Thank you so much for all these wonderful posts! I am in the middle of a mini crisis now but Lord help me to get back here to bask in you knowledge!
There are directions on youtube on how to use regular freezer bags. I am not sure I would trust a long term prep item in a zip lock bag.
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but I would think the bell peppers or red, yellow, would lend themselves quite readily to dehyrating! Just the right thickness. Nice large fat bananas. 50 slices per tray! (One banana.)
Sounds good!WOW... very very paper thin... but lovely and crispy... I was eager to see how well they vacuum pack and being careful, they did well. I am trying to think of which "lock and lock" container I can put the bags into to keep them from becoming crushed as we travel.
I want to go buy more while they are still in the store, but alas I am physically drained today and spent my energy on the banana slicing. (And feeding, watering my doggie who is quite happy to sleep alongside me today.)
I dunno. Has to do with the way you prepare it I think. Lots of salt and or sugar I think is supposed to help out. As little fat as possible too. The fat goes rancid as you know. Some people swear by canning meat, a thing we have not tried yet and am a bit afraid of. We will try the meat on the hoof, or rather meat on the chicken leg. We have new neighbors so that may be tough... not sure how they will take chickens.
Wow... note to self... nix on the honey coated naners.NEVER AGAIN will I coat banana slices with honey to dehydrate!
Okay so in the past I had ordered a 3 day supply of food stuffs from Patriot's Supply... and it's in a pocket acting like insulation on my van, just in case. It didn't appear to be anything I could eat unless it was dire
But I contacted them about their foods and asked questions "no one had ever asked before" and they were great (via email) and we chatted a bit and they got back to me with info each time. As it turns out the only thing that looked like I could eat and order (they were having a big sale) was the honey coated banana slices. But in the end, they could not tell me what plants the bees had available and since I'm allergic to weeds, I couldn't order.
So I decide I would do it myself and watched two or three vlogs on the subject--all warning me it would take longer to dry maybe 17 hours... eh Ok by me.
I used the orange blossum honey that agrees with me and very lightly coated the slices, allowing them to drain back into the dipping bowl first too...and put them into the snack master.
That was 3:30 pm YESTERDAY. It's 10pm the next night! THAT'S 30 . 5 HOURS!!! and they are still in there, somewhat bendable... and will remain there til I get up in the morning!
WHAT A MESS too. I put them onto the rollup trays so the honey wouldn't drip down at all (NOT sure why I cared about this, the tray underneath was the same and I could have put them at the bottom... sigh)
THEN I had to flip them... nothing worked well... and ended up trying to peel them up with my fingers... which took forever. They are still going to be brown (ok by me) but I was thinking the honey would seal the color: nope. That takes ascorbic acid. Sigh. I really don't care.
The temperature is the same as for all the fruits I do ..set at 135 degrees.
They kale refreshed, the brussel sprouts dried... but not the bananas. ((I had to redo the last batch of kale because of bags failure. The whole package I bought from Walmart refused to remain sealed and I suspect they are buying knock offs from China, like other products that don't work etc... I will be returning the bags along with a few other things this weekend if it ever stops storming.)) Unfortunately the kale is not in big chip size any longer, having to be put into 2 bags and removed once already.
But the bananas will stay eternally plain for the future...
