I see that dehydrating meals has been mentioned on the 'How much does your pack weigh' thread.

I thought it might be helpful to have a specific thread on the topic, there have been quite a few in the past - just search for dehydrators in titles.  There's some useful information there but it's always good to get people's current thoughts.

I bought one because I wanted to -

a) reduce the weight of backpacking meals.

b) be able to eat nutritious and well balanced, home cooked food when I'm away.

c) save money. 

I already do a lot of bulk cooking for the freezer and every time I was cooking I found myself thinking it would be good to dehydrate a few portions as well.  I buy meat and veg when it's on offer or in season, so that saves money and time.

I was interested in the L'Equip rather than one of the more basic ones but discovered that it is out of stock everywhere and it won't be available for a few months as new digital timers are being added.

I've ended up with the Excalibur, UK Juicers offered it to me at the same price as the L'Equip (thanks for letting me know about that Roger)

Yesterday was my first day of experimenting.

I did three portions of lamb stew, we'll be having that as our Sat. evening wild camp meal.

I tried a fruit leather because I had a few sticks of rhubarb and a cooking apple handy.  I like the texture of that but it's a bit tart.

I put four blobs of cherry yoghurt on the tray to make 'yoghurt taffy'.  It looks like four round slices of pink luncheon meat and tastes a bit like 'fruit salad sweeties'. 

I did a tray of porridge. Why? Well I like proper porridge and thought if I cooked and dehydrated it at home I could just rehydrate it in a bag when camping - saving fuel and a messy pot.

Anyway the porridge just turned into a layer of rubbery porridge after 12 hours.  I broke it up and put it in the fridge overnight.  Now I've chopped it up and it's back in the dehydrator but I haven't much hope for it.  It is drying out but I don't think it's going to rehydrate back into anything resembling porridge. 

So questions -

1. Anyone tried and had any success with dehydrating cooked porridge or should I just give up on that idea?

2. Tried and tested recipes would be good for us beginners, or recommendations on recipe books.  I'm thinking of meals for backpacking rather than how to dry sliced fruit and veg.

3. I'm wondering about rehydrating and eating out of the same bag that I store my portions of dehydrated food in.  Am I asking too much?  It would be great to add boiling water to a bag, use some sort of cosy to keep it warm while it rehydrates and then eat it out of the same bag.  I wonder how the timing would work.  Would it go cold by the time it was rehydrated sufficiently? What bags are folk using?

And finally -

there's loads of useful informatiion here Freezer bag cooking - dehydrating

Thanks for that link, Frummy

dehydrating porridge? i wouldn't think that would work at all. just soak porridge overnight. bring it to the boil, cosy it and leave for however long you can stand being hungry. say 3 mins. or just eat it straight away. proper porridge is so much nicer than the baby food gloop of the instant type. try it at home first, naturally.

if you don't have access to fresh fruit at reasonable cost, the brand bonne mamame do jars of fruit compote - cherry, rhubarb, apricot - which are quite nice dried. and an austrian brand, darbo do excellent fruit syrups (posh squash) - sour cherry, elderflower, peach and passion fruit - which are good for adding a bit more fruit flavour. they do a fairly wide range of syrups but you can't get them in the uk. waitrose stock bonne mamame and darbo.

The porridge is dehydrating, taking a long time but I think that's because I spread it out too thickly on the trays to start with.

The interesting bit is when I come to rehydrate it - I'm not very confident that these little dried up lumps are going to turn back into anything vaguely resembling porridge, we shall see.

But yes, Parky, I agree it has to be 'proper porridge' and I have experimented with different types and soaking before but unless it gets at least 5 minutes of simmering, it always tastes 'uncooked' to me.

We have a pear tree so looking forward to pear leather later in the year.  Thanks for the fruity ideas

glenngeorge 64 wrote (see)

Well, I must be so very thick! I didnt even realise you could buy dehydrators. The idea is great!! I could have great meals out on the hill. Nice one, will follow this with interest.

I'd come across the idea of drying fruit and veg but only because thre was an old aga in a house I once had and it was one of the uses you could put the 'warming oven' to.

I'd never thought of dehydrating meals until seeing threads on here.

I'd never seen a dehydrator until Wednesday.

So no, you're not thick at all, glengeorge

But that does remind me - 'thick' is a good tip.

I made my stew thicker than normal by adding diced potato towards the end of cooking. This absorbed a lot of the liquid but I did have to stir it constantly to stop it sticking. It meant that it was sufficiently thick to sit on top of the trays and not run off the sides.

Trays tend to be flat with mesh bottoms - this allows the air to circulate. If you're drying something wet like a puree, sauce or stew, you need to line the tray with something to stop it dripping through. Some makes and models include reusable plastic liners for trays, otherwise baking parchement can be cut to size.

I've bagged up my portions of stew now. I wish I'd weighed them before dehydration. But the dehydrated weights are around 160 -175g and that's a complete meal - meat, a variety of veg and plenty potato.

The porridge is a disaster, Parky was right.

I didn't complete the dehydration as it seemed to be taking forever. I decided to try rehydrating a portion. The hard lumps of porridge turned into bigger soft lumps of porridge floating in milky liquid - the ultimate lumpy porridge. You'd eat it if you were really hungry but not out of choice.

I think I'll continue with coffee and flapjack for camping breakfasts.

Hi Craig, sounds like you had a fantastic time on Skye last month, glad it went well

> I think I'll continue with coffee and flapjack for camping breakfasts

Flapjack makes a good starting point for porridge.  Crumble the flapjack into the pan, add milk (or powder & water) and simmer.  It doesn't take long to produce a nice, sweet porridge.  Well, I say 'not long', but I don't think I've actually timed it...

MoS wrote (see)

The porridge is a disaster, Parky was right.

I didn't complete the dehydration as it seemed to be taking forever. I decided to try rehydrating a portion. The hard lumps of porridge turned into bigger soft lumps of porridge floating in milky liquid - the ultimate lumpy porridge. You'd eat it if you were really hungry but not out of choice.

captain paranoia wrote (see)

> I think I'll continue with coffee and flapjack for camping breakfasts

Flapjack makes a good starting point for porridge.  Crumble the flapjack into the pan, add milk (or powder & water) and simmer.  It doesn't take long to produce a nice, sweet porridge.  Well, I say 'not long', but I don't think I've actually timed it...

I've never tried 'flapjack porridge' Capt.P but as I like adding fruit to mine, I'd probably like that too.

For me, the advantage of just eating the flapjack as it is, is I don't end up with a dirty pan.

Stoats Porridge Oat Bars could be what you guys are looking for - they are excellent, though expensive. At least they are made in Scotland from organic Scottish oats.  I like Sainsburys Luxury Muesli for my camping breakfast, if has lots of fruit and nuts in - if you want it warm just add some water and powdered milk. Proper porridge, made from medium oatmeal steeped overnight, should only take about 7 or 8 minutes on the most miniscule of simmers to be perfect - but it does depend on what oats you use. Here's how to do it.

I'd be really interested in a good recipe for a stew that can be dehydrated successfully.

Can you use an electric fan oven to dehydrate stuff?

I'd be really interested in a good recipe for a stew that can be dehydrated successfully.

I'm really pleased with my lamb stew but I didn't make it to a recipe.  I could give you a guestimate of ingredients if you're really interested, but I think the key is cutting your meat and veg into very small pieces - not much more than a cm square seemed to work quite well.

It took an hour to rehydrate this evening and I kept it wrapped up in a tea cosy during that time so it was still warm enough to eat straight from the bag.

All the separate bits of veg are still recognisable, the taste is good, the meat is a bit firmer than before, not sure if longer rehydration would make a difference but it's not an unpleasant texture.

Apart from the meat being a little bit chewier, the potato is also a bit more solid - I did add that towards the end of cooking and perhaps the pieces were a bit too big. 

My 160g dehydrated meal weighed 550g when rehydrated.  The portion size is ample for me but I'll probably throw in a boil in the bag rice tomorrow for Matt to add to his. 

Can you use an electric fan oven to dehydrate stuff?

I'm not sure at what temperature you move from 'drying' to 'cooking'.

My dehydrator has a temperature range of 95'F 35'C used for drying herbs to 155'F 68'C for drying meat and fish.

I'd have thought that's still a bit lower than a domestic oven. 

I've read that when using an oven you have to set it to very low AND leave the door ajar.

you'll have to leave the oven door ajar. hence get a thermometer. i have used around 50C-55C for good results. as you get nearer to 70C you are just continuing to cook the food - around 70C blood starts to change from red to grey and eggs set (important to know if making proper custard or ice cream)

you can dehydrate cooked veg if you prefer which then gives you the option of exactly what and how much you want mixed in with the "sauce" when you rehydrate.

ALoveSupreme wrote (see)

Thanks guys. My (fancy newish) oven goes down to 25C and has all sorts of fan settings, so it looks like I can give it a punt. I think my strategy for dehydrating would be to dehydrate the protein and perhaps some vegetables in a stew, because dehydrated carbs are easily sorted - Smash, rice, couscous etc. I'm making some venison stew tomorrow - I'll try dehydrating some of it in the week. Do you spread it out on greaseproof paper type stuff? Anything to watch out for? How do you know its dehydrated fully?

I'm very much a novice but here are my thoughts on your questions. 

Do you spread it out on greaseproof paper type stuff?

A shallow baking tray, non-stick or lined with greaseproof or baking parchement would do the job I'd have thought.

Anything to watch out for?

Keep the chunks of meat and pieces of veg small and of a similar size so it dries evenly.

Keep the consistency as thick as possible and reduce the water content during the cooking stage in order to minimise dehydrating time.

Spread the mixture out quite thinly.

How do you know its dehydrated fully?

It should get really crisp, it's fairly obvious when it's dry and I suppose you can't over dry so no harm in giving it a bit longer to make sure. 

When it's bagged up, watch out for any signs of moisture in the bag - I think that would be the tell tale sign that it needed a bit longer.

Mike, that link's a neat demonstration of how you could reduce the weight of a simple meal quite dramatically. You're tempted then?

How do you know its dehydrated fully?

I weight the tray until, it stops losing weight.

Do you spread it out on greaseproof paper type stuff?

Yes. I alternate putting a hole in the centre of the paper, and a gap around the outside. Then the airflow has to go over all the food rather than just going straight up the middle or round the edge.  A bit like this:

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