dehydrators

[annie trip]

Has anyone tried drying fruit etc in the coolest oven on an aga? I think that gets below 100c???

[number 1 suspect]

I got one for Xmas

Hi Everyone. Hope the festive season is going well for all of you.

My daughter bought me a dehydrator and its been in constant use since xmas day. WOW. Cant wait for next years crop of fruit and veg.

Highly reccomend one of these for storage/snacks/anything you can think of. yummy fruit tried so far. Bananas, kiwi, apple, pear, strawberrys, pineapple. also done mushrroms, tomatoes and carrots.

Number 1 suspect

[Earthbabe]

Which one did she get you No1. I'm thinking of getting one with some of my birthday money (after the greenhouse/polyhouse). It'll make for some interesting pressie baskets next year for the folks.

[number 1 suspect]

Hi Earthbabe
She got me the L'Equip one. nice machine. the fans a bit noisy but as the kitchen is on another floor it dont worry me.

Not having any other machine to judge it against i can only say that its a very simple and effective machine to use.

As for the pressies, dried rose's, lavender etc along with some dried fruit and a jar of home made preserves (got loads this year) presented in a nice way will please most of the people i normally give to.

The book has instructions for fruit leathers, snacks and differnt potpourri as well as rough guidlines for drying all sorts of foodstuffs.

quite a good machine

No 1 Suspect

[Dobby]

I found this
http://www.thefarm.org/charities/i4at/surv/soldehyd.htm
Its how to make your own for free
so we dont need to spend any more money after all growing your own is ment to be cheapre and not about buying the latest gagit is it Mrs Dobby

[Earthbabe]

Even better than the light bulb one I suspect.

Cheers Mr D

[burnie]

There's a thing called a "Stochli Dehydrator" in the organic gardening catalogue for £104.95 with extra trays available if this helps.P.S. very good catalogue with lots of goodies in it.www.OrganicCatalogue.com

[kirsty b]

I have been tentatively thinking about saving up for the dehydrator in the organic gardening catalogue, as I like to dry flower petals for pot pourri etc at the moment and I deffo want to dry tomatoes and fruits when they are harvested.
If anyone has one of these, what has your experience been of it and would you recommend it?

Ta, Kirsty

[number 1 suspect]

Hi All
Tried fruit leathers this time. yummy
Dobbie thats a great design. Tried a smaller one a few years ago. Worked well till the sun went down!!!! :-)

Burnie the Lequip one comes with 6 trays and a 6 year warranty and thats the reason we asked for this one.

Like most things if you search around you will find what suits you best.

Off to play again now. got some more fruits to play with and then will try them in home made ice cream and the home made bread. Might even try some in the home made yoghurt but will draw the line at trying any in my home made pasta machime, apart from the sun dried toms ........ At least i know what goes into all my food these days :-)

This is the one i have.

http://www.ukjuicers.com/dehydrators...dratorGrey.htm

Number 1 Suspect

[Sue]

Hi
I've got an eeziedry which I found it our local kitchen shop for £85 I think.
now in regular use. ( you can get extra trays, up to fifteen) Besides general food drying I also dry a lot of celery to grind up to make celery salt (half and half, cuts down the salt intake and tastes delicious especially in soup) and dry lots of lavender to grind up into powder to make body dusting powder.
Rose petals and flowers for pot pouri, herbs etc.
I ran out of freezer space so needed another way to preserve fruit and veg.
I found two American books on Amazon and they have some good ideas to try, must have a go at candied peel this year.
Sue

[pigletwillie]

Does anybody have the

L'Equip 528 Food Dehydrator

How does it rate?

[supersprout]

I bought this very one off the Internet in September last year piglet - really pleased with it! Six flat trays, you really do need them all. Delicious results with apple rings, squash and courgette chips, dried mushers and toms No.1 son loves making beef jerky Lots more to play with next year! What do you plan to do with yours?

[smurf]

I have the L'Equip 528. We bought it eighteen months ago and thought we'd made a mistake . This year it's been heavily used. With a diabetic in the family, dried fruit (from the grapes we will no longer be making into wine ) and reduced supermarket produce (cherries to replace the sugary glace variety), the list goes on. We can even make a really good salt substitute using dried grapefruit skins! We learnt much from 'Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook'. The latest discovery is that the dehydratopr is brilliant for making beautifully white meringues.

[franco sussex boy]

www.Tchibo.co.uk

We have had a drier for about 7 months now they are great for dried fruit which can be partially dried ( it does not last as long) and kept in an air tight jar as an alternative to sweets. The best price we found was at the above link but note as they change their product range everyweek so you have to wait for the item to come up. However given the price was only 24.99 it is worth waiting for.

Had not thought of using it for biltong etc but will be trying it shortly.

Regards

[25cowlane]

Having read this thread the other week, I ordered the tchibo one and have been really impressed. So far I've done banana chips, apple rings and kiwi chips all with great success. The machine is a lot quieter than I thought it would be so a winner all round.

Now I just need to have a go at jerky and I will be a happy man!