Grab whatever handy items you may have around and Make Your Own Dehydrator Yourself! 15-30min of sheer fun and ingenuity often produces as good, often superior results compared to commercial units costing several dollars.
Ingredients

Preparation

The “HotBox” is one of several boxes donated, (along with several hundred water bottles for my 10th Annual Man O’ War Marathon & Mini, Charity Run), Aluminum Foil, Tape were a typical home item. The plexi (for the half top is not usually lying around, however mine was leftover from covering the electric motorscooter i ride, now even in wintertime!) The “Heat” for the HotBox consists of a tube can holding one 60W bulb – this heats fine, any excess is easily vented moving the as needed! The grill i use for extra precaution, separates the drying “screens” (as they are plastic) recycled from stock – cut to fit into box.

1.) Box – prefer heavy stock box if possible, the size depends greatly on your choice of drying pans or screens, so do not let measurements “hang you up”, so choose your slot or hole size according to length (in my case, you may choose to put your supports across the Width!); 2.)Dowel rods – these can be broom stick handles, dowel rods or even make your own from sliced tightly rolled cardboard tubes (paper towel core)position them from end to end (or you may choose / box side to side)I made openings about two inches from bottom and approx.4 inches above that to get a SECOND DOWEL LAYER supported by tight box openings and used tape on dowel ends to secure the dowels from getting pulled out; 3.)The HEAT I get from my spotlight can, (living previously as a plant backlight), CAUTION: DO NOT EXPOSE A BARE BULB directly to flammable objects, therefore the most care should be devising a SAFETY METAL screen, or cast off coffee (please do not drink that stuff)can, etc. and secure your screw in base so bulb does not droop down to directly touch the can; Now my chosen position rewards heat dispension and safety benefits while my bulb can rest on a METAL cookie sheet, which rests two inches from the floor of the HotBox; 4.)Aluminum gets taped all around inside – or choose to recycle one of the many bags that contain an excellent mylar reflection source; 5.)The Clear Plexi – i use to cover half of the top (why?, that was the size of it) you might decide to use a SCREEN TOP, finished off with a Couple Pieces of Cardboard taped together!! The TOP is designed for convenience – allowing peeks into progress, by merely sliding the top back couple inches without losing much, if any, HEAT - who cares if you do not have that part! 6.) Drying screens for me came by way of Cookie Sheet and extra Window screen (i resized the metal frame window screen and sometimes use it, often i just use paper plates covered with wax paper supported by the Additional surplus Metal Oven Rack which is supported by the metal rack - PLUG IT IN BABY - you are HOT now!

drHall - OMG. I LOVE this!! I can't wait to try and build one. How much would you say, approximately, it cost you to build this? It's gotta be cheaper than an excallibur!! I really don't want to fork out the $$ for an excallibur but I need a better dehydrator than my American Snack Master round dehydrator. How do you think it compares to the excallibur, if you've ever had one? Another thing I want to build is some sort of apparatus to grow greens indoors w/o having to buy stuff. Any ideas for that? I'm trying to come up with something that I can make with these supplies, in our small back room:

1. Red bulb heat lamp - you know the type that goes in a chicken house
2. also have full-spectrum bulbs from reptiles we used to have
3. some 6 mil. clear plastic Grandpa left us
4. various sizes of thin scrap wood from an old box spring and 2x4's
5. duct tape!
6. salvaged wire shelves - 1x2 - about the size of a garden starting tray
7. thermometer

Angie

hey, this is kinda nifty. i need to see a picture though i think.

The other way to do it (never tried...but heard it on Good Eats) is to buy 3 or 4 of those cheap paper AC air filters....lay your food in the slats...bungee the whole thing to a cheap box fan....and air-dry on med-hi for 24-72 hours. Heh..heh. No mess!

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

I like the idea of a home-made dehydrator but the aluminum is a complete hazard. I stay away from aluminum anything, especially pertaining to food or anything that has direct contact with the skin.

Hi Angie and David and Life,

This costs NOTHING(whoohoo!), just use what you may have around house for construction.

Aluminum is not in food contact and with 105 degree heat,not environmental hazard (in box)but read carefully, did you see the excellent Mylar Alternative?

Thank you very much for your comments, if you get cold out in your garage, build yourself an insulated jacket out of "Bubble Wrap" shipping materials for about $3 bucks! Or maybe - Gloves for Nothing!!

Coco,

I have pics on 'GoneRaw' - no import mechanism here that I know of.



Thanks for comment!

Angie - looks like you have makings of indoor garden plot! The full light and red lights are good for growth, forget expensive grow lights, mostly hyped and power hogs - plants like the 680 and up spectrum anyway ... learn what liquid food concentrates you might provide in the way of hydroponics if you do not care for the soil growing method. personally, i do not have the time for monitoring Ph and temp for hydroponics. I use large plant pots for my garlic and some greens, and even tomatoes in my indoors 'garden'. My soil is carefully mixed of composted materials, however, should you choose to go hydroponic, coconut couir + clay pebbles are the easy way, and optimum growth medium.

Do you reuse the paper AC filters, David, in the dehydrator you mentioned?? Oooh - now I am totally inspired to do both a dehydrator and an indoor garden!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2007 07:51PM by angie1.

Do you have a link to the posted pics on goneraw?

drhall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Coco,
>
> I have pics on 'GoneRaw' - no import mechanism
> here that I know of.
>
>
>
> Thanks for comment!

[rawfoodtrip.blogspot.com]
[jugglingforjoy.com]

drhall, i looked but didn't find the pictures. where are they over there?

you can copy an image address of a pic that is on the internet already and add it into your posts here, or you can use an imagine hosting site like photobucket and copy and paste the images into your posts.

the instructions on how to do it are in the sticky "formatting your posts" at the top of the list of threads.

wow
seems complicated but guess it could work if i didn't have a picture in my mind of the whole thing catching on fire

what would be the differnce of doing that and just putting it in the oven on temperatures that are below enzyme destroying heat?

never tried either but seems like when i think of the latter choice, i don't think of fires billowing and wafting out the windows

I suppose you could Angie. You could always reverse em...and use the opposite sides....and get a few more tries out of em. Let me know if it works!

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Pics on Gone Raw ... Coco, look at HOTBOX! listing on first page of recipes.

la-veronique - complicated? I hope not, just a box with a light in it! The light is protected from touching AND TORCHING anything by living inside a protective cover, or can. poking holes in box ends and dowels shouldn't scare you off This design is based on FREE MATERIALS you have or can scrounge and based on safety principles.

Thanks for comments and interest shown.

Pic for HOTBOX!

dr hall

you are a very patient man