Rick Sylvia wrote: >>>>> No source of info even remotely mentioned the freezer for even longer storage. So..... is it good, bad or indifferent to store dehydrated food in the freezer? Also, I've read that some items take as much as 60 hours to dehydrate. I think that was apricots, if I recall correctly. Anyway, I know virtually nothing about electricity, and the differences between, Watts, Volts, Amps and so forth. So, the question is, 60 hours is a long time..... how much does it actually cost to operate a dehydrator? Surely, it's pennies, or it wouldn't be cost effective, right?<<<<< If I intend to keep the dehydrated food for very long, I always put it in the freezer. Since most freezer damage is the result of ice crystals forming in the food, the fact that dehydrated foods have low moisture content protects them most of this damage. I've kept foods such as dehydrated tamale pie for over two years with no apparent loss of quality. It keeps even better if you vacuum pack it before putting into the freezer. Regarding electricity consumption: In my 500 watt Harvest Maid dehydrator, apricots are supposed to take about 14 hours to dehydrate. The electric companies bill you for "kilowatt hours". So if you multiply 500 watts by 14 hours, you get 7 kilowatt hours (a measure of the total amount of electricity you've used). Although I haven't checked my electric bill lately, in my neck of the woods (Woodinville, Washington; USA) I think we pay around 10 cents per each additional kilowatt hour. So using my dehydrator at full power for 14 hours would cost roughly $0.70. If your dehydrator really takes 60 hours, I suspect your wattage is proportionally less, so the above calculations should still be roughly accurate (in other words, whether they dry quickly or slowly probably takes roughly the same total amount of electricity). Evan Dallas *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
On 17 Jan 2005 at 12:42, Evan Dallas wrote: > Regarding electricity consumption: In my 500 watt Harvest Maid > dehydrator, apricots are supposed to take about 14 hours to dehydrate. I wonder if it really runs at 500w much of the time. I suspect that it consumes somewhat less on average - I may be wrong, but I expect that the heater doesn't stay on all the time. Only meat products are dried at max, so even if the heater is on all the time, for fruits and such it will likely be on a a lower level. So the electricity cost estimate of under a dollar (say) is reasonable. However, it obviously is beneficial to dry as much as possible in a single load. My unit can take quite a few trays - much more than I've ever used at one time. Mike *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
> pay around 10 cents per each additional kilowatt hour. So using my > dehydrator at full power for 14 hours would cost roughly $0.70. Did you check, how many lbs of fresh apricots you can load, and how many lbs of dry apricots you get in the end? I'm just trying to figure out if we can beat supermarket dehydrated prices. Or - "freeze-dried". I don't know whether those dry bananas that I've bought in Chinatown, were dehydrated of freeze-dried (not a single English word on the package), but they were not cheap - $4 per lb or even more. (No weight on the package either - hell, I don't even know if they are sure bananas :-) *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Alex Well, the capacity is determined more by tray size than by weight. Mine has 8 trays and each tray each holds 0.86 square feet per tray (according to the advertising on the side of the box it came in), so that's a little less than 7 sq. feet fully loaded (sounds like an ad for a car). So how many pounds of apricots can you squeeze into 7 feet? I'll leave that one to you. But in my opinion, it's not just a question of price (store bought may actually be cheaper, at least for the common stuff like prunes, raisins, etc), but also quality. You can bet that the apricots (or other fruit) used for commercial drying aren't their best quality. Also, you can avoid the sulphuring that is common to most commercial dried fruit. Another nice option is to buy extra fruit from the fruit stands at peak season when they taste best and are often at their cheapest, then dry the extras. Although I'm probably biased, I think my home dried stuff tastes a lot better than the commercial stuff. I've even bought canned pineapple, dried it, and it STILL tasted better than store-bought dried pineapple. I haven't tried drying fresh pineapple (just because I always end up eating it!), but I'm sure that would be vastly superior. Just for fun, try dehydrating watermelon some time! (A little too sweet for my taste, but definitely worth trying. I may add some lemon to it next time I try it.) Evan -----Original Message----- From: alex [mailto:al.m_at_3web.net] Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 7:16 PM To: evand_at_pensionresourcegroup.com; paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net Subject: Re: [Paddlewise] Follow-up Dehydrating Questions > pay around 10 cents per each additional kilowatt hour. So using my > dehydrator at full power for 14 hours would cost roughly $0.70. Did you check, how many lbs of fresh apricots you can load, and how many lbs of dry apricots you get in the end? I'm just trying to figure out if we can beat supermarket dehydrated prices. Or - "freeze-dried". I don't know whether those dry bananas that I've bought in Chinatown, were dehydrated of freeze-dried (not a single English word on the package), but they were not cheap - $4 per lb or even more. (No weight on the package either - hell, I don't even know if they are sure bananas :-) *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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