tell us more about the food uses
Oh my ... where to start ? You can dry just about any fruit and veg .. they tend to do more of it in the USA in States where they have sunshine and dry stuff using solar energy but they also sell a lot of dehydrators specifically designed for the job.
Apples, bananas, apricots, pears, grapes, kale chips, plums all work well and can either be used as snacks or put in your muesli or home made cereal bars. Tomatoes when dried are very intensive flavour and can be added to stews or spag bol where they provide fantastic flavour. Once dried they can be stored in plastic airtight boxes or ziplock bags - not as bulky as packing for the freezer and they keep almost indefinitely as long as the packs are airtight.
In it's simplest form you can dry foods in an oven on a low heat .. I've found that between 50 and 60 deg C is about right for most fruit and veg - the only difficulty is that fan ovens tend to be a bit violent for drying and the temperature control is not that accurate. I started out with a tea chest (as insulation is not that critical) as you are reliant more on the air flow over the food rather than the heat. Thin slices spread on a drying rack work best - don't pile stuff up and try and keep the slices consistent thickness,
I bought some stainless steel queen excluders from Thornes sale which turned out to be exactly the size for my warming cabinet fridge which made me realise I could use the fridge as a dual purpose, one less bit of kit to store, solution with a bit of modification.
It doesn't seem to make much difference whether food is ripe or not and it doesn't seem to harm if fruit is a bit bruised - I'm a bit fussy though and I tend to use the best I can - if I'm going to do it then it might as well be good to start with.
I've done beef jerky in the oven - marinade it first, part freeze it and then slice it very thinly -the oven needs to be a bit hotter for jerky - about 65 degrees - and about 6 hours did the trick. Not bad but I think it would be better in the dehydrator when I get round to it.
I'm no expert and a lot of what I've done is trial and error based - there's a website here with loads of recipes which give you a flavour of what can be done - remember it's USA and they are in Fahrenheit and cups for measures !
http://momwithaprep.com/101-dehydrating-recipes/
This is what a basic DIY dessicator is like ... it doesn't take a lot of imagination to turn a warming cabinet into one - you just need some extra holes that can be sealed with corks when you want it as a warming cabinet and taken out when you want a dehydrator - the STC1000 will control the temp you want and a 30 Watt tube heater works fine for both.
So - that's a pocket start to food drying .... there's loads on the net - it's something that's been done for 100's if not 1000's of years and it works on all sorts of levels ...
