Papa John and Mrs. Nice got us a beautiful giant Excalibur food dehydrator for Christmas this year, and we were so excited to use it that we could barely wait before we were fully unpacked to crack it open and start it up. It was super easy to put together and came with not one but TWO instruction booklets, which are also really easy to use. And having one gave me an excuse to pick up a new mandoline slicer and apple corer so I can make apple chips whenever I want. Which is right now.
The corer, which I picked up from Amazon, was deceptively easy to use, and cleans really easily.
The mandoline is also easy, and super sharp. And also from Amazon.
For the first go-round in the dehydrator we stuck with plain apples, sliced about 1/8″ thick.
I kind of wanted to play ring toss with these things.
Instead I spread them evenly over one of the many dehydrator trays.
I’m actually now keeping a small spray bottle filled with lemon juice in the fridge for spraying on fruit to prevent oxidation. You can also get some kind of bisulfide something-or-other but I haven’t quite gotten around to getting that yet.
Then you shove it in the dehydrator …
… put the door on …
… and set it for however many hours you need. For apples it’s about 7 hours at 135°F.
The machine turns off on its own which is awesome. So I came down the next day to these piles of tart and delicious gorgeousness.
All you need to do is pack them loosely in an airtight container for a couple days so that the remaining moisture evenly distributes itself throughout the batch. Then you can do whatever you want with them.
So the next day I tried bananas.
These also were sliced about 1/8″ thick.
And they take about 6 hours. They’re still in there now or I would give you an update.
Next experiment? PINEAPPLE!
I want one of those so badly right now…. It looks great!
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I think banana chips are usually fried – they never worked well for me. Pineapple will be soooo good! I also used to make my own beef jerky. Damn, I miss that!
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Jerky is on the list. I thought about spraying the racks before adding the bananas because they ended up sticking but then i worried that the oil would interfere with the drying. Thoughts?
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I only tried it the once – so disappointed I never bothered again!
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I really like the flavour but getting them off the rack was a failure.
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Yeah, some oil spray should be okay – just not your garlic-infused-chilli-sesame blend! Ha!
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Haha ew. I also have some non stick sheets that came with it. Those might work too.
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YUM!!!!
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Why you don’t eat them fresh?
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Nice corer. I may have to get one of those
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You should! It’s super easy to use and takes up almost no space.
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It’s in my cart 🙂
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Nice!
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