Food Dehydrating

I struggle with all the instructions that recommend using sodium bisulfite to preserve dried fruits. I cannot find anything that gives reliable storage times for dried, untreated fruit. And there are the predictable articles claiming that all preservatives are bad, but I've yet to find anything real specific on S.B. other than some asthmatics have issues with it.

My recipes for the apples, kiwi and bananas said to soak them in lemon juice before dehydrating. I once read that bottled [factory] lemon juice has a consistent ph level, so rather that squeeze all those lemons and not know the degree of benefit, I purchased bottled. The next day it occurred to me to read the label. It has sodium bisulfite as a preservative.

 

Regarding new recipes: When I lived outside of the DC area, I would get the Wednesday Washington Post. That's the day for the Food section. I would make an effort to try one unusual recipe once a month. The strangest (but still very good) was chicken thighs roasted with papaya, mango and Bacardi rum. "Drunken Papaya Chicken." I think my favorite was Beef & Asparagus in a black bean sauce. Also good with shrimp.

 

Black bean sauce is Asian...used in stir-fry. You can find it pre-made in jars. I like to either make my own with fermented black beans (again, an Asian thing), or at least stretch the jarred stuff with extra fermented beans. It's very good. edit to add: These are not black turtle beans, but are black soybeans.

 

If I can find it, I'll post my recipe for Cuban Black Bean Soup in the Recipes section and tag you on it.

It is very good. The soup is baked in the oven...I bake it in a Crock Pot crock. I bet it's got 20 ingredients.

 

I just found a new use for my food dehydrator.

I made some coconut cookies again, and what ended up being a rather large batch of oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips, nuts, cranberries, etc. I didn't have enough countertop room for all the cooling racks, so I let the cookies cool down a little bit, then put them on the perforated dehydrator trays. The dehydrator has a separate thermostat and blower timer, with the fan mounted in the back of the machine, so I left off the front door and let cool unheated air blow across the trays of cookies.

In no time flat, they're cool enough to put in Ziploc bags. The dehydrator has 9 trays that are 144 sq inches each, while the large rectangular cooling racks are 160 sq inches each, so I now have a bunch of extra-speedy cooling space.

 

Today I made my first batch of beef jerky. It was OK, but not "OMG!" good. Next time I need to get out my meat slicer so the slices are more uniform, and buy a roast-sized piece of meat rather that the 2 steaks the deli guy sold me to use for this.

I chose this recipe because in addition to soy & Worcestershire, it has Teriyaki sauce, pineapple juice and balsamic vinegar. The finished product tasted strongly of soy sauce. Recipes for jerky are all over the place (6 ingredients to 12 ingredients.) Some yield 1/2 cup of marinade per 2# of beef, while this recipe makes over 2 cups of marinade per 2# of beef. Some have no sweeteners (honey or brown sugar) at all while others are 40% sugar by volume (this one is 18%.) I guess there is no such thing as "doing it wrong."

The next one on my list relies heavily on cracked black pepper for its flavor (and it's the only one that adds water to dilute the soy & Worcestershire flavors.) It also has coriander seeds.

 

I made jerky again. I used the same teriyaki/pineapple juice/balsamic recipe and bought an eye round roast. I dug out my meat slicer so the pieces were uniform. The results were much better.

The interesting thing is that this is barely cheaper than buying jerky at the store. A large (10 oz.) bag of Jack's is $1.09 per ounce. A 1# roast yielded 7 ounces of homemade jerky. At a little over $5/pound, that's $.80 per ounce just for the meat. That only leaves $2.50 to cover the cost of Worcestershire, balsamic vinegar, teriyaki sauce, pineapple juice, etc. until homemade becomes more expensive than store-bought...and that's assuming you only pay $5 for the meat.

Making a less exotic jerky will keep the homemade cost at the low end of the scale. And the smaller store bags are $1.36/ounce. But homemade jerky is never gonna be about saving money (although this website says you save over $250/year if your household eats 1 1/2 pounds of jerky a week.)

Homemade is good. The finished product made in a dehydrator is more like tender/chewy dried beef rather than the tough leathery stuff you buy in a bag (a matter of personal preference.) From what I read, the texture of homemade jerky made in a smoker more closely resembles the store-bought stuff. I may try that when the weather warms up.

 

I bought some oxygen absorbers a few weeks ago so decided to dehydrate some more stuff, knowing that with the O2 absorbers I can store it for a while without concern over it going bad. I'm not confident enough in my ability to know if the food is completely dry so that I can safely eat it months down the road.

This is what one of them looks like:


They are used in long-term food storage. Most folks store their foods in mylar bags, throw one or two of these in it, then seal the end. The O2 absorber prevents the food from oxidizing, and the mylar is durable and prevents light from getting in. I've done that process in a "Stop Hunger Now" event in a multiple-church program where we had bulk food delivered to us (dried veggies, rice, seasoning, vitamin powder) and set up assembly lines, weighed out each ingredient into mylar bags, threw in an O2 absorber, sealed it up, and had the meals sent out to wherever they are needed. Just add water. I think we packaged 30,000 meals (may have been more) in the space of a few hours. Dried foods packaged this way can last over 25 years.

Here is a sample of the foods I've just done:


Top row: Banana/Kiwi/Jerky
Bottom row: Raisins (aka dried grapes)/Pineapple/Apple

You can see the O2 absorbers. I use vacuum seal bags rather than mylar, since I'm not gonna have these long enough to worry about light intrusion. And I figure I can take out a serving and reseal the bag without replacing the O2 absorber each time since I'm already vacuuming out most of the air.

I may have mentioned that you can speed up the process for drying grapes if you blanch them first so the skin cracks, allowing the moisture to escape more easily (this is called "checking" or "crazing.") Or you can slice them in half. Doing this speeds up the dehydrating process (12-24 hours.) I've made raisins twice, and have left the grapes whole. They take 3 whole days!!! Those skins really hold the moisture in!!! Next time I'll craze some of them to see how long they really take and if it changes their flavor or texture...I forgot to do that this time.

Out of all the dehydrated fruits I've made, the pineapple is obviously the sweetest. This process really concentrates the sugars in it. But I like the raisins the best. This is probably because I have a frame of reference for the store-bought product...these are way better (and way bigger.)

Now I'm set to make another batch of Trail Mix.

 

You likely realized that's a preservative. I've been loathe to use any, but I may be dehydrating a bunch of stuff. Desperate times...

 

I'm jealous. I know three things and can only remember one.

 

I just finished prepping & steam blanching (with some sodium bisulfate) 4# asparagus, 3# broccoli and 2# brussel sprouts, and have the broccoli and the sprouts in the dehydrator. I'll throw the asparagus in there tomorrow when I pull the other stuff out. With everything that's on the horizon, I want to have at least some green veggies besides canned on hand.

@Don Alaska @Yvonne Smith @Mary Stetler and anyone else who preps...can you point me to a resource that tells me when to use desiccant and when to use O2 absorbers in mylar bags? For the life of me I cannot find a decent answer, and I'm not sure which to use with these dehydrated veggies. I know to not use them together (unless they're at opposite end of the container), but I cannot figure out which to use in this case. Actually, from what I've read in other forum comments, I've not really seen where folks are using O2 absorbers except to toss into the 5# pails with the sealed mylar bags of stuff...I'm not sure they really have a reason for doing this. It seems that folks pretty much stick to desiccant.

edit to add: This is turning into a Pit. I gotta try to sleep with the smell of dehydrating brussel sprouts permeating the air all night. Maybe I can put some old socks under my pillow to offset it.