Dehydrating food

[lmgeenw]

Does anyone dehydrate food? If so, how do you store it after you remove the moisture? I have dehydrated a bunch of food this summer-blueberries, zucchini, bananas, pineapple, peaches, peppers, onions, tomatoes, etc. I put some of them in mason jars and some of them in plastic bags that I squeezed as much air out of as possible. I have them in the basement which stays fairly cool and dark. I'm wondering if they will last through the winter. Does anyone have any idea?

[Lady TS]

Sounds like you have dehydrated far more than me this year. :)

So far, I have ours in jars in my pantry. It's sort of an experiment.
I do recommend jars instead of bags: we had a miller moth infestation in the pantry, and they got into my dried tomatoes from last year. :sick

[sweetpeas]

I mostly dehydrate things we want to eat as snacks (peaches, bananas, apples . . . ), and I usually store them in ziplocks in the freezer as long as I have room. If I ran out of room in the freezer I'd store them in mason jars in as cool/dark a place as possible, so the basement would be good.

[lmgeenw]

Sounds like you have dehydrated far more than me this year. :)

So far, I have ours in jars in my pantry. It's sort of an experiment.
I do recommend jars instead of bags: we had a miller moth infestation in the pantry, and they got into my dried tomatoes from last year. :sick

Moths can get into plastic bags? Do they chew through them? I didn't even know that. :( I have tons of glass jars but it seems like there would be more air in a jar than in a bag so I wasn't sure if it would work. Our freezer is packed full right now. Maybe in a month or two when we have eaten some food, we can put the stuff in. I am going to be SO upset if it goes bad though. We need a vacuum sealer I think. But I also read somewhere that you need to use the moisture packet things too. :scratch

[sweetpeas]

As long as you've dried them completely, they will keep FINE in the pantry in glass jars (or ziplocks, unless you have the moth issue, I have no idea on that) for a few months, probably much longer. I find that if you're keeping things a long time, they taste "fresher" (for snacking on, I would guess it would matter less for things you were reconstituting things, but don't know for sure. Regardless, you will certainly be fine (again, assuming you've dehydrated things completely) storing them on the pantry until you've emptied up some room in the freezer this winter, then as you have room, maybe transfer things that you aren't eating through as quickly, just to keep them tasting fresher. But again, that's probably not necessary, just what I do when I have room (but when I cleaned out a shelf in the kitchen that I hadn't gotten to for awhile I found a big bag of dried peaches, not even "ziplocked", just closed with a twisty tie, that had probably been there for a couple of years, and they'd discolored but tasted fine, my children made short work of them, as they do with any dried peaches they find LOL.

[Lady TS]

Moths can get into plastic bags? Do they chew through them? I didn't even know that. :( I have tons of glass jars but it seems like there would be more air in a jar than in a bag so I wasn't sure if it would work. Our freezer is packed full right now. Maybe in a month or two when we have eaten some food, we can put the stuff in. I am going to be SO upset if it goes bad though. We need a vacuum sealer I think. But I also read somewhere that you need to use the moisture packet things too. :scratch

Yep, unfortunately, they can.

I would assume that the bags used with the food sealers would be a lot more resistant--the ones I have seen are quite a bit thicker than a Ziplock.

[BookWorm]

Moths....ewwww! Now I have to go check my pantry.

[lmgeenw]

I just found a moth in a bag of popcorn today. Ugh! Will freezing kill them? Should I just throw out the food? I can't believe we have a moth issue. It's the first time I've ever seen one! I guess I'll be sticking to glass!

[Can'tTurnLeft]

For long term storage I put mine in glass jars with an oxygen absorber and vacuum seal it.

For short term just a glass jar is fine :)

[Lady TS]

I hate to say it, but even if you put (non-frozen) grain-type stuff in jars, you can still get bugs in your food because the eggs are likely in there. :shifty

The jar method WILL keep them contained so they don't infest your house though! :yes

And if you freeze your grains for a few days after you purchase them, THEN jar them, you'll probably not get the moth problem because yes, freezing does kill the eggs.


I need to follow my own advice and not forget/get careless again. :doh:shifty

[greengirl19]

I have strawberries, tomatoes, zucchini chips, apples, and pears in glass jars right now. If I had room in the freezer, I'd put the non-fruit items in there (because we regular eat the fruit as snacks). I use glass jars for storage for most things, but plastic bags for freezer things, I feel like it makes it easer to pack.

I wish strawberries were in season for longer, I love dehydrated strawberries!

[lmgeenw]

I wish strawberries were in season for longer, I love dehydrated strawberries!

Strawberries are my favorite too! I'm doing apples right now.

[Lady TS]

I'm going to do mushrooms today.

I did grapes this weekend and they took For.Ev.Er. I think I'm not saving money drying those!

I bought a bunch of onions on sale last week that I want to do after the mushrooms.

[abbiroads]

Would dehydrating the grapes be worth it if the grapes were free? I have a friend who has an abundance of grapes.

[Lady TS]

Would dehydrating the grapes be worth it if the grapes were free? I have a friend who has an abundance of grapes.

Maybe. I haven't honestly figured the cost of running the dehydrator for nearly 2 days.

Of course, I just washed them and put them in the dehydrator. Some places say to cut them in half to cut drying time but I figured the ones in the store aren't cut in half..... And some places say to blanch them, but I wanted to try it w/o doing that....probably why it took so long.

But they do taste good. :D

[lmgeenw]

Would dehydrating the grapes be worth it if the grapes were free? I have a friend who has an abundance of grapes.

It would probably depend on the kind of dehydrator. Mine claims to only take the energy of a lightbulb to run. I bet they would be good though!