Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

I just sliced tomatoes and put them on the bottom screen, closest to the
heater (no fan). They dried enough in one day to peel them off the
parchment paper and flip them over. The next day they were dry.

Without a fan you slide the top of the dryer open and regulate how much air
passes by how far you slide the top forward. I usually have mine about 2
inches, sometimes an inch if it's humid.

I have never, ever had food mold in this dryer. You do, however, have to
switch the trays around. On really humid days back home (we have very low
humidity here) I would switch once a day. The top most tray is furthest
away naturally, and I have a 6 tray dryer (7 slots so they can be switched
as needed). I usually just flip rotate--meaning top tray goes on the bottom
second to the top then goes second to the bottom, and so on. That way they
all get enough heat and air movement.

In these, because there is no fan, and if you have very wet stuff, like when
I make leather and need to pour the liquid onto the tray, you only use about
3/4 of the tray. Then one tray has the empty spot in the back, the next has
it in the front, the third in the back, and so on, so that the air moves
over each try on it's way out.

As I said--I've made fruit leathers, dried wet things like tomatoes, etc and
never had one thing spoil. The heat can be turned up really high (I've
never checked with a thermostat--just put it on high) and as things start
drying out I can lower the heat. It's very versatile. By switching the
trays and changing the heat settings you never have to worry about spoilage.

In fact, if you have the heater set on high, and forget to move your trays,
you CAN crisp things! Lol I've done it. So now I always switch tray
positions once a day, whether they need it or not.

Usually though, I've almost never had anything take more than 3 days to dry,
even if I wanted it dry enough to powder. Leathers have taken 3 days. Many
veggies only take 2. Jerky can take 3 or, occasionally 4 if I've cut it
very thick. Granted, I don't live in a really humid place like Florida. I
am originally from Illinois and there it could get up to 98% humidity
without rain in the summer, so I did use the dryer all summer long though.

Samala,
Renee




-------Original Message-------


This dehydrator interests me, but I am very concerned about the air
circulation being dependent upon convection currents generated by the heat
of the dryer.

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