New Dehydrator - an Excalibur!

9 Tray Excalibur Dehydrator

Yeah! I got a new dehydrator! I posted a bit ago about soaking nuts overnight and the pictured dehydrator was my very old round white one. It's noise was getting irritating, sounding like it wanted to croak.

The Excalibur is very well rated and gives you so many more options and space. If you wanted to dry very lofty things, like large flowers, you can remove some of the shelves. Some people use it as a warm place to raise bread, or make yogurt, removing all the shelves. And it has more temperature options.

I like how it evenly dries with its fan at the back. I always shifted around my other's drying trays to be closer to the bottom heat source. And round fruit leather with a center hole? Before that one I had the Magic Mill dehydrator (which is now the improved L'Equip) and even tho I shifted around it's shelves too, at least fruit leather was rectangular - easier to wrap and roll up in plastic wrap.

Years ago my dehydrator was running non-stop as summer waned. I stored most stuff in zip-closure bags and had jars in the pantry I'd refill for easy access. Like now I've got the nuts in jars that I keep refilling. I'm telling you ... dried corn, or peas, or broccoli ... are like candy! I like having dried mushrooms and onions and herbs handy.

I stopped canning when I learned about the nutrient loss (I may do tomatoes when have access to a lot). Nutrient loss for canned produce is about 40%; freezing about 15%, and dehydrating, depending on your process is almost nil.

I used to make jerky in the oven. Now I'm anxious to dry it in the dehydrator. And raw foodists have great ideas for dehydrator usage. I am going to be dehydrating my kale chips now. I'll be drying more of my garden produce and herbs next season!

Soaked and dried pumpkin seeds, almonds and pecans