The Importance Of Dehydrating Food

If you think about it, dehydrating food is not really rocket science. All a dehydrator really needs to do is maintain a constant temperature and air flow. Most dehydrators have a temperature thermostat to maintain the desired temperature and a fan to circulate fresh dry air. I strongly recommend staying away from any dehydrator that does not come with a fan and thermostat. Because they all maintain the temperature and air flow, virtually all models of dehydrator take about the same time to dry the same food. So when you are shopping for a dehydrator, it is not really appropriate to search for one that claims to dry foods faster than another. Kitchenfolks.com may help to consider when deciding which dehydrator to buy. The four key factors when

Access Another factor to consider when purchasing a dehydrator is the ease of access to the trays. You need to get at the dehydrator trays when preparing and setting up the food for dehydrating, when you check on the food's progress during the drying process, and when you are ready to remove your dehydrated food from the trays for storage. Setting up, checking on, and removing food in a shelf dehydrator couldn't be easier. Each tray pulls out individually, just like the trays in your conventional oven. With a shelf dehydrator, there is no need to fuss with the trays above or below the tray you are working on. The story is completely different for stackable dehydrators. If you want to access a tray in the middle of the stack, you need to lift off all of the trays above it. Lifting off higher trays can not only be burdensome, but can also cause frustrating accidents and spills if the trays topple. Some stackable dehydrators have 6, 10, 12 or even up to 20 trays. It's important to consider how it may be a bit cumbersome to work with so many trays stacked on top of each

Versatility When you invest in a piece of equipment like a dehydrator, you want it to be as versatile as possible. When considering between the shelf tray dehydrators and the stackable tray dehydrators, each one has a different advantage over the other when it comes to versatility. First of all, the shelf tray dehydrator has a great advantage of allowing clearance between trays for times when you wish to dehydrate "tall" things. Just like a conventional oven, you can simply remove trays to have as much vertical clearance between trays as you need. For example, the stackable dehydrator allows you to make dried flowers and beautiful crafts (e.g. dough art, dried apple art, some clay crafts, etc.) that could not otherwise fit in the small space between stackable trays. You can also make yogurt in your own jars in a shelf dehydrator that would not be possible in a stackable dehydrator. Though the stackable dehydrators don't have much clearance between trays, they do have an advantage that the shelf dehydrators don't have: expandability. Stackable dehydrator models usually come with 4, 6, 8, or 10 trays right out of the box. However, you can purchase additional trays to increase the capacity of your dehydrator as your dehydrating needs grow. Stackable dehydrators come with enough heating and air flow capacity to expand to at least twice the number of trays that they originally come with. On the other hand, because of the constraints of their box design, shelf dehydrators can