[pct-l] Re: Dehydrator Questions

[Brick Robbins <brick@fastpack.com>]

At 02:22 PM 1/6/99 EST, Rebecca Williams wrote:

>1. is is better to do it in a dyhydrator or is an oven ok?

I prefer a dehydrator becasue the fan speeds up the drying. If it takes too
long to dehydrate, sometimes it will spoil before it drys out.

>2. how long in advance of when you'll eat it can you dehydrate it?

It should keep for about a year in a cool dark place. For jerky, I prefer
to deydrate cured turkey ham. I don't have to prepare the meat, and the
commercial curing process helps prevent any nasty stuff from growing. I
like the flavor of the Turkey hams I get from Costco, so I just slice it up
in the food processor, and a day later I have my jerkey. YMMV.

>3. what do you do with it in the mean time? how do you store it between when
>you make it & when you take it on a trip?

Plastic bag in a cool dark place, or in a plastic bag in your resupply box

>And are the answers to these questions different for other foods,
>(fruit veggies etc.) in case I decide to experiment.

You are a lot less likey to get sick from bad veggies than bad meat, so I
don't sweat the shelf life of meatless stuff. I recently used some stuff
left over from my 1995 hike, and it was still good.

Hope this helps
* From the Pacific Crest Trail Email List |  http://www.backcountry.net   *

==============================================================================