5
7. Place the lid on top of the stacked drying trays.
8.
Plug in the heating base and turn the switch to the ‘On’ position. Air
will begin to circulate throughout the dehydrator.
9. For best results, rotate the bottom tray to the top of the stack once
during each hour of drying time. This will help food dry more evenly.
10. When drying wet foods like meat, moisture can drip down through
the trays and collect on the heating base.
Wipe off any puddles that
form to keep liquid from overflowing into the heating base.
Drying Fruits:
The following information was adapted from the University of
Georgia’s
So Easy to Preserve,
pp. 324-329.
Preparing Fruit
Begin by washing the fruit and coring it, if needed. For drying, fruits can be
cut in half or sliced. Thin, uniform, peeled slices dry the fastest. The peel
can be left on the fruit, but unpeeled fruit takes longer to dry.
Fruits dried whole take the longest to dry. Before drying small fruits like
grapes or blueberries, skins need to be “checked” or cracked to speed
drying.
Check Fruit Skins
- To crack the fruit skins, place the fruit in boiling water
briefly. Then quickly plunge it into cold water to keep it from cooking. This
step allows the moisture inside to escape during the drying process.
Pretreating the Fruit
Pretreatments prevent fruits from darkening. Many light-colored fruits, such
as apples, darken rapidly when cut and exposed to air. If not pretreated,
these fruits will continue to darken after they have dried.
• Ascorbic Acid
- Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) mixed with water is a safe
way to prevent fruit browning. However, its protection does not last as
long as sulfuring or sulfiting. Ascorbic acid is available in the powdered
or tablet form, from drugstores or grocery stores. One teaspoon of
powdered ascorbic acid is equal to 3000 mg of ascorbic acid in tablet
form. (If you buy 500 mg tablets, this would be six tablets).
