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The Pitchfork’s survival projects,
Blog of February 14, 2011, Product Review
Pitchfork © 2011
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Freely quote with attribution
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INTRODUCTION
This is a product review of the Excalibur 3900 Deluxe Series 9 Tray Food Dehydrator - White. 'Fork and The Missus got this kitchen appliance to dehydrate foodstuffs - veggies to start with - in preparation for worse times to come.
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Whassup With This
Kinda pricey, well recommended, safely delivered, easily unpacked, virtually intuitive to operate, especially after the email-shy albeshe both inspirational food dehydratingwise and easy on the eyes Tammy whose YouTubes' dialed 'Fork and The Missus into the food dehydrating mode [please see in this regard, among others by Dehydrate2store, "How to dehydrate and store food PART 1" - the first of a bunch of 'em worth the look-see and the look-see again. There are plenty of other Web sources for dehydrating info, while Tammy's seems more complete and comprehensive].
So far, 'Fork and The Missus have dehydrated sweet potatoes, white potatoes, Brussel sprouts, celery, carrots, onions, eggplant, head cabbage, peas, corn, broccoli, and cauliflower.
Conclusion: The Excalibur 3900 did ok.
Let's talk
Things to get straight
Dehydrating food takes time - at least several hours at a time, sometime the better part of a day, not counting prep, e.g., cutting, slicing, peeling, washing, blanching, and spritsing
The Excalibur 3900 is noisy - hummmmmm - without relief, unless it's a room or two away and there's at least one closed door in the interim space. Noisier than the Frigidaire refrigerator. Not deafening; it's droning noise. Can hear it through the floor along with the Sunpentown icemaker, but not the Frigidaire refrigerator so much.
The plastic web mats on which foodstuffs lay and racks supportive of the mats need washing pretty nearly every time you use 'em - some foods are inherently messy - e.g., broccoli for its green bitsies, potatoes for its starch - lemon sprits adds to the stickies, too.
While there are ledges for 9 racks, beware that the top rack seems not to have the headroom as do the others - would that feel kinda cheap, you think? Might could.
Dehydrating tips
Steam blanch small stuff - e.g., chopped and sliced veggies - a little if the produce is fresh. If frozen from store-bought or if processed some - like baby carrots - before packaging, 'Fork's read it'd be ok to skip the blanching
(Boiling) water blanch big stuff - e.g., whole potatoes - a little because the produce is fresh
Sprits with lemon juice to keep color truer to a veggie that's not green, e.g., potatoes - sprits; cabbage - do not sprits
Go real easy on blanching eggplant - it can go squishy-soft in a rush
Go easy on blanching whole potatoes, especially sweet potatoes, else they'll handle poorly (goo-up, stick together something awful, grate and dice poorly) in subsequent, cold slicing and grating (test: BBQ spear barely through)
If you're gonna peel potato skins, then be happy about the sweets the peels of which so far have finger-peeled in small-to-medium sheets; however, for whites, you can trouble yourself mightily with smaller whites (lots of little strokes of the peeler in close quarters with the hand that hold 'em) and over-blanched whites (peeling takes up a bit of potato, too, when over-blanched, and that itty-bitty extra potato can foul the peeler sometimes in only a few strokes, obliging a full stop for clearing the cutters)
Thoroughly chill whole potatoes before peeling (and even if you don't peel)
Figure about a fresh pound of whatever per rack - sometimes, you can stretch to, say, mebbe two pounds for small stuff such as peas, if you're ok with taking longer to gitrdun
Cold water rinse seems ok in lieu of the vaunted ice bath, and a lot less potentially messy and laborious
Think grating or dicing potatoes and not slicing, in order to reduce stored volume - slices curl up all this way and that - reckoning that either grated or diced can subsequently be converted to mashed . . . same goes for onions. Since first writing this line item, 'Fork and The Missus sliced some sweets, dehydrated 'em, and gotrdun flat, not urvy-curvy as on Youtube. The diff? They sliced closer to 1/4LI thick than 1/8LI thick. Mebbe it was the lemon juice sprits?
As for onions particularly, 'Fork and The Missus doubt that they'd ever again dehydrate onions. Pervasive, persistent odor, red eyes. Buy Frontier Products dehydrated onion flakes. 25# dehydrated is about equal to 250# fresh.
You cannot, far as the 'Fork's got it, get a foodstuff too dehydrated; however, it's been said within 'Fork's earshot that you can dehydrate too quickly, thereby toughening-up outer layers of the veggies thusly having been het-up in a hurry
Long-term storage and stored moisture in a not-quite-dehydrated veggie are not your friends. 'Fork settles for nothing less than crispy critters. No exceptions. When all else looks done-for, check each rack for stuff piled up (denser, dehydrates more slowly), and check lower racks for thicker stems and such (hot air rises, even in the dehydrator).
Crispy critters. You can test for moisture in a couple of ways - check moisture drops or fog in just-packed, supposedly done-for dehydrated food. Jar set upside-down to view the glass bottoms-up. Vacuum-sealed bag in the interior corners.
Be prepared to spend longer dehydrating store-bought frozen than for fresh - seems the frozen stuff is wetter, even squirty- and drippy-wetter. Might could this the gardener's equivalent of the cattleman's 'watered stock'? Ya think?
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