Hello!

I know this is probably going to sound really odd to you experts out there, but im wanting to get into dehydrating, and am concerned about the expense of the machines on the market (219pounds!?!!). Ive got a small slow cooker....and am just wandering if that would do the same job? I just want to do fruit and veg.....but dont want anything to burn because i wouldnt be putting any oil in the pot.

What do you think?

Thanks guys.
x x x

How hot does the slow cooker get?; anything above 115 F won't maintain viable enzymes, but would dry the food to preserve it. My Excalibur dehydrator only weighs about 8 pounds[I'm guessing]. Are you looking at huge commercial dehydrators?

219 pounds...are you referring to weight or GBP?

Well picked up Rawman...., i was actually referring to GBP but dont have the sign on my keyboard strangely enough!! And Tamhuka, the slow cooker temperature ranges from 230f- 374f!!

Thing is, i wanted to get the cheapest at dehydrator i could as...well you know money being tight and all that, and then realised that in actual fact the bigger the machine the more it dehydrates in one go....thus saving having to put it on over and over again if you want to dehydrate a large quantity (im only wanting to do veg, and make vegan sausages etc - but in batch)...and if i could do it all in one go, it would save on electric aswell. I dont intend to use it every day...perhaps once a week? (would i store the sausages in the freezer or just leave them out if i didnt want them until 6months don the line?)

But then there is the vertical or horizontal thing to consider and im concerned that if i dont get a good quality one then i might aswell not bother...ive read that horizontal is better?

mmmmm!

There are instructions out there for building your own simple dehydrator using two box fans and some airconditioning filters (the type without fiberglass). They use no heat, just air, and are easily dismantled and put together again. Plus you can use the fans when it's hot!

if you want the cheapest dehydrator possible, google "Alton brown dehydrator" as imto tired to go into all the details here, the one piece of advice I have to give though, is make sure you use furnace filters that dont have fiberglass, and dont have that anti-bacterial treatments on them, as I dont think those are exactly safe for human consumption... other than that, it works great, better than my moms conventional dehydrator, and the dried products end up tasting fresher to me than ones basically cooked in a conventional dehydrator... oh, it cost me like around $20 to make mine, as I got my fan used... and I jsut realized coco just made a similar suggestion,lol... although this is the first ive heard of using two fans! It would probably work awesome, but mine works great with 1 fan.

Veganicity,

I don't think it's a good idea to keep any dehydrated food lying around at room temperature unless it's stored properly. I have quite a few airtight containers in the pantry for just that purpose. As for your vegan sausages, I would keep them in the freezer and reheat as needed. As for freezer storage, ideally I would keep them vacuumed sealed. If you don't have a vacuum sealer, I find that sealing with several layers of plastic wrap and then wraping with paper-freezer wrap works best...does a good job at keeping ice crystals from forming.

I have a horizontal dehydrator. I think the type of dehydrator to buy should depend on your cash flow and needs. I looked at the round dehydrators in the beginning mostly because of price but found them not to be as convenient as the horizontal type. I still have to rotate the trays from time to time, but in the end, it's what you get used to using.