Dehydrator

[bushy palmer]

I've fancied one of these for a while now and finally bit the bullet last week and bought one.

The idea being that I can make my own lightweight backpacking meals to take with me on fishing trips.

I opted for a 9 tray "Excalibur" dehydrator from America.
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To try it out I made a monster sized pot of Chili Macaroni (enough for about ten meals) which I dehydrated overnight before storing in ziplock bags and freezing. After dehydrating, the whole lot weighed less than 200grams

I left one portion (unfrozen) in the cupboard as a sort of control measure which I had tonight for my tea.

This dog-turd like substance is how it looks prior to rehydrating.
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To rehydrate, I boiled it for 5 minutes and left it to stand for a further 5 minutes although "in the field" I plan to place the whole lot in a thermos jar with boiling water and leave it covered for about twenty minutes
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[Wildfisher]

Now that looks interesting.  How much did it cost?

[bushy palmer]

All in- just over £300 (there are a couple of extra things you need over and above the unit itself in order to dehydrate saucy-type things like my chili).

You can pick up different designs for quite a bit less but I opted for this version as they seem to be the most user friendly.

[bushy palmer]

IMHO - you can't put a price on never having to eat another fecking packet of super noodles!

At the moment, my cousin and I are planning an eight day fishing trip for June this year. We don't kill and eat fish so everything we eat will have to be carried in on our backs. This will hopefully mark an end to pot-noodles and quaker oats every other meal. The alternative I suppose, would be to buy the freeze dried or dehydrated camping meals but they are so expensive. Even if we purchased them on offer, it would cost more to support two of us for 8 days than the cost of even this unit.

[corsican dave]

£300!?!?!  :shock: Christ on a bike - I'd have fillet steaks helicoptered in to my campsite, with Gordon Ramsay to cook them for me, at that price!!! :crap

Liam, if you can get a helicopter for that price, let alone Gordon ramsey, please let us know..... :

[Wildfisher]

What's the advantage of the £300 model. I ask because there are others available for under £100

[bushy palmer]

It's to do with the distribution of the heat. The cheaper models tend to have the heat source and fan mounted on the bottom or top. It will still do the job but will require some more intervention from the user (ie swapping the trays every few hours to ensure that food on all the trays are getting equal times at all levels). The 300 quid jobs have the gubbins mounted in the back which eliminates the need for this. This suited me as (with very little free time on my hands) I will be using it mostly during the night.

That and the fact that I'm a greedy bastard (the 9 tray one has 15 ft of drying space )

[bushy palmer]

In other words Fred- A man leading a life of leisure such as yourself would get excellent results from the sub £100 ones

[Wildfisher]

So how do they work? Just gentle heat and air?

Don't think I'd spend £300 simply because  I don't think I'd use it often enough to justify it, but I am with you on avoiding  the super / pot noodle - that has to be worth a lot.  :lol:

[bushy palmer]

So how do they work? Just gentle heat and air?

Spot on! anything from 35- 60 degrees c depending on what your making.

It's possible to dehydrate food in a standard oven as long as you can set the oven that low and is of the type that can run with the door open (my oven does neither)