Food Dehydrators

It would be nice to buy half a sheep , 1/4 of a pig or 1/8 of a cow and a dozen chooks . Then sort it out ourselves as that is the cheapest way to buy the meat , but even with our massive chest freezer out in the garage there is no way we can handle that amount .

So , can you dry cubed/ 10 insh by 1.5 inch slabs of beef ( other than jerky & biltong ) , pork and chicken in the dehydrator .. if so what dishes / recipes do you use the reconstituted meat in ?

@Scorpio Rising wrote:Anyone have input about inexpensive, yet efficient dehydrators?  I have no experience with one, but it sounds do-able.

 My friend from South Africa makes his own biltong and dries all manner of fruit & veg  by placing a 40 watt light bulb in a batten bulb holder screwed down on to a chunk of wood   under an inverted glass pyrex dish  lid,  The lglass id is raised up from the floor on bricks .

 Over & around this he put a big home made bottomless barrel made from an 8 x 4 thin sheet of larch ply that has a 1/8 inch set of sticks under the edges to allow air flow .

To get the barrel shape he sprayed both sides of the ply with water and used three ratchet straps ,  top , mid way & one set  low down to draw the sheet in to the barrel shape , done over three or four days , re-wetting and tightening the ratchets  a bit more some three times or more a day  a day till it was completed .
He then glued and pop riveted the barrel side joint  together , putting a large flat washer on either side of the pop rivet hole to stop it tearing the wood apart as he popped then rivets.

 He then used a 3/4 hole cutter to set four 3/4 dia dowels  in the barrel sides so he can lay a simple stainless steel drying rack ( each of i these racks only just fits  in his dish washer ) across two of the dowels   , there are four rack levels
 
Once done he made a simple ply lid , put in several holes in it with the hole saw cutter for the hot moist air to escape , using cut down champagne style corks to plug up the holes as needed  to vary the out flow of warm moist air.
 
When it's set up , any liquid drips are soaked up by the concrete floor or they drip onto the Pyrex lid instead of dripping onto the light bulb thus causing premature failure of the bulb.


Karl said on more than one occasion ...if the  session is interrupted for too long and there is still too much moisture in the food  don't try to fridge it and reheat it at a later time as the bacteria  still in the in the meat will have started to reactivate and could cause toxic poisoning when it gets re dried out .

 The idea is to get a long slow continuous drying session for best results .
He's has made some great stuff in it , especially his biltong & apple rings for us guys to eat on our sea fishing trips with him when we're  out on a charter boat in bad weather .

 One tip he did give that has helped me to make jerky in our electric fan oven at 50 o C over night ( 21.00 hrs .  to 0730 hrs. )   with a kebab stick nipped up  by the doors top edge to keep it ajar to allow fresh air in and moisture out ...... is to pop the uncut meat in the freezer for two to thee hours so it forms ice crystals & part solidifies   ..it makes it so much easier to cut than  room temp fresh meat .
 I  cut our iced meat it into these easy to cut  1/4"  thick  uniform strips/slices with a boning or carving knife , let the slices de frost fully for a few minutes laid out on a big plate ice ,  then  dry them off individually  with kitchen towel before giving them a 24 hr  marinade session  .

I then use cocktail sticks to hang the marinaded strip across  the bars of the oven rack (set to the highest height )  with some aluminium foil laid over th big meat dish in the  bottom of the oven to catch the drips , as these are a nightmare to remove from the oven floor when you have finished  making your jerky .

@MelF77 wrote:I started looking at dehydrators last spring. I have a coworker that has a excalibur and loves it. Since this spring is gonna cost me a bit$ cause my yard is a blank slate, I may wait until fall to get 1. I do not doubt at all though that I would use it. I hate waste, but don't want to keep putting everything in my deep freezer. 1 more year and my fig trees should start producing full amounts. Fresh figs do not last long at all. plus all the other stuff I could dehydrate.

 
 As the flies that gives forth a type of thread worm just love ripe figs on the tree to lay their eggs in.

 You might have to spray the dried figs with liquid paraffin or similar  to kill any thread worm eggs off , for on reading yourn post  I've just  recalled that my pal  Tarrqui had said "( whilst  we were scoffing some fresh just of the tree figs we'd picked )  that they are a major  source of thread worms when fresh & that simple dehydrating  them does not kill the eggs off .
 
Perhaps checkout  a pack of dried figs to see what they use on their figs .