good morning everyone. I hope and pray the weather is behaving in your neck of the woods. it seems to be playing nicely right here, but it's still pretty cold. 37 degrees this morning and I don't think it's planning on warming up much more than that. we have a couple of errands to run in a little while and I'm not looking forward to getting out. hahaha as for me, I'm still dreaming of gardening and warm weather. truth be known, that time will be here before long and I really want to be ready for it. I hope and pray that you all are looking forward to a good growing season.
well todays post came from something that I seen a little earlier this morning and I started to put a comment on a fb post, but I decided I would bring my comment to my blog page. I hope you all know me well enough from the years that I've had this blog, to know that I try to share what little I do know.
most of what I know for sure, I've worked it out the hard way and that's by experience and experimenting. when I first started dehydrating, there wasn't mr google pants or yahoo or fb to ask questions. any questions I had, I asked them to myself and then set out to find an answer to my own questions on how to get better results. I got better results by experimenting with my dehydrating than I ever have by asking others. most of the people I know in my circle of influence don't have dehydrators, so that's why I couldn't ask questions. but, that's why I try to share, because I know not everyone have people that they can ask questons to.
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anyway, was just doing a little online surfing on facebook. it blows my mind at all the misinformation about dehydrating that's out there. it's amazing to me that I see people getting new dehydrators and never even taking time to learn a little bit. I started dehydrating back when there wasn't any online research, more than 25 years ago. I plugged it out the hard way. I tried and tried until I got it worked out. I'm still working on my dehydrating doctorate from the school of hard knocks. hahaha
I now have my second and third dehydrator. both are smallish and cheapish. and I have learned how to use them. not by going to facebook, but by going to my kitchen and doing the hard work.
I see people saying "I have the best dehydrator that money can buy and I have been dehydrating for a long time and there is no way you can get your produce cracker crisp, rock hard and bone dry." well, I'm here to call that crap!!!!!
because I have learned to use my dehdyrators!!!!! I've spent the time. it's not rocket science, it's just hard work. and I've done it. the people saying that you can't get your produce crispy are still just parroting what the books say. the books say to dehydrate everything at 145 degrees or higher for 3 or 4 hours. the people that wrote those books are "NOT" people that spend their days and nights in the kitchen working it out. they're people who sell books and products and they want it to sound good. they read what someone else wrote and the cycle continues. I guess I have made it my job to try to break the cycle of bad misinformation about dehydrating.
it doesn't sound good if the books tell the truth, that lowering the temperatures will give beautiful, eye appealing results in 48 to 96 hours as opposed to lying and telling people 4 to 6 hours at the high temperatures. lowering the temperatures will prevent case hardening. they don't tell you that. that's where the outside of something will dry but the inside remains wet and will produce mold in longterm storage. so they're not gonna tell you about that.
the books don't tell you that you can and will scorch the natural starches and sugars in your produce on the high temperatures and everything will be dark to black in color. the books don't tell you that at lower temperatures, you can leave your dehydrator running until you want to take the produce from your dehydrator and your produce won't ever get dark from over dehydrating, like it does, can and will at higher temperatures. the books say you can't "over dehydrate", but if you have anything that turned dark colors, the temperature was too high and it was "over dehydrated". it can even still have moisture in it, but it's still "over dehydrated". kinda like burning a piece of meat on the outside and it still being blood raw on the inside.
the book won't tell you that at lower temperatures for longer periods of time, you'll have amazingly beautiful produce. no discoloring. just gorgeous fruit. no case hardening, just gorgeous fruit.
the books won't tell you that you do need to get "rock hard, cracker crisp and bone dry" for it to be shelf stable for years. the books won't tell you that.
and that's why I see people all the time on facebook asking why their produce won't get dry. then people tell them, saying "I have the best dehydrator on the market and your produce won't ever get rock hard".
well, then you don't have the best dehydrator on the market or you haven't invested time in learning how to use it. it's one of the two. I'm here to tell you CAN get crispy produce, even fruit.
no, Iv'e not gotten crispy grapes/raisins because I haven't tried to. because we know what grapes/raisins are supposed to be like. but if you pinch a piece of grape and it's syrupy inside, it will mold in your jar. same with pineapple chunks. you probably won't get pineapple chunks crispy, but if you pinch it and liquid or sticky comes from it, it will mold in the jar on your shelf.
all my citrus is cracker crisp. all my apples are craker crisp. two jars of plum slices, cracker crisp. watermelon, when I do it, cracker crisp. all vegetables, cracker crisp. even fresh pineapple, thinly sliced is cracker crisp. purely divine.
I never brought a dehydrator home opened it and stuck something in it and expected perfection right out of the box. I guess because I'm old enough to know people want to sell stuff and if they told you there is a learning curve and if they told the truth, most people would walk away from their products. so they sell gadgets with unreal expectations and the people buying them don't know that. then they have failure after failure and they blame it on cheap dehydrators. the key to any of it is taking the time to learn what you can do with what you have.
I'm thrilled that people can go to store and walk out with the best that money can buy. but if you don't learn how to use it, and telling someone else that I've got the best that money can buy and it doesn't get my produce crispy because that's impossible to do anyway, I say you're not as smart as you think you are and you don't know how to use your dehydrator.
so, that's why I come here and share with anyone here that's interested in learning how to use their dehydrator. ignore the times and temperatures that the books have. that just sets you up for major frustration and failure.
if it's not cracker crisp, rock hard or bone dry when it comes off the dehydrator, you're doing something wrong, especially if you want long term storage.
I see people saying all the time that dehydrated produce won't last but maybe a year at best. that's a lie!!!! I have dehydrated produce that's 3 and 4 years old and it's as good as it was the day I took it from the dehydrator. why??????? "LOW AND SLOW!!!" that's why. I never set my dehydrator above 115 degrees and most of the time it's set on 110 degrees. and for herbs, I set it way lower than that.
I see people telling others to dehydrate outside!!! for pete's sake, don't tell anyone to do that!!! do you know what your humidity is? do you know what their humidity is? do you think a small dehydrator can dehydrate the humidity from the the great outdoors? sitting here right now, my humidity inside is 49 and outside 79. 49 for inside is high humidity. I don't have anything on my dehydrator right now, but that would be a factor for the time I would have to take into consideration to dehydrate something. and I sure wouldn't dehydrate outside. and I wouldn't be dehydrating anything outside in the spring, summer or fall. simply because of humidity. plus, you have insects to deal with. if you want insects in your dehydrator, by all means, put it outside. but it won't dehydrate faster outside and you'll be sharing with insects. so for those who share bad info, be sure and share that too.
I'm so thankful that I beat it out the hard way and learned how to use all the dehydrators that I've had and not had to deal with trying to learn how to use them from all the bad, misinformation information out there. it gets worse all the time.
and just so you know, that's exactly why I started trying to share what little knowledge I have about dehydrating. my knowledge has come from experience. hard experience. when you lose even one jar to mold, that's one jar too many.
I'll also see people telling new users to par boil everything!!!!!! if you're a camper, that may be the way to go, but I would be very hesitant, even then. when you blanch your produce, you're losing a ton of flavor. don't blanch onions, you lose all the flavor, same with celery and carrots and just about everything else. potatoes are the ONLY thing that I blanch, that I can think of.
I also see people trying to dehydrate avocadoes and olives. these are high oil and fat produce. oil and fat does not dehydrate, but it does go rancid. it will even go rancid quicker on the dehydrator than it will in normal circumstances. have you ever opened a new jar of some kind of oil and you get a whiff of rancidity? well, that's because the oils were heat extracted and already rancid by the time the oil was put in the jar. they put a little bit of some kind of odor reducer in the with the oil, hoping you'll not smell the rancid mess. next time you open some of the cheaper oils, take a good whiff and see if you can smell the rancid oil. if your nose knows, you'll be able to detect it. when you put avocadoes and olives on the dehydrator, you're speeding up the process of rancicity.
but people are gonna do what people wanna do. and then new users will see that shotty stuff being done and then here you go, they're doing it too. and then asking why they can't get their avocado dehydrated. well duh, you can't dehydrate an avocado!!!! plain and simple. but I seen someone else do it. what you actually seen was someone attempt it. you didn't see the finished product.
while I'm at it, neither can you dehydrate honey. honey is one the most hydrophyllic products on the market. it is always naturally looking for moisture and it will immediately pull mositure from the ambient humidity. "but I see it for sale in the online store, powdered honey." have you checked the ingredients of what you can find in the online stores? check them out. absolutely none of them are true, real, raw 100% honey. they are cut with sugar. if you don't believe me, look for yourself. some of it even has artificial honey flavor added. it would have to have a honey flavor added because of all the sugar they would have to add to the honey to even get something to dehydrate. it would just be granulated sugar, which is what it is, just with a little artificial honey flavor added. real, raw honey is far too expensive to waste even on a small experiment. so this is the debunking of dehydrating honey. you can't dehydrate real, raw honey.
when I am trying to learn something new, I will seek out experienced individuals. the ones who have tried and true experience. those are the people I want to learn from. if what they say makes sense. if their approach to doing whatever it is, makes sense. you may hear someone say something like, "yeah, this is what the manual says, but after failure after failuer, this is what I learned". those are the people I want to listen to. not the ones who say "I have the best that money can buy and I've been dehydrating for years and nothing ever get's crisp." you my friend, have not learned to use your expensive gadget. I try not to put others down. but if you want information, tried and true information, then that's exactly what I share here. my info on dehydrating has been garnered the hard way. I've worked it out over days and nights and even years.
so when I share something, it's coming from a place in me that's wanting you to have success and not deal with the failures I dealt with. I want you to go to your pantry and pull a jar of apples thats 4 years old and still crispy and beautiful. and I want you to know that all your hard work will still be good years from now.
once you get a lot of beautifully dehydrated goods stored up, keep them away from direct light and heat. put them in a cabinet or closet away from direct light and heat and in a cooler place in your home. when you need to take from a jar, make sure you seal it back up good. don't open another jar of the same product until the first one opened is used.
another issue that I see come up is others telling the new users to dip everything in lemon juice or lime juice to keep it from turning dark. well, if you want everything tasting like lemon or lime, then that's the very thing to do. people will even say they dip their potatoes in lemon juice to keep them from turning dark. well, it's obvious that they have never ever tried anything else. after all the books say to do that. I say learn to use your machine. learn a little bit about sugars and starches and what heat does to them. and this I say again, learn to use your machine.
that's where the LOW temperatures come in at. if the temperatures are low, and you do your prep well, then your potatoes will NOT turn dark. I don't know how many jar of potatoes I have shared on here before, but not one dark jar. oh, I'll take that back, I did have one jar of dark potaatoes just to show the difference doing prep work and not doing prep work. and I did throw those potatoes away. it was a lot of hard work, but it served it's purpose.
I always always always soak my potatoes in cold tap water as I slice them. I'll slice with my mandolin and put them in a bowl of cold water. when I get my bowl full, I'll pour that water off and run more cold water, then I'll pour that off one more time and then they go into a pot of boiling water for 3 or 4 minutes once it comes back to a boil. my overall soaking time in just plain water is about 20 to 25 minutes. when you're pouring off the water, notice how milky it looks. each time you rinse and let it set for a few minutes, it will get more starch, but it will also be less milky.
when you get to the point that for the most part, the water is clear, then you've done enough rinsing and soaking. some potatoes will have more starch than others. having said that, it may take more rinsing and soaking to get the water to the point of being clear instead of milky. and some poetatoes may not take as much rinsing and soaking. that's where really watching each step comes into play. and I would also suggest taking notes as you are learning. write down type of potatoes, how much rinsing it took, what the water looked like, time you let them soak and rinse. just anything you can think of that might be of benefit in the future. that's what I done early on and I don't regret the time it took to take notes. I wish I still had my note book, that would be something worth sharing too. starting out, keep a note book on everything you do. times, temps and whatever else may help you with your next project.
anyway, while my water is coming back to a boil, I'll get a bowl of ice water ready. when the timer goes off, I scoop out the potatoes and put them in the ice water to stop cooking and then when completely cooled, I'll put them in a collander to drain and then I'll put them on my dehydrator at 110 degrees for how ever much time it takes to get them cracker crisp. and yes, I can get all my produce that needs to be cracker crisp, cracker crisp. my potatoes definitely come out beautiful. as beautiful as what you find in the store bought, boxed potatoes. only difference, no citrus of any kind was used in the dehydrating of my produce. only water and lots of it to rinse away the sugars and starches.
but just to make sure I said it, yes you can get crispy produce if you put the work and time into it. and if you've been dehydrating for years and you're not getting crispy produce then somethings wrong with your technique.
I guess that's all I have on this subject right now. I may need to go thru my blog one of these days and copy all my dehydrating blogs and put them all together and make a book. I just wish people would take more of an initiative and do some experiments for themselves. that's what I do, when I hear someone say something, like what I've been saying for years, I do my own testing and find out whether it's valid or not.
oh well, this is just my ramblings on something I love to do and love to share. I have always loved when people share things to help me be better in the kitchen. by them working out the kinks, I don't have to. and that's what I've felt like I've been doing or at least trying to do. I'll keep sharing and hoping others will learn from it. that's my only goal, trying to teach others. I don't have anything to sell, just hard fought for and won, information that I freely give away because I want everyone that has a dehydrator to be successful. and the books don't set us up for success, just failure and we don't even know it, until we do know it. I think that's probably why you see a lot of dehydrators in second hand stores in the months following Christmas. they have expectations that are impossible to reach with the info given. a very few of us have learned differently and we do try to share.
well, I guess I'm off my rant now. I just want people to learn the right way. is my way the only right way? I don't know if it is or not. I just know that I don't hear of too many that are doing things well enough to have success, so I do know that what they are doing isn't good enough to be sharing their techniques, especially if they admit to not being able to get crispy produce. if you can't get crispy produce, you don't have anything to share.
and this is just my take on all the bad dehydrating information being shared by people who don't any better, and picked up by more people who don't know any better. this is me trying to cahnge the situation. I'm sorry if this came across as me being angry, but I am angry and just trying to share experienced information.
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I hope you all have a blessed day today and that you remember to keep Christ first place in your lives. abundant blessings be on all of us today. hugs and love, patty
