With some things, you only know of their existance when you have an idea and search for them on the internet!
The same goes for me - I thought, “I’ve got loads of nice apples, I wonder if there’s a device to turn them into dried apples like you can buy in the shop…”
So I Googled it, and found this hidden underworld of people who dehydrate things.
I started with collecting some apples from the garden, cleaning them, peeling and slicing them. I filled all 6 shelves with apples, looked at the approximate times and temperatures, and set the timer to 12 hours and the temperature to the maximum of 70 degrees, with all of the shelves expanded. After 2 hours, the apple slices on the base of the dehydrator were smaller and dehydrated; the ones on top, not so much. It’s engineered so that the items should dry as evenly as possible, with a central duct passing the hot over all the shelves, but the lower shelves do appear to dry quicker than the upper shelves. This isn’t a huge issue, as swapping the shelves around once or twice (which only takes 1 minute) cured the problem.
The result was some really nice dried apple slices, homemade and from my garden, so I know they’re organic! The dehydration process also reduced the acidic component of the apples (they are a cooking apple, but only slightly sour when they’re fully ripe) which I considered to be a bonus.
Below is a video showing the operation. You can hear the beep as I push the buttons; this is the same beep used by the alarm when the timer has reached the end of the dehydration period.
I didn’t know how the shelves collapsed, or really what that meant before I bought this, so here’s a video which should help unveil the mystery.
This is great value for money. Other models which have square shelves and a different architecture may dry more evenly, but they are way more expensive. So if you don’t want to spend too much, and wish to join the army of secret food dehydrators, then this is an excellent choice for you!