I bought a Sweda fruit dehyrador the other day but it did not come
with directions. Now, I know nothing about drying fruit. I don't
know what you need to do to prepare it for drying or how long the
actual drying takes. If you can provide any information, it would be
greatly appreciated. Thanks!

James wrote:

> I bought a Sweda fruit dehyrador the other day but it did not come
> with directions. Now, I know nothing about drying fruit. I don't
> know what you need to do to prepare it for drying or how long the
> actual drying takes.

Slice into 5 mm slices, dry on 40C or so.
Tomatoes: halve, dry sliced side up for 1-2 days, turn when no longer
sticky, continue to dry until the halves don't bend when cooled off.
Bananas need lemonjuice or they turn brown, but self-dried bananas aren't
really all that good.

I've a fruitleather recipe somewhere or other on my site, let's see
http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/neat-stuff/vaccleat.html

If you dry fruit on too high a temperature they'll get a burnt taste and
might turn browner than usual; because of that burnt taste they're pretty
much unusable.

Fruit is dry when it snaps instead of bending, after it's cooled off.

Dried fruit you can buy (apple slices, prunes) that are still soft after
they're dried contain sulphur to stop them from going moldy.

Don't expect your dried fruit to be both soft and durable; you'll get just
one of the two.

Dried fruit needs to go into an airtight container once it's dry; if it
sits out in moist air it'll suck up moisture again -- and go moldy within
2 weeks.

How long does it take to dry things, well, it's been a while since I've
dried fruit, but estimate 2-3 days for 1.5 kg apples, all sliced up, on
40C; that's as much as will fit into my Evermat in one go. The Orakas
would take more, but that's for herbs, 'cos it takes _lots_ in one go.

If it's this one (sold as Severin and Tchibo, among others):
http://images.tchibo.de/eCS/Store/ch...365_detail.jpg
you don't have a thermostat, therefore, no temperature control.

This dryer goes up to 70C (about 135F), and like all dehydrators the
lowest tier is hottest.
ANYTHING in the lowest tier will burn pretty damn quick. On "real"
dehydrators the max temp is at about 60C, which is too hot to dry most
anything at all, including roots and barks; you can make fruit leathers in
60C, but even then you have to watch things.
Therefore you HAVE to switch the racks around during drying (top tier to
the bottom, bottom tier to the top, middle tiers up or down, too).
This is best done every 2 hours or so.
Turn the racks half a turn as well (what used to be in front is now in
back).
Of course, this schedule means you can't dry things overnight. But then,
I'm uncomfortable about leaving dehydrators on without supervision anyway,
and they're all loud, so shrug.

The drying racks of this one can be stacked two ways; I'd get them up and
airy while you're actually using the thing, and stack them tight only and
exclusively for storage.

If your sweda is indeed this severin/tchibo dehydrator, and you find
instructions for it, don't trust them - they say that fruit is dry when
"flexible". Whoever wrote that hasn't had a jarful of "dry" fruit go
moldy on him/her ... honest, you want bone dry.

Have fun!
Henriette (4 dehydrators (including this abomination, but hey, it was
cheap) and counting)

--
Henriette Kress, AHG * * * * * * * * * * *Helsinki, Finland
Henriette's herbal homepage: http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed

Thanks!