Dehydrating & Storing Foods
Dehydrating or drying foods will help preserve them so they'll last longer without spoilage, and will help prevent them from becoming contaminated with microbes. This process does reduce the amount of certain nutrients in the food, however, and different methods of drying cause different nutrient losses. Electric dehydrating preserves the most nutrients. It retains the largest amount of flavor and reduces the amount of nutrient loss.
Some vitamins, such as A and C, are decreased if they come into contact with air or heat -- while others, such as certain minerals, the B vitamins and vitamin C -- can leach out into cooking water. Vitamin A is light sensitive, so it might be lost if you dehydrate foods in the sun or if you don't store dehydrated foods in a dark place. For example, green, leafy vegetables that are steam-blanched for 5 minutes and then dehydrated in an oven only retain up to 14 percent of their original vitamin C content, between 22 and 71 percent of their original thiamine content and between 20 and 69 percent of their original total beta-carotene content, according to a study published in the Journal of Food Science and Technology in 2013.
Blanching will minimize the loss of thiamine and vitamins A and C due to dehydration, as blanching inactivates the enzymes that increase their loss. Steam-blanching reduces nutrient losses more than blanching in water. Dipping fruits or vegetables in pineapple, orange or lemon juice before dehydrating can help them maintain higher levels of vitamin C throughout the dehydration process, and also helps prevent them from turning brown.
Keeping dehydrated food safe to eat. --- After you dehydrate foods, you need to "condition" them before you package them for final storage. This means cooling them, putting them in a nonporous container for 10 to 14 days and also stirring or shaking them at least once a day. If condensation occurs, the food isn't fully dehydrated and you need to return it to the oven or dehydrator for further drying. If the food may have been contaminated, it needs to be pasteurized by putting it in an oven at 160 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes. You should store dehydrated foods in airtight glass or plastic containers in a cool, dry, dark place. Foods stored at high temperatures, such as 80 F, will only last a few months, but those kept at temperatures of under 60 F, can last for at least one year. Discard these foods at the first sign of mold or other contaminants.
The Drying Process. --- When drying food, don't keep temperatures too low or too high. Temperatures too low may result in the growth of bacteria on the food. Temperatures too high will result in the food being cooked instead of dried. Food that is under-dried will spoil, and food that is over-dried will lose its flavor and nutritive value.
Food should be dehydrated between 120 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. You can begin drying your food at higher temperatures, but turn the temperature down after the first hour or so. The last hour or so of drying time should be turned down on a lower setting. You must turn the food and rotate the trays while the food is drying.
You will know your food is dried when when you touch it, and it is leathery with no pockets of moisture. When touching foods for dryness, remember food feels softer when warm; therefore, always let food cool for a few moments. Either turn off the dehydrator or remove the drying tray. If you are not sure if an item is sufficiently dry, it's better to over-dry than to under-dry. If you are testing fruit, you can tear a piece in half. If you see moisture beads along the tear, it is not dry enough. Meat should be tough, but shouldn't snap apart. Vegetables should also be tough but can also be crisp.
When storing your dried product, keep in mind that no moisture should be allowed to enter the container...ever. Dried food absorbs moisture from the air, so the storage container must be airtight. Some acceptable storage containers are jars and plastic freezer bags. If storing fruit leather, wrap in plastic wrap first and then store in a another airtight container. Store the containers in a dry, dark place with a moderate temperature. Your kitchen cupboard is an good spot; however, storing it where the temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit or below is best.
Some people mistakenly think that dehydrated veggies are cooked. They're not. Unlike cooking vegetables, which can involve steaming, blanching, boiling, etc., many of the nutrients can leach out and be lost during the cooking process. With dehydration, the evaporation process is much gentler, and uses lower heat, so the nutrients stay intact, making the nutritional composition as close to fresh as possible. Of all the food processing techniques available, dehydrated foods maintain more of their nutrition, even better than their frozen or canned counterparts.
Most veggies can be re-hydrated by adding 1 part vegetable to 2 parts water and then simmering for 10-15 minutes. But it's best to simply re-hydrate vegetables by soaking them for 1-2 hours. If you're using dehydrated veggies in a recipe that requires cooking, there's no need to re-hydrate them first. Simply toss the dehydrated veggies into your recipe and enjoy a nutritious, nourishing meal that's packed with vitamins and minerals.
Vegetable Drying Guide
All vegetables except onions and peppers,and mushrooms should be washed, sliced, and blanched. Dry vegetables in single layers on trays. Depending of drying conditions, drying times make take longer. Dry vegetables at 130-degrees Fahrenheit.
- Beans, green:Stem and break beans into 1-inch pieces.Blanch. Dry 6-12 hours until brittle.
- Beets: Cook and peel beets. Cut into 1/4-inch pieces. Dry 3-10 hours until leathery.
- Broccoli: Cut and dry 4-10 hours.
- Carrots: Peel, slice or shred. Dry 6-12 hours until almost brittle.
- Cauliflower: Cut and dry 6-14 hours.
- Corn:Cut corn off cob after blanching and dry 6-12 hours until brittle.
- Mushrooms: Brush off, don't wash. Dry at 90 degrees for 3 hours, and then 125 degrees for the remaining drying time. Dry 4-10 hours until brittle.
- Onions: Slice 1/4-inch thick. Dry 6-12 hours until crisp.
- Peas: Dry 5-14 hours until brittle.
- Peppers, sweet: Remove seeds and chop. Dry 5-12 hours until leathery.
- Potatoes: Slice 1/8-inch thick. Dry 6-12 hours until crisp.
- Tomatoes: Dip in boiling water to loosen skins, peel,slice or quarter. Dry 6-12 hours until crisp.
- Zucchini: Slice 1/8-inch thick and dry 5-10 hours until brittle.
Fruit Drying Guide
All fruit should be washed,pitted and sliced. Arrange in single layers on trays. Dry fruit at 135 degrees Fahrenheit. You may wish to pretreat your fruit with lemon juice or ascorbic acid or it won't darken while you are preparing it for drying. Just slice the fruit into the solution and soak for 5 minutes.
- Apples:Peel, core and slice into 3/8-inch rings, or cut into 1/4-inch slices. Pretreat and dry 6-12 hours until pliable.
- Apricots: Cut in half and turn inside out to dry. Pretreat and dry 8-20 hours until pliable.
- Bananas: Peel, cut into 1/4-inch slices and pretreat. Dry 8-16 hours until plialbe or almost crisp.
- Blueberries: Dry 10-20 hours until leathery.
- Cherries: Cut in half and dry 18-26 hours until leathery and slightly sticky.
- Peaches: Peel, halve or quarter. Pretreat and dry 6-20 hours until pliable.
- Pears: Peel, cut into 1/4-inch slices, and pretreat. Dry 6-20 hours until leathery.
- Pineapple: Core and slice 1/4-inch thick. Dry 6-16 hours until leathery and not sticky.
- Strawberries: Halve or cut into 1/4-inch thick slices. Dry 6-16 hours until pliable and almost crisp.
How to Use Dried Food in Recipes
You will need to soak or cook your dried foods before using them in recipes. Some foods require soaking and cooking. Vegetables are usually soaked btween 1/2 to 1-1/2 hours and then simmered. Some vegetables can be rehydrated while they are cooking. Fruits are soaked, and then cooked in the water they were soaked in. Don't add extra sugar until the fruit is cooked;otherwise, the fruit may be tough. Fruits are sometimes eaten in their dry state as snacks. You must remember that after a food is rehydrated, it may spoil quickly, so use it promptly. To cook dried food, use the following information and simmer until tender.
- Apples: Add 1 1/2 C. warm water to 1 C. apples and soak for 1/2 hour.
- Beans, green: Add 2 1/4 C. boiling water to 1 C. beans and soak for 1 1/2 hours.
- Beets: Add 2 3/4 C. boiling water to 1 C. beets and soak for 1 1/2 hours.
- Carrots: Add 2 1/4 C. boiling water to 1 C. carrots and soak for 1 hour.
- Corn: Add 2 1/4 C. boiling water to 1 C. Corn and soak for 1/2 hour.
- Onions: Add 2 C. boiling water to 1 C. onions and soak for 1 hour.
- Peaches: Add 2 C. warm water to 1 C. peaches and soak for 1 1/4 hour.
- Pears: Add 1 3/4 C. warm water to 1 C. pears and soak for 1 hour.
- Peas: Add 2 1/2 C. boiling water to 1 C. peas and soak for 1/2 hour.
- Potatoes: Add 1 1/2 C. boiling water to 1 C. potatoes and soak for 1/2 hour.
Seed Saving Techniques
You can save vegetable seeds from your garden produce to plant next year. Seed saving involves selecting suitable plants from which to save seed, harvesting seeds at the right time, and storing them properly over the winter.
Harvesting Seed
http://seedsave.org/issi/904/beginner.html
Saving tomato seeds is easy. Allow fruits to ripen fully and scoop out the seeds, along with the gel surrounding them, before you eat or cook the tomatoes. Put the seeds and gel in a glass jar with some water. Stir or swirl the mixture twice a day. The mixture will ferment and the seeds should sink to the bottom within five days. Pour off the liquid, rinse the seeds and spread them out to dry on paper towels.
Saving pepper seeds is even easier. Allow some fruits to stay on the plants until they become fully ripe and start to wrinkle. Remove the seeds from the peppers and spread them out to dry.
Save pea and bean seeds by allowing the pods to ripen on the plants until they’re dry and starting to turn brown, with the seeds rattling inside. This may be as long as a month after you would normally harvest the peas or beans to eat. Strip the pods from the plants and spread them out to dry indoors. They should dry at least two weeks before shelling, or you can leave the seeds in the pods until planting time.
Plant Selection
Tomatoes, peppers, beans and peas are good choices for seed saving. These plants have flowers that are self-pollinating, and seeds that require little or no special treatment before storage. Seeds from biennial crops such as carrots or beets are harder to save, since the plants need two growing seasons to set seed.
Plants with separate male and female flowers, like corn and vine crops, may cross-pollinate, so it is difficult to keep the seed strain pure. A stand of sweet corn can be pollinated by popcorn from a nearby garden on a windy day. The flavor of the current sweet corn crop will be affected, and a crop grown from these seeds will be neither good sweet corn nor good popcorn.
Cucumbers, melons, squash, pumpkins, and gourds can all be cross-pollinated by insects. Although the quality of the current crop will not be affected, seeds from such a cross will grow into vines with fruit unlike that of the parent plant--often inferior in flavor and other characteristics.
When saving seed, chose open-pollinated varieties rather than hybrids. If open-pollinated varieties self-pollinate or are cross-pollinated by other plants of the same variety, they set seed which grows into plants that are still very similar to the parent plant, bearing similar fruit and setting seeds that will produce more similar plants. Open-pollinated varieties may be “heirlooms,” varieties that have been passed down from one generation of gardeners to the next, or they may be more recent selections.
Hybrid vegetable plants are products of crosses between two different varieties, combining traits of the parent plants. Sometimes a combination is particularly good, producing plants with outstanding vigor, disease resistance, and productivity. Hybrid seeds are generally more expensive as they cost more to produce.
Hybrid plants, such as ‘Big Boy’, ‘Beefmaster’ and ‘Early Girl’ tomatoes will produce viable seed. Plants grown from that seed, however, will not be just like the hybrid parents; instead, they will be a completely new combination of the good and bad traits of the plants that were initially crossed. It’s impossible to predict just how the seedling plant will perform or what qualities the fruit will have.
Some tomato varieties are not hybrids; instead they are open-pollinated types such as ‘Big Rainbow’, ‘San Marzano’ and ‘Brandywine’. Seed produced by these varieties will grow into plants very similar to the parent plants, with nearly identical fruit. Likewise, ‘Habanero’, ‘California Wonder’ and ‘Corno di Toro’ peppers; ‘Lincoln’, ‘Little Marvel’ and ‘Perfection’ peas; and ‘Kentucky Wonder’, ‘Blue Lake’ and ‘Tendercrop’ beans are all open-pollinated varieties that will come true from seed.
Once you have planted an open-pollinated crop, select the plants from which you want to save seed. Choose only the most vigorous plants with the best-tasting fruit as parents for the next year’s crop. Do not save seed from weak or off-type plants.
You can save vegetable seeds from your garden produce to plant next year. Seed saving involves selecting suitable plants from which to save seed, harvesting seeds at the right time, and storing them properly over the winter.
For fleshy vegetables such as tomatoes, squash and melons, pick them when they are fully ripe. Scoop out their seeds and spread them to dry in a well-ventilated place. Beans and peas need to be left on the vine until the pods are dry and crackly. Corn should also be left to dry on the stalk until the kernels dent. Other types of seed may be gathered when the fruit or vegetables are fully formed, hard and “meaty.” Remember to collect seeds only from the most vigorous plants in you garden, and not just from the first few ripe specimens you happen to encounter. By selecting seeds from just the healthiest plants, you will – over time – select for and create a special sub-variety of these crops that are especially adapted to your backyard’s climate and soil.
Also remember to label and store your free bonanza as soon as possible after harvesting. You may think you'll be able to recall the name of each kin of seed, but believe me — it's easy to get confused. Some (broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower seeds) resemble one another quite closely. Envelopes make good containers for storing small quantities of most kinds of seed since they can be sealed and labeled conveniently.
The key to successful long-term seed storage is keeping your cache cool and dry. If you store your seeds where the air is moist, they may sprout and/or become mildewed (Tip: You may want to put a small amount of powdered milk into each storage container to act as a desiccant). Mold growth occurs at a faster rate in warm air than it does in cool air.
Germination Testing: Are My Seeds Still Alive?
To test how many would sprout, first, we placed moistened cotton in a petri dish. Then we did the following:
- place exactly 100 seeds on top of the damp cotton,
- cover the dish,
- leave the dish it at room temperature for a week or a few days
- count the number of seeds that have begun to grow (if 90 out of 100 seeds have sprouted, the germination rate is 90 percent: This is considered a good rate).
Asparagus 4Beans, string2Broccoli3Cabbage3Carrots4Cucumber5Lettuce5Onion2Pea2Pumpkin6Radish3Spinach5Squash4Tomato3Turnip3
Potato, sweet potato, turnip and onion sets may be stored in open boxes or hung in mesh bags in a place where the temperature is 35 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and the air is not overly dry. We store ours in a frost-free fruit cellar along with our canned goods and winter squash (my neighbor, on the other hand, has had good luck squirreling away his eatin' spuds and seeds in a 4-foot-deep pit dug in a sandy, well-drained spot. When he unearths them in early May, the potatoes and seeds look just like they did the previous September, without a single sprout!). Seeds from biennial crops such as carrots or beets are harder to save, since the plants need two growing seasons to set seed.
Other Links You May Find Helpful Introduction on Canning Fruits and VegetablesPage 1 of "How to Can and Freeze Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden." This page talks about what you should know before you begin to can.
How to Can Vegetables Using a Pressure CannerPage 2 of "How to Can and Freeze Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden." This talks about canning vegetables using a pressure canner.
How to Can Vegetables Using a Boiling Water CannerPage 3 of "How to Can and Freeze Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden. This page talks about canning vegetables using a boiling water canner.
How to Can FruitPage 4 of "How to Can Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden." This page talks about canning fruit.
How to Freeze Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden.Page 5 of "How to Can and Freeze Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden." This page talks about freezing basics and "how-to's."
How to Make Jams and Jellies Page 6 of "How to Can and Freeze Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden." This page talks about the tips and tricks of making homemade jams and jellies.
How to Make Pickles and RelishPage 7 of "How to Can and Freeze Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden." This page talks about pickling.
How to Dehydrate Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden.Page 8 of "How to Can and Freeze Fruits and Vegetabes from Your Garden." This page talks about drying and lists dtying times for fruits and vegetables.
How to Make lye Soap and Other Homemade Concoctions Page 9 of "How to Can and Freeze Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden." This page talks about making lye soap and other old-fashioned, homemade concoctions and remedies.
Home Processing Troubleshooting GuidePage 10 of "How to Can and Freeze Fruits and Vegetables from Your Garden." This page answers your questions about canning and freezing garden produce.
Other Home Canning Links This site lists other links that you may find helpful.