Dehydrating foods - First Vege Test-Part 2

Weigh the food before and after!!!! Can then work out amount of dehydration.

 13th Jan

I decided to go ahead and try some dehydrating. 
I had some cabbage and a carrot in the fridge, and as I'm heading up North in a couple of days I wanted to give the dehydrator a spin.
I used the mandolin to chop up the carrot and so thin slices, that all went on one tray, I hope they do not stain it too much.
I had about 1/2 a cabbage and started to cut it into about 20mm thk slices and lay on the trays. I used about 3 trays. Some of the slices were a bit thick, so that tray I put on top.
 I looked up on the interwongle for dehydrating Carrots and cabbages and came to this website:
https://www.easy-food-dehydrating.com/
There were pages for both the vegetables.  Setting 125-135F, so I've set it at 50C
Time 6- 12 hours. Check and rotate trays. I started at 4.30pm , so will check hourly'ish as I go. 

Process 

Something that needs to be done is to weigh the food before and after!!!! 

 Then you can see how much an item has been dehydrated. This needs to be done to help estimate dehydration times later.

13th Jan

There was a bit of a vege wiff as I started it up, so closed the door to laundry. That is quite a handy room for these things. I stored the other shelves in the cupboard above.
Later checking on it I noticed there was condensation on the lower part of the window, so I opened that further. Also it was a bit warmer. I suppose 50 deg C heating of a small amount of air warms a small space .
I rotated the shelves to allow for a more even drying across the trays.
Next morning at 8am I checked. The carrots, which covered the whole of the tray had shrunk to 1/4 of a tray and were firm. Still chewy, so I bagged them.
 The cabbage still looked very moist so I rotated those trays and it is still running. So about 15 1/2 hours and 3 trays of cabbage still moist.
Maybe, because of low power it will take a lot longer than the more expensive dryers.

 14th Jan

I have separated the sliced leaves of the cabbage to let air around them and they are drying faster now. I'll bag them shortly.

 Mango's and apples

I decided to take the mangos and apples out of the fridge and dry them too. I just cut them up and put them on trays. I think the apples may need to have a quick blanch, but I'll do that next time. I do need a corer for the apples though, so shall put that on my list.  They are in at 50 deg C and I put them in about 1pm.
The mango's I weighted. 2 mangoes(whole) 661g. I then peeled them and sliced them and was left with 342g of pieces. So in dehydrator now and I need to check weight when removing. Final weight is 90g, so 74% dehydration. Some of the bigger bits are still soft but the smaller/thinner pieces are very dry and no taste.

Making chips in dehydrator

This video looks interesting. Zoe can have these.

I used a potato and sliced up on mark 2 on the mandolin to make thin and then washed in warm water to get some of the starch out. Then soaked in some malt vinegar for a couple of hours and then put in dehydrator overnight. I didn't add herbs or salt.
A bit dissapointing, soggy. I chucked a few in the air fryer but that didn't do much. Still soggy.

End comment

Well I've dehydrated stuff! Not planned but grabbing stuff out of fridge and drying it.
As far as the Dehydrator goes, it works quite well, I'm happy with the veges that I've dried so far. It is more a test at this point as I'm heading off for a while, but I see some good oppertunities for pre-packed meals that I can vacuum seal and forget in a cupboard.
I'm interested in trying the biltong andjerky in the dehydrator, as well as chicken and trying fruit leather and crackers.
It's a matter of using the oppertunity of cheap fruit and meats to make something that can be used over a long period.
I'm pleased i purchased this and can see that i can add things to it for preserving.
The next step is to get the vacuum sealer extesion and use mason jars to store some things long term.
Also buy frozen veges  in bulk and dehydrate them, so less storage in freezers and more in jars for preserving.
So, dried meals, dehydrated veges from cheap frozen packets.
I'll need mason jars and vacuum seal extension.