Were you using a dehydrator? You need air movement and warmth to dehydrate food. I dry my fruits and vegetables in a dehydrator at 125 degrees F (52 C). It blows air across them continuously, and they're done in about 12-14 hours, depending on how thick/big the pieces are.
Carrots (roots/tubers) must be cooked first then dehydrated.. they don’t have enough moisture in them raw to dehydrate in a timely manner before they spoil.. sun drying would do nothing to raw carrots.. just shrivel them and encourage decomposition..
Interesting! I wanted to make dried potato slices, and dried them raw. That worked ok, but the plan was for them to be snacks, and they tasted... raw.
So I tried to blanch them, and I must have sliced them too thinly, as they fell apart when I tried to spread them on the dehydrator trays. They tasted much better, but were little clumps, not slices.Yes mam.. freeze drying is best for tubers/root veggies.. they are tricky to say the least, if you dehydrated raw taters they would reconstitute as raw and still need to cook, but most raw/wet type vegetables and fruits do much better (tomatoes/squash/fruits) dehydrated then reconstituted they would be edible and almost fresh again with heating to almost boiling slowly in water, and ready to be cooked with.. and most even can be eatin in the dehydrated state.. some vegetables do best (peppers come to mind) when dried just store and later grind. into powder or flakes and used in cooking as spices.. peppers don’t reconstitute back to original state very well.. it’s all in the preparation prior to dehydration as to what you get after dehydrated. I hope that helps.. I tend to get my responses twisted.. and can be confusing.. lolInteresting! I wanted to make dried potato slices, and dried them raw. That worked ok, but the plan was for them to be snacks, and they tasted... raw.
What types of peppers? Yes strawberries work well.All this talk has me chomping at the bit for dehydrated summer squash! I love that stuff, tastes like lays potato chips.
When I can the hot sauce I mill out all the seeds & dehydrate them - the best red pepper flakes ever. Spicier than store bought because I do all super hot peppers.
Does anyone dehydrate strawberries? Any tricks to that? I was hoping to do some when my strawberry patch finally produces.
C. Chinense nice.. most people say super hot but are actually just hotter C. Annuums, or similar.. I love em myself..Last year for the really hots I did mostly habaneros, reapers & one of the scorpions. Along with some jalapenos & cayenne to tame the hot sauce down a little (I really like the cayennes). My DH likes really hot. He's not right. LOL I can't eat his sauce, most people can't. When I cook eggs for him he gets a half a habanero chopped up on top. I can't even cook my eggs in the pan after his.
