Drying Supplies And Equipment

Drying food has been done for centuries. In fact, people living since the ancient times have dried food as a way of storing food for the winter months. Food preservation back in those days was done in order to survive. Today, we still dry food to preserve it and lengthen its shelf life. If you are interested in drying food, then you have to know about the supplies and equipments involved in drying food.

Basically, the great advantage of drying food from other forms of food preservation, such as canning is that you don't really need special equipments. You can still do it even without any special equipment. With a kitchen oven, drying trays or racks, and containers for storing the dried food, you will be well on your way to start preserving food through drying. If you are interested in drying large quantities of food, you may need to get or make a food dryer. But, it is not really essential especially if you live in areas where the sun is always shining and the weather is warm. You will need some equipment to dry food but they are not really essential. The equipments here will just help you make a more uniformly good product.

The first equipment that you should have is a food scale, which will help you weigh food before you dry it. This will help you dry food uniformly. You will need an electric fan. The purpose for this is to let air circulate which is essential for drying. You will also need a thermometer when you dry food using the oven. This will help you maintain a constant temperature in the oven, which is essential in order for you to correctly dry food.

If you are planning to dry vegetables, then a blancher will come in handy as you need to blanch vegetables first before you proceed on drying them. For fruits, you will need a sulfur box. For the racks, the best material that you can ever use should be made of wood slats or stainless steel screen mesh. If you have cake racks or a wooden frame, you can use them as drying racks. The wooden frame should be covered with cheesecloth or loosely woven cloth.

It is important to remember that you shouldn't use solid metal trays or even cookie sheets. The reason for this is that in order to dry food properly, air must circulate all around the food. This will ensure that drying will take place from the bottom and the top at the same time. If you are drying meat for jerky, you can place them directly on the metal racks in the oven. Just make sure that the pieces are large enough that it won't fall through the gaps in the racks.

When drying food, never use racks that are made of copper, aluminum, galvanized screen, vinyl, or fiberglass as these materials cause an acid reaction that forms harmful compounds which can be a threat to your health when consumed. Aluminum will become discolored and will produce an off-flavor sulfured fruit. Copper will destroy vitamin C, which is really what you don't want to happen when drying food. Vinyl on the other hand melts at temperatures used for drying food. Oven drying is one of the simplest ways to dry food. You almost don't need any special equipment and it dries food faster than sun drying or through food dryers.

The only downside with oven drying is that it consumes a lot of energy and that it can also be used for small scale drying. If you need to dry large quantities of food, then you may want to purchase or make your very own food dryer or convection oven. This device will provide you with controlled heat and ventilation. Although this uses up less electricity than your conventional electric oven, it does take a little longer to dry food as the temperatures here are lower than what you can achieve in the oven. Sun drying is another way to dry food. This is the old fashioned way to dry food as the heat used comes from the sun and the natural movement of the air.

However, the problem is that you need to live in an area where the sun shines almost the whole year round and that there is low humidity level. For example, if you live in Illinois, you can never successfully dry food as the humidity here is too high. Also, never dry food if you live near a busy road as this will contaminate the food you are drying out in your yard. These are the drying supplies and equipment you need when you wish to preserve food using the drying method. As you can see, you don't need to invest a lot of money on equipments when you dry food. All you need are the basics and you will be well on your way in drying your favorite foods.
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