Choosing the right Dehydrator

I hope my experience will help you in choosing the right dehydrator. I previously bought a Sunbeam Dehydrator – one of the round dehydrators with stacking trays. It said it was good for drying herbs, vegetables, fruits and flowers and came with a bonus ‘fruit leather’ tray. I wasn’t looking to dry meats or meals for hiking, and I wasn’t going to be drying vast amounts of anything – I just wanted to be able to dry herbs and other produce from my garden as an alternative to other preserving methods. It wasn’t vastly expensive and seemed to be the most cost-effective choice.

Drying times for different produce can vary widely depending on what you are drying and how humid it is where you are. Auckland is known for having fairly high humidity so at first I didn’t think too much of it when my herbs took a lot longer than expected to dry. When I first dried some fruit I put the temperature up to a higher level and just ran the dehydrator until the fruit had dried. It wasn’t until I had a big load of persimmons that I realised it had taken me 3 days to dry. This surely wasn’t very efficient – with power or time.

In making my first dehydrator purchase, I had seen the rectangular shaped dehydrators that have the fan at the back and come with a range of different numbers of trays. These were described as being much more efficient for drying but they were more expensive and I told myself that I didn’t need a fancy machine! How wrong I was. They aren’t necessarily that much more expensive but are so much more effective – you definitely get what you pay for!

I researched different varieties that were available in New Zealand and found a BioChef Arizona Sol 6 tray dehydrator that was on sale for a very reasonable $200 (roughly the same price as the Sunbeam at full price). There are bigger versions if you prefer. Oh my goodness, what a difference it makes.

For my test run I decided to fill it full of different fruit in different formats:

• one tray of persimmon slices (no preparation except peeling and slicing)
• one tray of tinned pineapple rings
• one tray of tinned mango slices
• one tray of tinned mango puree
• one tray of lady finger bananas sliced in half lengthwise
• one tray of blueberries (put in boiling water first to remove the waxy coating)

I ran the dehydrator at 65C for 8 hours and the persimmon, pineapple, mango slices and mango puree all dried wonderfully. The bananas and blueberries required a few hours more.

The bananas were a bit of an experiment to see how it would cope and whilst it worked, I prefer thinner slices rather than the ‘meatier’ halves.

The blueberries dried down until they looked like currants, but I found that they dried at different rates so that when most were very dry there were still some that were ‘juicy’. So whilst they were little taste explosions, I don’t think I will bother again.

Overall, I was very impressed with this dehydrator and I think I will find it much more useful than my old one (which found a new home with my friend Vicky who was keen to dry her own herbs).