Food Dehydrators

If you’ve asked yourself time and again why on earth do we even need to own a food dehydrator, here are a couple of good and solid reasons to solve your question. If you are one of those people who like to indulge in dried meats and fruits every now and then, then you probably know how expensive dried foods are. So, drying them yourself and then dehydrating them can help you save up on a lot of money. Another great thing about the food dehydrator is its ability to dry and cure meats! This is a great option for those of you whole like dried meat. Again, it cuts down your costs considerably when compared to shelling out 5 dollars or more for a simple 1 lb bag of jerky! With a food dehydrator, you could easily make 2 or more lbs of jerky at half the cost.

You also get to make your own favorite snacks with just as little or as much sugar and salt as you would like and you know what exactly is contained in your food. The power of a food dehydrator is measured in watts, very similar to that of the light bulb. Look at it this way; a 100-watt light would be considerably bright right? But, how bright would that same 100-watt bulb be if it were placed in a 2000 sq foot area? It would still be reasonable bright, but it wouldn’t light up the whole area. Similarly, if you opt for a food dehydrator that has a capacity of 20 trays and you fill up all of these trays, and you only have 500 watts of power, then it is definitely not going to suffice and it wont dry it all the way. Instead, you should try to focus on smaller batches of around 8-10 trays of dehydrating at one go.

I personally prefer food dehydrators that have 1000 watts of power so as to dehydrate 20 trays or more. Again, it wouldn’t be wise to use all of these 20 trays at one go because it wont be able to dehydrate as thoroughly. On the other side, if you happen to buy a 1000-watt dehydrator and want to use only 2 trays in it, then the chances of it over dehydrating the trays are stronger, and of course you don’t want that to happen either.

If however you are not sure what to do, try to use a 1000-watt dehydrator and use 10 trays instead to maintain a standard medium. Another very important factor to note is that it would be unwise to mix different types of food items in the same batch for dehydrating. Different items require different levels of dehydrating, and if you are going to mix different items together that dehydrate at different levels, then you’ll probably end up with some items being under dehydrated and some being over dehydrated. Under dehydrated food are more vulnerable to developing different kinds of bacteria, which would probably leave you with an upset tummy and spending your whole day in the bathroom. Just like using a food dehydrator correctly is a very important factor to consider, choosing the right dehydrator is just as important.

How to Select the Right Food Dehydrator

There are many things to ponder over when buying a food dehydrator. Most food dehydrators will more or less do the job that they are intended to do. However, there are some that are best suit for certain applications than the others. When choosing a food dehydrator, don’t buy one that is overtly expensive or a dehydrator that is too big, especially if you are hardly going to use it. Buy the size that you will need at most times and buy a dehydrator that is neither too cheap nor too expensive, as either which way they can be very bad. A too expensive dehydrator may not suit your needs, while a cheap one may not have enough power to do its job.

There are two basic types of food dehydrators. One type has a vertical airflow, while the other type uses the horizontal airflow concept. The vertical airflow kind of dehydrators can be divided into two further categories – the types with the fan on top and the other type of with the fan at the bottom. However, horizontal airflow dehydrators are preferred by many because they don’t have as many problems like flavor mixing between the trays when different food types are being dehydrated. Horizontal types also tend to heat evenly between the trays.

When it comes to the vertical types, the one with the fan at the bottom is the best as far as heat distribution is concerned. The only drawback for such food dehydrators is that sometimes drippings are formed on the fat, which makes it very difficult to clean.

Size is just as important, depending on how many trays you are planning on dehydrating at one go. So dehydrators come with external walls that allow for trays to be slipped in and out. These are ideal if you happen to be dehydrating the same amounts of food each time you use the dehydrator. Then you have the other types of dehydrators that offer stackable trays and you can even purchase additional trays if you wish to expand the size. And, when you only need a few trays to be dehydrated, then you can remove the unwanted ones.