Question about dehydrating food…

“I am looking to start dehydrating my own food (probably about time, I know). What I was wondering, is what kind of food can be dehydrated at home? I know that you can dehydrate fruits and beef (jerky), but can you dehydrate more complicated things like entire pasta dishes. Would I be able to make an entire meat and past dish at home, dehydrate it, package it and then just rehydrate with hot water on the trail and eat? If so, what kind of shelf life would something like that have?

Thanks for any help.”

“There are a lot of dehydrating threads on the board Erewhon. If you go down to the bottle of the Trail Talk page, and type in "dehydrating" in the thread search box, you'll find a vast wealth of information about dehydrating for the trail.

The short answer to your question though, is yes. As far as shelf life, it depends on how much you dehydrate and whether or not you get all the fat off of what you've dehydrated. Home-dehydrated stuff isn't shelf-stable for years like the commercial freeze-dried stuff is. I keep my dehydrated stuff in the freezer so it will keep longer, then toss it in the food bag before a trip.”

“HAY OPIE,

I bet you thought I started this one didn't ya???


lol”

“I guess doing a search would have been the way to go. Sorry - still getting the hang of this BB layout. :)

Thanks for the info though.”

“yeah, like pitbusher said...go to the bottle of the page....”

“I guess I should get more sleep or something...lol....”

“lay off dat bottle, lmao!”

“BOTTLE?
why wasnt I told there was a stinking bottle at the bottom of this page?

whazz up wid dat??”

“I need another cup of coffee.....”

“The immediate short answer is yes.. you can dehydrate entire pasta meals, red beand and rice, ect...

Check out dem other threads for more info.. good luck!”

“What I haven't seen in the other threads (or perhaps I have but need clarification on...) is whether or not you can dehydrate a meat and pasta dish together or if you need to dehydrate the meat separately and then add on the trail.

I'll keep looking though. :)”

“Erehwon, I have the same questions as you do. But it seems the best way to learn the answers to all the questions is get a book on Dehydrtaing. so im off at lunch time to get myself one.

try one of these.

(stumprider, sent this list to me)

High Trail Cookery by Linda Yaffe

The Well-Fed Backpacker by June Fleming

The Back-Country Kitchen by Teresa Marrone


Simple Foods for the Pack by Axcell, Cook & Kinmont


Wilderness Ranger Cookbook by Brunell & Swain”

“My preference for the books are in the order I listed them.

I too keep mine in the freezer to prolong shelf life.

As for whether you should dehydrate meat seperately depends on the recipe. Most that I have used I dehydrated the meat separately--especially ground beef (because you need to blot it from time to time to get rid of the fat), also for a turkey recipe.

On the other hand one recipe I've used was something like jambalya, and I cooked it all together and dehydrated it.

So the short answer is, it depends.”

“I've never bought a book on the subject but i have dehydrated a lot of food. I made chicken alfredo with brocolli and dehydrated everything all together, home-made chili and stew also worked well for me...Just make sure if you have meat in it dehydrate it on a higher temp for longer.”

“Maple leaf...i sure as hell did..but since you've moved on to asking us to do your kids homework i've learned that your on here more than i was at work...”

“got ya!!!”

“Higher heat is right, but you still have to soak up the fat.”

“Erewhon - Drop me an email and I'll send you my little write-up on dehydrating. Been doin' it for years. Basically, you can dehydrate anything in any combination, except fat.”

“But if you ever stopped off at a road house cafe in the south and got an order of fatback, you know that fat can also be preserved. A lot of salt, a little smoke, and presto..... you can have fried heart attack and collards!”

“LOL. My favorite post-hike snack is pork rinds - and I'm a damned Yankee! Nothing like deep-fried fat to clean out the system.”

“Stop, please. My chest is feeling stiff just reading that. :(

Thanks for the info steiny.”

“Just remember, bacteria double in population every 20 or 30 minutes in an ideal environment. A warm dehydrator is a pretty good environment for bacteria. They thing that stops bacteria in dried foods is lack of water content. If food is way low on water, like 2-4% water, bacteria can't grow. If, if there is more moisture, like in dried fruits (15-23%), but its not available to bacteria because its tied up in sugars, it can have more moisture.

The thicker the stuff you are drying, the slower it dries,the slower it dries the longer bacteria reproduce. It must be kept low moisture, or the bacteria take off again.

I don't think commercial food makers make up a main dish and dry it. They dry the individual ingredients (noodles, chicken chunks, veggies, sauce) add them together to the package in the right proportions, and tell you how much water to add to rehydrate.

In freeze dried, they may make up the meal and dry it. I'm not sure. The book "dry it, you'll like it" is a good book.”

“Sierra Mel's High Country Cooking is an excellent book on dehydrating. I highly recommend it.”

“If , say, some one ... that I know---you wouldn't know him for sure, were to dehydrate some... some , I know, he likes chili, alot... anyways, if this friend of mine were to dehydrate chili, how long would it last in a dehydrated state, and would it be a good thing to have my buddy refrigerate in a ziploc baggie.

What about other foods, suppose this friend of mine were to dehydrate other things, say in preparation of a winter trip to BSP. Would these things last for a couple weeks? How long would they last? You know, I could carry, er.... I could just see my buddy carrying this grub on a sled in BSP, so weight would not be a big factor, but my friend wants to do some more dehydrating, and is interested in shelf life of various foods. So what have you determined to be shelf life of home dehydrated foods?”

“Dehydrated chili would sure keep yer buttocks and surrounding area warm.”

“it should last for a few months if you freeze it.”

“I agree with baume.”

“I'm eating stuff I dehydrated up to 10 years ago and it's still fine. Chili, beef stroganoff, chicken teriyaki, spaghetti sauce, yada yada. I just seal it up airtight and store it in a cool, dark, dry place in the pantry. One of the points of dehydrating is that storage doesn't need to consume further energy, like freezing. Hell, they've sprouted beans they've found dried in Egyptian tombs, so how bad can my chili be after a few years?”

“I was thinking about this for the next trip..

i thought about scambling eggs in a the frying pan (big chunks) and then dehydrate thenm..with some onion, and seperately deyhdrated cheese chunks, then add real bacon bits, and dehydrated tomato chunks...just to get more flavor..


question is,

can raw eggs be dehyrated?
if yes, what is the drying time and was it worth it.”

“Dehydrating your own eggs is fraught with danger. Easier and safer to purchase commercially powdered or dehydrated eggs.

I've never tried dehydrating cooked eggs, except when they were an ingredient in something else, but that would be safer.”

“ok, so if i got dry (YUK) eggs and added the other stuff do you think it would re-hydrate ok?”

“Probably would, but remember you still have to cook the dry eggs after they are re-hydrated. I think you do, anyway.

You might dry dehydrated some scrambled eggs, just be sure that you scramble them good and dry, so that there's no uncooked egg at all.”

“Oh wow, that made a lot of sense.

Let's try again.

You might try dehydrating some scrambled eggs...”

“I tried dehydrating scrambled eggs! Gross! They rehydrated just fine, but the taste was worse than any powdered eggs I've ever tasted!”

“fogduo, shhhhhh!”

“I bought something like this last year, I almost starved because it was just to gross to eat. So i figured if i made it myself this time kinda like an omlete it would taste better.”

“Hot sauce works great in situations like this. Gives the stuff some taste.”

“The multitude of problems associated with dehydrated eggs and powdered eggs leads me to one conclusion:


Thank goodness for grits.”

“that's a very disturbing conclusion, chili.”

“Just carry whole eggs. They last longer than you think.”

“I just recently had my first dehydrated food...apples and pineapples...they were soooo good.

I will pass on the eggs though.”

“whole eggs in a carrier last long enough for any trip your going to take. G-ma and Grandpa didn't die”

“G-ma and Grandpa didn't die"
OPIE
03:42:23 PM
08/11/03


??????”

“Heck I've taken them on week long trips in cooler weather and weekenders in Florida summers.”

“mapes - Mountian House makes just what your trying to do. 3.50 might be a small price to pay, rather than a hospital vist.

ae you tried them in flat bread with salsaad hot sause? YUM!”

“I dehydrated scrambled eggs once, too. It was by far the grossest of anything I've tried to dry.

I think sailors coat fresh eggs with petroleum jelly to make them last.
I do know fresh eggs last longer than hard boiled.”

“LQ, thats what I tied before and man they were nasty :(


but i think i will try to find powder eggs and dehydrate some onions, veggies like green and red pepper and take some cheese and cook it all together.

sounds yummy!

next silly question.

and you find powder eggs where?”

“As many others have said, dehydrating eggs is scary.

Found powdered eggs at REI. Had some leftover from several years ago and used them to make a birthday cake for a nephew while a group of us were canoeing. None of us got sick and everyone is still alive after nearly 3 weeks!”

“Yep, REI sells them. Phil, I believe, claims that you can "cook" them in a plastic bag while boiling it in water. I will have to try that. The Mountain house didn't look all that good when I made them for my son.”

“I would need it for this weekend. think they sell it in an organic store?”