dehydrators and plums/prunes

[yummyveggies]

Hi I have lots and lots of plums / gages etc. and apart from Jam , freezing ,bottling , in brandy etc. I thought mmm we like prunes -
All those lovely devils on horseback Also are any particular varieties of plums good for prunes. The French ones from Agen are good - but not sure of the variety. Has anyone used a dehydrator to make them ? there seem to be two on the market - Stockli ( which I have seen an old thread about) and the more expensive / bigger / version from Excalibur.
Has anyone experience of using either ?
sorry seemed to have asked at least three questions on one posting here.. many thanks for your thoughts, yummyveggies

[Jane]

Have just bought a 5 tray Excalibur and am using it for the first time today. It is quite large so you need to store it somewhere but it has a huge capacity. I am drying tomaties and green chillies today. Plums sound great but no experience of doing it

Jane

[yummyveggies]

thanks Jane, I would be interested in the result of your tomato drying too .. cheers

[Jane]

Dried chillies are good. The tomatoes were mixed result. The medium sized tomatoes I sliced as thinly as I could but it said to halve the cherry tomatoes and dry as halves. The slices dried beautifully with a fantastic flavour-we ate a lot beforethey got into the jar! The cherry tomatoes were not dry after 9hours!!! so I abandonded them. It is obviously a bit trial and error despite having the instruction book with the drier and a book which I purchaseed separatley as well. My next attempt will be courgettes.
Jane

[yummyveggies]

thanks Jane the toms sound scrummy

[Gilly C]

I dry mine ad then freeze them sounds a little odd I know but I am frightened of botulism if stored in oil, when frozen they are easy to use and have a much more intense flavour and also take up a lot less room !

[Tigger]

I've got a drier that I bought from Aldi or Lidl - can't remember! It's excellent and was a fraction of the price of others available. It does take trial and error. Every batch will be different because of the varying moisture content.

Dried apple and pear slices work well but you need to use a mandolin to slice them evenly.

[PLUMPUDDING]

I've been thinking about getting a food dehydrator for a while, and have just bought the L'equip one advertised in the March edition of Kitchen Garden. It has 10% off and free postage. I haven't tried it yet apart from making sure it works, but it has lots of trays of different depths, inserts for if you are using finely chopped fruit and veg, trays for making fruit leathers and some tubs for making yogurt in. It has a thermostat and timer so should be much more economical than using the oven. They even include a free book on Eating Raw foods which has a few interesting recipes near the back, but the majority of the book seems to be rather evangelical and aimed at morons, but it is free,and the dehydrator is even better than I expected so I can't complain.