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I am thinking of buying a food dryer. There seems to be two different types vertical and horizontal. From what I've read the vertical aren't worth buying. Can anyone who dries their own fruit na d veg please give me some feed back on makes models and tips etc.


gojilottie

Gojiberry,

I have been using food drier for couple of years now, it is Ezidri (a Newzealand product). It has some 7 stacking round tray with 3 regulator (mild, medium and hot air).
So far it works very well for drying all kind of stuff ( mushroom, fruit,herbs, chili...).

I slice the mushroom/chili/fruit to 0.3 to 0.5cm thick ( the juicier, the thinner, as it will shorten the time) before setting them to the tray and stack all trays together. Once they are dried , keep them in airtight jar.

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Hi gojiberry,
Like Momol I've got the Eezidry and like it very much and have used it a lot, I've still got loads of stuff I dried last year, it's a good companion to the freezer, some foods like beans can be dried and stored in jars others like apples can be dried after you've run out of freezer space.
Sue

Hi I have an eezidry round stacking thing with six layers it works really well, I also bought Mary Bell's complete dehydrator cookbook which is excellent it tells you all the techniques for a wide range of foods and then a lot of recipies for using the products.
maybe buy the book first? it was not expensive.
penny

Has anyone ever tried drying runner beans? Because all the books about food dryers are American, they don’t mention runners!

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Mat

I think the suggestion to buy the book before the machine is a really sensible one - that’s definitely the way to go. I found Mary Bell’s book slightly disappointing, in that it doesn't give very specific advice (on temperature, drying times etc) for individual crops. It’s worth getting for other aspects, though.

By far the best book I’ve found (not that there are many on the market, unfortunately) is “Making and using dried foods” by Phyllis Hobson (Storey Publishing, 1994; ISBN 0882666150).

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Mat

I too have been considering a purchase, but does anyone know how heavy they are on electric useage. What does it actually cost to dry a few ounces of surplus produce when the energy use is factored in.

This interests me from a sustainability point of view, I started to build a solar one, but fat chance of trialling it this summer !!!!

I have an 'in my head' design for a high efficiency solar dryer, but it is planned for Spain!<g> In the UK climate, it will always be a gamble.

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Flowers come in too many colours to see the world in black-and-white.