50+ thread

I wholeheartedly agree on the texture thing. What rarely gets addressed is what motivates people to make it. I lean way back into the original reason and that's primarily to have food with a longer shelf life. Another reason is I can pack a small amount and it goes a long way. 2 quart containers of strawberries from the produce section at the local market will dehydrate down to about 1/2 a sandwich bag of dried. But some folks are chasing that ultimate recipe so a person really has to start out by considering what it is they are trying to achieve. Then chase it from there.

 

yup till my buddy who owns the shop gets out that damn mason jar.then it can go down hill fast

 

OMG
Carol is making Homemade soup .

Just the smell is driving me crazy.
Won’t be long before I can’t take it anymore... lol

 

Well said

 

Drivers getting into their cars finally !!

 

Amen, perfectly stated. For me I love meat (obviously) and jerky is high on the list for a quick fix. But most of the store bought stuff has sugar added to it. Almost all of it that I have ever seen, and I am trying to avoid sugar when I can. And there is cost at about $1 an oz. for store bought. I can get top round for $5 a pound on sale. Yeah it shrinks but still...

I just threw away 3 tomatoes that went bad on me before I could eat them. And I love zucchini and eat a lot of it when it comes into season. Think I'm going to end up with a dehydrator after all. And then a dedicated smoker for fish. TW is getting expensive...

 

Yeah back in the day I was growing up still riding bicycles we would hang out @ the neighborhood store and car wash. Guys would wash their cars with the L 60 or M 50 tires on the back and do burn off with the wet tires as we youngsters watched sitting on our bikes! It was awesome with the cars going sideways! I had a great life growing up!

 

Agreed with TW spending my money! Just did the Pay Pal thing today.

 

That won’t help me....
I’m sensitive.....

 

Excessive sugar and additives are a strong motivator for me also. Before long I'll be seasoning my own jerky with my own spices. But it doesn't take a lot to get started. For firm fruits and vegetables I have a cheapo "banjo slicer" so there's some semblance of uniformity. If you have any kind of blender or food processor you can make fruit roll ups. But you can dehydrate just about anything. Just keep in mind that natural sugars will remain and be highly concentrated. And, since there's only a negligible amount of moisture left, you don't want to sit and eat a lot of it. It absorbs the moisture in your body and you'll feel kinda sick till.you slam a bottle or so of water. But I do cook a bit with what I make. Onion, tomato, garlic, zucchini, apples, pears, strawberries, bananas and meat are what I do mostly. But I'll probably throw in a tray of different melons. They'll take longer but I'm sure they'll work.

With fruit I sometimes let it go 2/3 - 3/4 drying time till it sort of "candies"...real chewy and sweet. And since there's no preservatives in anything I store it in zip locks in the freezer.

 

I made both boys take their DMV test with a manual trans.

When stationed in England, motor pool u-drives were predominately manual trans, it always amazed me when active duty military members came TDY and would complain they couldn’t drive a MT ... “I guess you’re walking.”

mine too...with a handgun any how.

book marked that one

 

I don't have my recipe in front of me (at Work) but it is a lot of liquid. I mix it up but it in vacuum bags for 24 hrs in the fridge.
Take it out of the fridge remove the excess mixture. then I put it in the dehydrator. This is for beef strips. I think I need to rethink my recipe for ground product.

 

Careful its a slippery slope with that. wayyyy to easy to spend.

 

Some recipes rely on a lot of moisture to distribute seasonings as well as breakdown fibers. With ground meat it's already broken down. So you could really dry it up and do a handmix like Mike.

 

Agreed. Side work is play money whatever that play may be....

 

With ground product you have more surface area to hold on to moisture.
Myself I have only done a few batches. But soaking ground product I would not do.
I put it in the bowl add a little and mix it. Let it sit in the plastic bowl and see if it runs.
Add a touch more and mix. I’m no pro but everything I have done ✅ has come out exactly like I wanted. My gun worked great with no excessive water ...
FYI when I did my strip batches when they came out of the bowl I soaked up the extra juice with paper towels.

 

that's what im thinking as well. I don't think my recipe will work for both. I'll search and experiment to find a good ground product one.
thanks

 

I bet he knows when all the fruit goes on sale

 

No can do... The nanny state of CT prevents driving a manual transmission vehicle on a learners permit!

 

WUT?