Dehydrating Food in the Oven - Tested!

[Asheka]

I've found some instructions on this, as while I'd love one, I don't have the money really. Has anyone here dehydrated foods in the oven?

[Asheka]

No one? Looks like I'm experimenting this weekend!

[fantasybookworm]

I've been dehydrating some flowers & leaves (dandelion flowers/leaves, violets, tulips, cherry blossoms, clover) in my oven the last two days (and have some more flowers for today)! I just didn't want to answer before because I have no clue what I'm doing. I'm not sure I dehydrated the flowers enough... But I am planning to dehydrate a bunch of other foods so I can make a dry meal mix! I'm hoping to do that next week, maybe, I'm pretty busy this weekend. You'll have to let us know how your attempts go!

[Asheka]

I will, and please share your experiences

[birkeymom]

I found a $90 dehydrater at Walmart marked down to $20. Keep looking and let people know you are looking for one. When i tried to dehydrate in the oven, all my flowers and leaves came out looking burned:(

[CallaLily]

I don't have any experience using the oven for dehydrating, but I know it can be done. I picked up a cheap dehydrator at an auction for $10 a few years ago. Works well for what I use it for but there are much nicer ones out there that do a better job.

[Asheka]

I've seen a few instructional things online, and it doesn't seem hard just time consuming really. It also makes me a little nervous having to keep the oven open a tiny bit, but I might try some strawberry tops today!
Here's the instructions I'm trying, if anyone is interested

http://www.ehow.com/how_4964887_dehydra ... -oven.html

[Asheka]

Alright, so while at my mom's over the weekend I picked a bunch of dandelions and dandelion leaves and decided to test out dehydrating.

I laid them out on a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set the oven as low as possible (170F seems to be it for her, and our, oven) and checked on them every half hour. The leaves only took about an hour and a half. The flowers took a little over 2hrs.

Tonight, I tested with strawberries. I sliced them up pretty thinly, tops included. After approximately 3hrs, they were basically done. A few of the thicker pieces (the tops mainly) were still a tiny bit soft just in the middle, but otherwise they were perfect. It's 3am otherwise I'd have left them in another half hour.

I think I'm going to try some celery and peppers tomorrow night if I'm not exhausted. I'm loving this though!

[fantasybookworm]

Glad it's going well for you so far! My flowers I dehydrated seem to be holding up well in the tank's humidity, so I suppose I did okay time-wise. I'm super excited for next week now. I have a very free schedule, so I'm planning on shopping for all of the stuff I wanted to put in their dry meal mix so I can start drying things. I'll probably get enough of each item that I can put some in the meal mix, then have some left over to keep whole & put in the tank occasionally as their "extra" item.

[Asheka]

Very good idea. Yeah, I didn't put a fan in front of the oven, but doesn't seem to affect the results from what I can tell. I wet a dish cloth and had it in the corner of the door so it was open just a crack, about an inch. I'm going to do the celery and peppers tonight, maybe tomatoes if they're still good.
I'm thinking it's a great way to not waste foods when we have anything that's a little too far gone for us to eat, if it's safe for them of course.

[CallaLily]

I'm thinking it's a great way to not waste foods when we have anything that's a little too far gone for us to eat, if it's safe for them of course.

This is what I do. I find the crabs seem to prefer a lot of foods when they're starting to get to that point where we wouldn't want to eat them.

[Asheka]

I will certainly toss in fresh stuff, but there's only one guy up right now, so I figured dehydrating will be good to keep it longer.

[CallaLily]

Oh yes, that's what I meant. Sorry for not being clear. I offer fresh as I have it and then when it gets to that point where it's just starting to turn, I'll dehydrate whatever's left. Or freeze.

[Asheka]

Nice. Yeah. I have some stuff frozen too, though I'll probably throw it in the little food processor I didn't know we had lol

[fantasybookworm]

I've been wondering, CallaLily, do you (and anyone else) worry much about whether foods are organic or not? My first round of veggies & fruit I bought to freeze, I got almost everything organic. I'd love to dehydrate/freeze our own food that's starting to just get to the "nahhh I don't want it" stage rather than through it out, but we never buy organic for ourselves, so I've been hesitating due to that. But we have a ton of leftover fruit & veggies from my open house & I'd love to save some for the crabs!