Preservation is the key to storing your produce until you need to use it. There are many ways to process your produce, such as pickling, smoking, and freezing, however one that seems to have lost it’s popularity in the UK, but which is well used in other parts of the world is dehydrating.
Dehydrating is the slow drying of your produce to remove the moisture in order to allow for better preservation and long term storage.
This is a simple process, however there are a few rules to learn, and a number of techniques to master in order to be successful.
One of the best resources for learning about dehydrating is Dehydrate2Store.com. Tammy who created this site and the associated YouTube channel knows pretty much all there is to know about dehydrating and long term storage of food.
I need to declare my limitations in this area: Having always loved, but felt equally challenged by seasonality, I thought I ought to make some attempt at learning the art of preservation. One of the tasks I’ve set myself is to learn how to dehydrate. I’ve learned a lot from watching Tammy’s videos not least of which is that the quality of your equipment is crucial. To this end I recently purchased an Excalibur dehydrator, which from my research I believe is THE dehydrator. I fully intend to practice with this piece of kit in order to perfect the technique.
I encourage you to check out Tammy’s site and in particular her YouTube videos which contain a wealth of knowledge and experience concerning dehydrating. I will document my progress and post details of the results!
