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Food Drying For Preserving.

Keith

Keith

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All foods can be dried, vegetables & meat & all vegetables can be dried, even brassicas. You can dry foods in the sun, or over a fire or in the open oven of a wood fired stove.
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Pumpkin sliced & placed on oven trays ready for drying.
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Apple sliced & placed on racks for drying on top of our wood fired stove, & in the open oven.
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Using office filing draws for drying foods over the top of our wood fired stove.
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Sliced apple on a rack over a wood fired heater during winter.
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Potato sliced thin & dried looking like potato chips.
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Roasted pumpkin seeds for a tasty snack keep for ages.
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Corn strung on strings in the house for drying on the cob.
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Parched corn, dried corn & popped corn, all make excellent trail foods.
Keith.
 
Nice Keith, although some of the food looks to be over dried, more cooked than dehydrated. You'll get better results from the consistent temperatures provided by electric driers and use you oven for emergency backup IMHO.
 
I love this stove. We have a vintage AGA but its unpredictable.
As for drying food. We do quite a bit (nothing like what you're doing) because we sail and travel off the beaten track to places where fresh food isn't always obtainable.

I like the tip about corn.
 
use a lower heat setting, the idea is to dry it not cook it.
I've heard of people using their airing cupboards.
 
Set the bottom element of the oven on lowest setting, usually 50 degrees C and leave the door ajar as though you were using the grill. Ventilation and indirect heat are key to getting it right.
 
Rhona Ann Oliver said:
great tips but what can ou do if you only have electric cooker
Click to expand...
Well if it was me, I would not use the electricity to dry foods, UNLESS I already had the stove on for some other purpose. If you have the stove on for cooking, you could find a way to dry foods from the heat already being created. If you do not have warming racks below or above, then perhaps you could make up some simple racks to somehow attach or hook over the top of the stove. Think out of the box.
Keith.
 
Thanks, all of you. You've confirmed I got at least a few things right. I have a dehydrator, and a Vac-packer. I've been drying food of all sorts, fruit, veg, jerky, fish and so on for quite a while. I had a few disasters at the start, but I've manged to put together a lot of dried 'trail meals' from all this. A tip from me: I found a place doing the original Vesta meals and bought a cpl cases of mixed ones. Why not? It's food. We are both reasonable foragers, my partner is better on the plants, 'shrooms and so on, I am better on the wildlife. Ever tasted squirrel? Try it!
 
@Keith
Mist this thread.
Your a Man of many talents Keith. As it happens I have pumpkins to carve for Halloween this week. And wouldn’t doing what you have in your picture above (roasting the seeds ) if you don’t mind Keith could you give me a rundown of what to do please :thumbsup:

My next venture along the lines of this will be bilton/beef jerky. Love the stuff.
 
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