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Dehydrating an apple/carrot blend
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Posted by psittacinejungle z 5 (My Page) on Wed, Feb 3, 10 at 14:55
| Sometimes my parrots love dehydrated apples even better than fresh apples. Since it is much less sticky, dehydrated foods make for easier cleanup - which I love. So, I'm thinking about cooking apples along with some carrots (to raise the vitamin content and give an added flavor), put them together into a food processor or running through a food mill and then dehydrating the blended mix in portioned tablespoon drops. Only thing I don't know is if it is safe to do this way and if it will weep. Anyone ever done a similar blend? |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Dehydrating an apple/carrot blend
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| I have dehydrated both apples and carrots, just not together. Some recommend a dip in acidulated water (with citric acid) to prevent discoloration of the apples. Sometimes I do it, sometimes I skip it, a little brown does not bother me. We do not have an apple tree, and usually eat every single carrot that comes out of the ground fresh, so I only dehydrate these things for backpacking trips. I do not see why you would not be able to do them together. As far as safety, look for mold really carefully. If you see it, toss out the product. If you adjust your temperature and fruit spacing correctly, drying should happen in about a day or a day and a half, and you should not get mold. You have some lucky parrots by the way! |
RE: Dehydrating an apple/carrot blend
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Since you are cooking this first I see no problem. I was just going to say that carrots need blanching, but since you are cooking this, it takes care of that issue.
What kind of dehydrator are you using, Cabrita, that foods are taking that long to dry ?
If you are using a good dehydrator, even jerky won't take that long to dry. To have safely dried foods, you need a dehydrator with a good fan, heat source, and an adjustable thermostat. When we teach classes we do not allow the people to use those Ronco and Ronco type dehydrators for their classes.
To prevent mold you should condition your foods. It is for fruits, but since you are doing a combination, I would suggest this.
HOW TO CONDITION FRUITS
Allow dried FRUIT (not vegetables) time to "condition": When dry, allow fruit to "condition" for four to 10 days before packaging for storage. The moisture content of home dried fruit should be about 20 percent. When the fruit is taken from the dehydrator, the remaining moisture may not be distributed equally among the pieces because of their size or their location in the dehydrator. Conditioning is the process used to equalize the moisture. It reduces the risk of mold growth.
To condition the fruit, take the dried fruit that has cooled and pack it loosely in plastic or glass jars.
Seal the containers and let them stand for 7 to 10 days. The excess moisture in some pieces will be absorbed by the drier pieces.
Shake the jars daily to separate the pieces and check the moisture condensation. If condensation develops in the jar, return the fruit to the dehydrator for more drying.
After conditioning, package and store the fruit. |
RE: Dehydrating an apple/carrot blend
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| We mainly use a large solar dehydrator the we built ourselves. The main fruit we dry are figs, sometimes also tomatoes. We are still tinkering with it, but it did dry a couple of large trees worth of figs last year. Hopefully we will do lots of tomatoes and more figs this year. Temperatures are around 115F and it has good air circulation. It will only work in the summer, but that is OK, since we do not need that volume any other time. I'll take a picture of it when we use it again in the summer. We also have a Ronco. It does work well for small volumes and we use it for backpacking food. It works OK in this climate, but it is just too small if we get lots of fruit at once. I imagine it would not be adequate for a humid climate though. I did not know that was called conditioning. I do what you describe but using zip lock bags. Afterwards we vacuum pack them and freeze them for a few days. Sorry, I misread that the carrots were cooked. I have dried carrots and apples uncooked. Have not had any problem with either, but my weather is very dry. For example, lots of my hot peppers just dry at ambient conditions, so do my herbs. A dehydrator is overkill for some things here, but very useful for tomatoes and figs! |
RE: Dehydrating an apple/carrot blend
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| Thanks for your thoughts on this. I live in the 2nd driest state in the U.S. but am so glad to have my Excalibur dehydrator, especially this time of year when I can dry up the quartered and cored smaller apples overnight. Only thing better would be if the words freeze-dried would work as the words imply. By the way, I've discovered that if I drop the apples into a bowl containing pure juice concentrate (12 oz froze/defrosted), they are much more flavorful and by using raspberry, cranberry or peach juice for example to vary taste just a bit. It is an excellent oxidation inhibitor. I will never use fruit-fresh for this again at least for apples. The birds and I do like apples soaked in straight lemon juice as a preserver too (before dehydrating), which somehow leaves them tasting sweeter. Cabrita, You are so lucky to be able to grow a garden for much of the year... though I am glad to be forced to rest for part of the year, when it comes to the heavy part of gardening. lol I still have a more apples, and there are several pounds of whole peaches still in the freezer that I need to take care of. OH! just remembered the white and red currents I need to figure out what to do with. They may just be compost this year! I need to look at what veggie seeds to get for this year. |
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