Dehydrators recommendations please

[AXJ]

I am on the cusp of buying a dehydrator, mainly to make sun dried toms, as they are near impossible to get here. I am sure the kids will enjoy making raisons etc as well.

Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced one. I have been looking at a Stockli Food Dehydrator.

Any thoughts will be much appreciated.

thanks

[lsm1066]

Not sure if they post overseas, but I recently got one from Westfalia Shopping (http://www2.westfalia.net/). They have two, one with a set of knives and one without, and the usual prices are £46 and £32. The one with the knives is the cheaper one and they currently have them on offer for about 25 quid. My mum and I couldn't work out the difference between the two so we ordered both, only to discover that there is no difference.

hth
Lynne

[AXJ]

Hi there thank you very much for that. I did find that site, I did wonder what the difference is. I think the model is "the lazer". That firm does not deliver to Spain, sadly. I found the same model on ebay for 45 quid, nearly twice the price.

How do you find that one? Does it have fan, it is very noisy, how long would it take to dry a kilo of tomatoes?

Thanks again for your help.

[KellyB]

Don't mean to be stupid but I thought you could do it in the sun??

[AXJ]

No that is not stupid, as long as you live in the South of Italy.

And as long as you don't mind:

Covering you toms with muslin cloth carfully raised so as not to touch the toms
bringing your toms in every evening to avoid the dew
repeat for up to two weeks for them to get dry.

Try that in Cardiff, or somewhere similar! In fact you may be lucky to even get a ripe tom in some parts of Britain.

[eccentric_emma]

I have a westfalia dehydrator. Not particularly noisy in that I can leave it on overnight and not hear it whilst im upstairs. Takes around 12 hours to dry tomatoes, depending on how thickly you cut them etc.

[AXJ]

Thanks emma, that's very helpful

[KellyB]

Ahhhh ok fair enough

[AXJ]

Hello again,

whilst I await my dehydrator (still yet to make a selection) I am going to 'sun' dry some of my tomato harvest following these excellent guideline from chanel 4

http://www.channel4.com/food/how-to/mak ... s_p_1.html

I imagine it will have a rather large carbon foot print (aka bump the electric bill) but what the heck, I am too impatient.

[Jandra]

I have a Stöckli dehydrator which works very wel (heater + fan), but I hardly use it. It takes a lot of energy to run it. And I find myself not using the dried produce often enough.

Nevertheless I'm pleased to own one so I can make the occasional batch of jerky, dried apples or driet tomatoes.

Jandra

[AXJ]

Thanks for that info, is the Stöckli reasonably quiet, no basement or garage for me to stash it in.

It is certainly the one I can afford, and I like the 'Swiss engineering' sense of 'quality'.

I must admit that I am not entirely certain that I can justify it, but I love my sun dried toms. Well I'll see how my oven version goes, knowing me I'll just have to have the Stöckli.

I was thinking of selling them locally, bottled. Only downside of that is that sundried toms are very hard to get round here, so maybe no-one wants them. Mind you, I ask for Captain Morgan Rum in some bars, they say there is no call for it, yet in others the number of times I see a new bottle opened when I ask for a rum an coke, I'm sure I am not the only one drinking it.

Dried pimentos sell very well, and are plentyful but no point bringing coals to Newcastle.

Homemade raisons, that could be a good one for the children, and grapes come in very cheap at harvest time.

[Jandra]

We usually have the Stöckli running in our open plan kitchen. You hear it and if you're sensitive to ambient noise it will likely bother you.
I think it's all right (and like to check the process regularly) but you could also put it in a bed room or wherever you like. Some foods are smellier than others. You can easily move the appliance around. I've only got the three trays, so it's not heavy.

Good luck, Jandra

[AXJ]

Thanks Jandra, that is truely helpful. I had a look at your blog, very nice indeed. You clearly put a lot of effort into it, enjoyed the read, the pictures and the design.

[Jandra]

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed my blog. And you're welcome regarding the dehydrator. We're all here on this forum to share our experiences so that others may profit from them too.

Jandra

[Nomada]

bump!

We're thinking of getting some sort of dehydrator but would like to know what others recommend. Is it worth it in terms of electricity? Compared to blanching, baging and freezing food? In an ideal world we'd like one of those excalibur ones, however, finances don't allow that right now so we'd have to save up. We were wondering what people thought of the cheaper Westfalia one compared to a stockli dehydrator. Is it worth paying the extra for the Stockli? We want to dehydrate a lot of fruit and some veg from the allotment (raspberries and peas taking up the most space at the mo in the freezer) and make food for taking camping.