Here are pictures of the dehyrdator I made. It hangs over our wood stove. I dry fruits and also my sprouted grains for baking.
I decided to make my own after researching dehyrdators. Since we have a heat source and build fires 2x a day from the end of September on we are right on time for dehydrating the fruits of the season. Since the dehydrator hangs from a hook I can take it outside and use it as a solar dehyrdator when it is warm and dry outside and too early to be building fires. I dehyrdator 10 pounds of apricots early this summer in this way.
The racks are made from stainless steel which I ordered online. The SS is not cheap but you don't want to use anything else. I have two sizes of screening, I made some of the racks with a wider mesh for fruits and a tight mesh for drying grains. Can you make that out in the picture?
The frame can be made out of any wood. I wrapped the whole thing in cheesecloth. That seems to be working really well.
I have that little eco fan on my stove that I point at the dehydrator, that helps keep the air flowing nicely. I can dry my sprouted grains in this unit in 24-36 hours, but I usually leave them in for 2 days just to make sure.
Check out post about making 100% Whole Wheat Sandwhich Bread made with Sprouted Flour dried in my dehydrator!
Beautiful set up! I've been using an excalibur which we really like. There's nothign like sprouted grain flour - it's so easy to work with and makes beautiful breads and pastries.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jen - I looked at those Excaliburs but wanted to use the heat we already had. We are lucky (I guess you would call it that) that we get to start with fires in Oct so we can dry lots of fruits throughout the fall. It dries the grains beautifully too! In the summer I used the oven for the sprouted grains. BTW, It is very dry here. I am having great luck with this flour!! And the loaves last forever cause they are super fresh. Another bonus! Thanks for posting. Happy baking!
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