Dehydrators

How does a dehydrator work?

Dehydration has been an old tradition since ancient times, which is now finding its way back into our kitchens with modern automatic dehydrators. The gentle drying of food makes it last longer without destroying the valuable nutrients such as vitamins and minerals. While it often took several days in the past, the smart kitchen gadgets only need a few hours.

During the process inside the food dehydrator, water is removed from the food. A fan is used to feed the heated air from the heating element throughout the dehydrator and dehydrate the food, which is distributed over several levels. With a preset power, fruit, vegetables, herbs and mushrooms, but also meat, poultry and fish as well as dough and grain products can be processed into delicious snacks and delicious dishes and preserved for many days, months or even years.

Tip: The thinner you cut the slices, the more aromas can develop and the faster they dehydrate.

What Are the Benefits of Buying an Automatic Dehydrator?

First of all, drying food yourself gives you confidence in the quality of the produce.  Commercial dehydrating often use unhealthy short-cuts to increase profit margins.  Neither preservatives, flavours nor colourings are used when dehydrating at home. At the same time, if you run your dehydrator at temperatures below 47° C, the food dehydrator contains all the important nutrients in the food.

In addition, drying is an ideal method of preservation so that food can be stored for long periods without the formation of mould. So you can keep the finished dehydrated products well packaged and nibble on healthy snacks again and again.

Most of the dehydrators that can be bought come with several shelves stacked on top of one another and ensure that you can dehydrate a large number of different foods at once. Temperatures and running times can be set individually. Compared to the cost of buying dried fruit, the running costs of a dehydrator are extremely low.

If you own a vegetable garden or even an orchard, buying a dehydrator can be particularly worthwhile and lucrative. In this way, you can preserve a rich harvest, you hardly have to throw away any excess and you are supplied with vitamin-rich snacks even over the winter days. In addition, the delicacies from the dehydrator are ideal sources of vitamins and energy on the go. Whether on hikes or as a snack at school, dried products take up significantly less space, which makes it easy to transport.

Can't I make dried fruits and the like in the oven instead of in the dehydrator?

Are you wondering whether you can just use the oven to dry your food? After all, you have it at home anyway. A dehydrator has been specially developed with regard to its functions, so that an oven or convection oven cannot even come close to the same results.  A dehydrator is much more efficient and uses much less power. At the same time, the dehydrator ideally is set to low temperatures of 30-50 ° C. Drying in the oven is only recommended on lowest heat and with the oven door open, as the high temperatures the oven generates on lowest setting would otherwise destroy the fruit and vegetable slices. You will waste a lot of energy and end up paying more for the electricity bill than a dehydrator costs you. If you want to enjoy healthy snacks on a regular basis, you should definitely buy a dehydrator.