Food Dehydrators

[Scottishnewbie]

thanks jeanied - that'll be my job for tomorrow then!

[POTBOY]

i have mentioned this somewhere here before but i agree about the noise of the thing, it is loud, although i now keep mine in my lean-to conservatory and it has the added bonus of keeping the temperature up in there to keep my peppers and chillis cosy through the night.

[Scottishnewbie]

i just have to tell you that dried raspberries work brilliantly in the machine. i did a tray as a wee test last night and then had them with my breakfast cereal this morning - yummy or what!! and waaay cheaper than buying the cereals with the berries in them! i have another 3 trays ready to go tonight.

ps - noise doesnt bother me, no louder than the dishwasher being on but love your idea pot boy for keeping the conservatory termp up!

thanks for that

[OllieMartin]

I dried a load of my parsley yesterday. Worked perfectly, no suprises. I'd have frozen it except the freezers full and besides, I've still got about 10 times as much left in the garden.

[Scottishnewbie]

how long did the parsley take ollie?

[OllieMartin]

how long did the parsley take ollie?

Not sure, awful memory. It was considerably quicker than the tomatoes as you can imagine. Can't have been more than a couple of hours to fully transmogrify.

[OllieMartin]

Just trying some corgette crisps in it.
I've sliced 3 courgettes into 1/4" discs and put in there, not sure how long they'll take so will keep checking them.
Will report on them when they're done.

[Jillyreeves]

Mine arrived yesterday, birthday present from my brother. I am so excited and cant wait to try it out. I am sure it will really come into its own next summer when I plan to dehydrate my surplus tomatoes, strawberries and herbs, and anything else that that takes my fancy.

[Scottishnewbie]

they're great Jilly, you'll love it as much as the rest of us! brilliant way to preserve surplus

[OllieMartin]

Mine arrived yesterday, birthday present from my brother. I am so excited and cant wait to try it out. I am sure it will really come into its own next summer when I plan to dehydrate my surplus tomatoes, strawberries and herbs, and anything else that that takes my fancy.

If you're anything like as forgetful as me, I recommend you get a timer plug socket.
I left my tomatoes on all night last night. Most of them have gone a dark brown/black colour. Although I'm sure they'll be okay after a good long soak in oil and chopped up in something.

[snakeshack]

have just found this thread using the "excellent search facility"
I wondered if anyone would still recommend the westphalia model as its soooooo cheap compared to others or if anyone has experienced any problems.
If i'm going to buy one I want it before the season starts and was wondering if there were any recommendations

[Jeanied]

I would recommend the Westfalia as a good beginner's model. You can learn about dehydrating without shelling out for an expensive gadget, that you may decide you don't want to use very often. And they are on offer at the moment!

[OllieMartin]

Yup, recommended and lots of space.

The only negatives I would suggest:
1) The circular trays have a large hole down the centre (about the size of a half pint glass) which means laying large sheets on it isn't ideal. E.g. Fruit leathers. It's still possible, just not as easy as a square dehydrator.
2) Even though the trays can be stacked close together or far apart, I found that large halves of tomatoes still touched the tray above and stuck to it.

These aren't big problems, and for the price it's definately a good purchase. No point shelling out £100 if you decide dehydrating's not your bag. Just thought I'd paint you a critical review.

[ammi]

I don't have one, but there was a post about this one somewhere that I spotted today:

Food Dehydrator from Westfalia at our Curing food inside the Household shop
Much the cheapest I've found at £27.99.
Can't find the post now, but the user who commented on it said they use a timer plug to put it on when they go to work so that it runs for 8 hours drying their chillies.
Am thinking of getting this one myself.

EDIT:
ALERT: READ ME BEFORE BUYING
If you are going to buy this dehydrator, enter the coupon "SAVE10" on the purchase page to save an additonal 10%

Google is a wonderful tool
ALERT: READ ME BEFORE BUYING

Thanks so much for putting this on. My dog is diabetic and cannot have commercial dog treats as they contain to much fats sugars and general carbs for her but with one of these I can make my own healthy dog treats for her. She sends a very happy wag to you.

[OllieMartin]

Thanks so much for putting this on. My dog is diabetic and cannot have commercial dog treats as they contain to much fats sugars and general carbs for her but with one of these I can make my own healthy dog treats for her. She sends a very happy wag to you.

Yay, I got a wag! (Now if only that was a W.A.G.)