dehydrate at 140

i was reading the a book published in 2003 about dehydrating foods that said that you can dehydrate foods at temperatures of 145 for the first forty five mins and then back down to 100 or so for the rest of the time.. something about how the perspiration keeps the fruit or veggie from having any enzyme damage. I have always heard to never go above 115 or so..?? anyone know the real answer?

Comments

  • 1sweetpea1sweetpea Raw Newbie

    It is safe to dehydrate at 140 or 145 for the first 45 minutes to an hour. The food you're dehydrating won't reach anywhere near that temperature internally. It is a good idea to do this with high water content foods, to avoid them spoiling during the initial dehydrating stage. About a year ago, I tried to dehydrate cherry, grape and cocktail tomatoes, all of which are quite juicy. I tried to stick to 105, but it took almost a week to fully dehydrate the largest of the tomato halves. They were fine, but I'm sure I took a risk bacterially for the first few days when the tomatoes were still so wet. I haven't tried it again with the initial high temperature, but I'm sure it would cut the drying time signficantly.

  • In my Excalibur manual it stated that it was actually fine to dehydrate at 115 for the first three hours. I thought that was a bit much, but it cited raw experts.

  • Woops, I just checked again, it was actually 140. : )

  • KristensRawKristensRaw Raw Newbie

    The 140 rule is supposed to apply to Excalibur dehydrators only, due to the technology of the air flow. If you have another brand of dehydrator, like a stackable, where the heat comes from the bottom... it's supposedly not recommended for those since those can heat unevenly and it might be much hotter than 140 on some trays.

    Cheers,

    Kristen Suzanne

    www.KristensRaw.com

    www.KristensRaw.blogspot.com

  • schmoopeeschmoopee Raw Newbie

    check out this thread...

    http://goneraw.com/node/19956

  • Thanks so much everyone!! im pretty sure i get the gist of it all. :)

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