Preserving Food: an Introduction to Dehydration

So you may be wondering how to preserve whatever food you're growing. The short answer is it often it depends on what food you've grown. A lot of the homesteaders on YouTube talk about freeze drying food. And that's fine, if you can afford a freeze dryer but at over $3000, that's out of my budget. That being said, another, less expensive method is dehydration. This does not necessarily require expensive equipment. In fact, you can use your air fryer or oven as a dehydrator, and my grandmother dehydrated peaches by placing them on a tin roof for 3 or 4 days. I, however, do have a dehydrator and I love it. I'll show you mine in a bit. Their prices range from $30 to several hundred dollars. The more expensive models have a feature where you set the temperature. However, I have a little $40 NESCO that came with 5 trays and expands to 7 trays. It has a set temperature and I find that by adjusting the time, I can get it done just as well. And I like to pair it with my vacuum sealer, which was $29 and was also made by NESCO, but there are other brands out there.

So with dehydration, it all depends on what you're dehydrating and the form in which you're trying to achieve. If you're trying to dehydrate vegetables, you can pretty much dehydrate them by cutting them into small pieces or shredding them and placing them in the dehydrator. I always place them on liners to prevent spillage and make cleanup easier. You can also make leathers and place them on these liners (leathers are similar to fruit rollups). If you're dehydrating fruit, you'll want to place it in something that has vitamin C to prevent it from browning too much. This is done before placing the fruit in the dehydrator. If you're dehydrating potatoes, you'll want to blanch them before you dehydrate them, again to prevent browning. If you're dehydrating eggs...I'd recommend doing that in an oven, simply because you want to kill bacteria, but some people who have fancier dehydrators have reported doing this by adjusting their temperature and time. It's also recommended that you rotate the trays for large batches. With my dehydrator, this is not a major issue as my trays are fairly large and it does well with only 5 trays but if I use all 7, which is rare, then I do have to rotate them.

At this point, you have to make a decision as to how you want to store it. My mom likes to store it in Tupperware containers. That works. It'll store for a few months, and it's easy to grab and just throw it in soups or stews, or you can munch on fruit as a snack. Veggies rehydrate easily as you cook them in your recipe. Another method you could use is vacuum sealing. I like to grind up swiss chard for use in soup. I've also done that with pepper. Sometimes you do have to play with it to make it seal properly but this is what you should see:

If it does not form a vacuum, redo it. At this point you can store it for up to two years. What I do, even if I store it in Tupperware, is write what it is and the date on which I sealed it on the container or bag, and I do use a permanent marker. Check the containers/bags every few months for odd smells, colors or moisture. If you use a vacuum sealer, check to see if the vacuum is still in place. If you notice anything abnormal, throw it out.

By the way, I did see one woman on YouTube who uses a vacuum sealer and then freezes it. Unless you lose power, this works too. If you do lose power, I'd say use it that day...if you can cook on camping gear, do it.

I hope to get some posts out on canning in the next few months, but this is new to me so bear with me. Thank you and happy gardening!