Hi! I'm borrowing a dehydrator from my in-laws, so that I can try out some cracker and bread recipes, maybe cookies, stuff like that. It's not one of those rectangular-tray dehydrators like the excalibur, though... it's one with stacked ring-shaped trays. It has three settings- high, med, and low. The trays have holes in them, for drainage I suppose. My in-laws mostly use it to make jerky.

So my question is, can I use this type of dehydrator for raw bread/cracker/cookie recipes? What setting should I put it on, and what should do about liquidy bread recipes that might drip through the holes in the trays? If anyone has experience with this type of dehydrator, please do let me know! (^_^) I actually don't have experience using ANY dehydrator, so I suppose this will be an experiment.

hi arie.

yes you can use this type of dehydrator for cookies/breads/creackers but you will need to play and have fun while you figure out the right temperatures and drying times for your particular product model. most of us have only experimented with the pleasures of excalibur dehydrating so the suggestions we offer may not be the most useful if the product model you've got behaves differently.


that being said, a few basic advice notes on dehydrating ...


for the temperature setting for the machine, you want to optimally keep the temp in the 110-118 degree range. That might mean a setting of "low-medium" or "medium" if the machine does not have a temperature gage. You want to cover your trays with plastic wrap so that all the holes are covered and the tray is completely lined. most excaliburs have what is known as a "teflex sheet", a non-stick plastic sheet that goes over the mesh trays in order to dehydrate sticky, moist or drippy items. this is what you are trying to create with your plastic wrapped ringed shaped trays.

I would not necessarily suggest making breads in your model.
Raw breads require drying time on plastic sheets to firm up their goopy softness and they also require a few hours of final drying time on mesh to have the air circulate around the bread for a complete dry so it won't get moldy.
Unless you feel your circular trays with the holes ( sans plastic wrap at that point) would give the bread sufficient air circulation, i wouldn't make breads on it.

I would keep things easy and play with making cookies, crackers ( flax are incredibly fun and simple), dehydrating wet soaked and sprouted nuts and seeds, vegetables and fruits.


hope this helps..

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Hello,

I don't know if you are still following this thread, but I have made some good crackers using one of those old fashioned round dehydrators. The thing is you really have to use a different approach than people use for the Excalibur type dehydrators.

This is a rough idea of what I do (sorry I don't really have exact measurements). The main idea is to make a very STIFF dough, something that can be rolled out very thin and cut into crackers. I usually start with carrot or beet pulp left over from juicing and maybe grind a little onion, garlic, or red/green/hot pepper into the pulp using a food processor. You could also add some soaked seeds if you wanted. You should end up with a wet pulp. Take this and put it in a bowl and add ground flaxseed until you have a drier stiff dough. I usually add just a pinch of Celtic Sea Salt, but be careful with the salt because it is very easy to add too much.

Now take a handful of the dough and roll it out between two sheets of wax paper. It may also be helpful to lightly brush or spray the wax paper with oil to prevent the dough from sticking too much. Roll the dough out so that it is even and about 1/8 inch thick. Then carefully peel off the top layer of wax paper, set the paper lightly back on top and quickly flip the whole thing over. Now remove the top layer of wax paper (originally the bottom). Doing this peel and flip and peel thing makes it easier to remove the crackers intact. Now simply score the rolled dough into cracker-sized pieces, gently remove with a spatula, and place carefully on the dehydrator trays. The thinner you can get the dough the crispier the cracker will be. But at some point if you get them too thin it will be very difficult to handle them with having them fall apart.

This method is a little more laborious and takes more practice than making crackers the way they are made in an Excalibur (using a wetter batter with Teflex sheets). It may take a bit of practice to get the method down. But one plus is that the dough is drier to begin with so the dehydrating time is reduced.

Good luck!