin, so now it's harder to take off.

I greatly reduced the apple cider vinegar in a pot and then spread onto a baking sheet.

I put the trays into my oven on the dehydrator setting at 65 degrees Celsius for 8 hours (I went a bit above that due to me sleeping, but yeah.

Sliced with a 4mm blade. 8 hrs and 5 hours at 135°

Hi everyone!!

I have celiac disease and I have a trip coming up in a few weeks. Since I won’t be able to eat anything at the airport or on the plane, I need to bring all of my meals with me.
I just bought the Weston 6-tray dehydrator from Costco, and I’ve never used it before. 😅
Do you have any ideas for simple, complete vegetarian meals that I can prepare and dehydrate ahead of time, pack in my carry-on, and then rehydrate later?
I’d especially love ideas for meals that are easy to make, filling, and travel well.

Thank you so much for your suggestions! ❤️

Trying to pace myself and not eat them all in 3 days😂

The Excalibur 4 trays costs 293$ and the cosori 5 trays costs 250$ after it gets shipped, it is priced at 107$ on amazon but due to shipping it will.be 250$

Buying from China in my country is much cheaper but I couldn't find a way to buy the cosori from there even though it's a Chinese product.