Oven drying surplus crops.

Harvesting and preserving your fruit & veg

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Westi
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I would dearly love a proper dehydrator but for the limited use it would get & the storage space taken it's not worth the investment. Does anyone oven dry their fruit & veg successfully? I have tried but the results were pretty pants, fruit was tough & wasn't impressed with the tomatoes which were not pretty!

The minimum temp on my oven is 50C which to me seems quite high when small sliced things are in there several hours. Any tips for success would be appreciated. The builder should have the garage converted for next years crop to be stored in an extra freezer in there, but I would still like to know your favourite recipes!

Cheers in advance!
Westi
sally wright
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Dear Westi,
this may sound completely counter intuitive but you need to keep opening the oven door. These are the reasons why.

A. You have just loaded up a sealed box(oven) with several pounds of water that you are hoping to remove from your fruit and veg.

B. This water cannot leave the box(oven) because there are no vents.

Thus we come to point C. You need to keep opening the door to remove this water otherwise your produce will not dry as the air inside the oven is saturated with water and no more can be released - either as steam/moist air or from the sides and door by wiping it off with a cloth. If you can wedge the door of the oven open slightly (and still have it work properly) then you can leave the oven to do it's thing without too much supervision.

I must admit I don't do this any more as I bought a dryer. I found it much easier to monitor and just deal with in general. If you get one with temperature control then you can use them at lower temperatures and the food does not discolour nearly so much.

Another tip is to use your baking cooling racks for layering the produce on to dry rather than sheet pans. Also don't forget to keep turning the produce over to allow it to dry more evenly. Especially items that have skins such as tomatoes, peppers, peaches and plums etc.
Regards Sally Wright.
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retropants
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Hi Westi, I successfully made 'sun dried tomatoes ' using Sally's method, I left the oven door cracked open and left them on min for a few hours.
Westi
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Thank you Sally, much appreciated.

None of the recipes I found mentioned opening the oven door. Seems obvious but it did not occur to me! Can I be a bit cheeky after drying what's the best way to store - do you put them in flavoured oil, or have another solution? No problems with the fruit, they don't last very long! ;)
Westi
sally wright
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I re-use the plastic boxes I get from the Chinese takeaway or le Parfait style jars usually. I forgot to mention that something like a flat wooden spatula is the best item for wedging the oven door open as plastic items may melt or taint the flavour of the drying food if they get over hot.

I don't really use drying a lot for food preservation these days as I have a large freezer, a nice cold shed and I also don't grow as much as I used to. I do dry herbs such as chives and tarragon etc; but not a great deal else.

I do use my dryer most years to make Orange slices for Christmas decorations (and for presents) as the cooler temps keep the colour of the rind much better than the oven. I use a mandoline to make sure the slices are even. The entire house smells like Chivers marmalade factory for days until they are dried enough.

One really good use |I have found for my dryer is to dry large seeds - using the fan only mind; which is especially useful in a damp Autumn. Pea and bean seeds have a disconcerting habit of going rotten even if they appear to be dry; so I take no chances with them!

I have got some pepper seeds of the sort that is used for making Paprika so I might try drying those when the pods are ripe. I got them off Amazon about 4-5 years ago and I have been saving the seeds ever since. This year is a seed saving year; I don't save seeds every year as you can get so many and they last for several years.
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Primrose
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I,ve only occasionally oven dried tomatoes. Some were kept in a plastic container in the fridge for short term eating. As mentioned previously I did store some in oil and never figured why they went mouldy as jars were sterilised.

I wonder if an airing cupboard with the door slightly ajar for moisture evaporation might substitute as a experimental short term alternative althiugh mine is always too full to be practical.

Hydrators look the best alternative but of course are too bulky to store, although with a permanent home growing community in this country I'm surprised some enterprising allotment groups or hire shops don,t offer them although i suspect there would always be peak demand in autumn and then a storage problem for the remainder of the year, just like the rest of us would have domestically.
sally wright
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https://urbanwormcompany.com/wp-content ... eek-10.pdf

This is a list of the water contents of a selection of veggies and fruit. If you weigh your produce before you start drying in grammes then you can work out how much water has been lost and whether they are dry enough to be stored.

Most produce should break with an audible snap and splinter into little pieces when it is dry. If it doesn't then it needs to be dried further. Items with skins can take much longer than you think to dry right down to inside layer next to the skin.
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