grill or grids for drying food?

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grill or grids for drying food?

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Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 05 6:36 am Post subject: grill or grids for drying food?

I've been drying a couple of mushrooms the last few days as an experiment, using a slightly different technique I read on TKG. They're about 4 days now and nearly done....but I'm doing them on a cooling tray and they are now falling through the gaps.

Any idea of something I could use as a cheap food grade holder for drying food? Even a cooling tray I have that has a grid effect lets things fall through - and I might want to put it in the oven as well so can't use cloth.

Behemoth

Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 19023
Location: Leeds

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 05 7:55 am Post subject:
Iron mngers and even B&Q often have a section for sheets of punched metal etc - not sure if it's 'food grade' but may be good enough for drying.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 05 8:20 am Post subject:
You can do the last bit of drying on baking trays.

Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 05 8:26 am Post subject:
Is there anything in the Lakeland catalogue? Or thinking about it, in Jekka McVicar's herb book she spreads muslin over the trays to dry delicate herbs would that work?

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22790
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 05 9:55 am Post subject:
You want the stuff that they use to make door and window screens from. I think it is called hardware cloth in the US, but I've no idea what we call it here, I did see some for sale the other day, but Ludlow might be a bit far for you to travel (although it definitely is worth a day trip ).

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 05 10:12 am Post subject:
I dry mine in an airing cupboard, on grease proof paper on baking trays. I don't see why you couldn't use, say, baking parchment on trays in an oven. And you can re-use the parchment/paper over and over, till it's too grotty.

Lozzie

Joined: 25 May 2005
Posts: 2595

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 05 11:33 am Post subject:
How about those perforated pie-tin things that are supposed to be great for cooking pizzas in, because they allow the air to circulate around the bottom of the pizza crust, therefore making it nice and crispy? They were a fad a few years ago. I see them a lot at boot sales.

Mustang
Guest

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 05 9:58 pm Post subject:
I've recently bought a dehyrdrator ... and am now dehydrating anything and everything to see what happens. Yesterday, did strawberries, gooseberries, oyster mushrooms, peppers, bananas and pineapple. Turn out really nice.......

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 05 10:23 pm Post subject: Re: grill or grids for drying food?

Bugs wrote:

I've been drying a couple of mushrooms ... and they are now falling through the gaps.
Any idea of something I could use as a cheap food grade holder for drying food? Even a cooling tray I have that has a grid effect lets things fall through - and I might want to put it in the oven as well so can't use cloth.

Umm, well I have used a metal shelf-rack (from Ikea, I think, bit like Grundtal) but instead of hanging it from its own bars, I hung it off a central heating radiator. And used a paper kitchen towel to stop bits falling through the gaps. Incidental discovery - the paper 'wicks' the moisture out of the mushroom and the larger surface area of the paper transfers it better to the air. (It worked faster!) The same piece of paper sufficed for a few weeks...

coyotekiller

Joined: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 14
Location: Iowa, USA

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 05 3:45 am Post subject:

Hello Bugs. I hunt for Morel mushrooms in the springtime and when I have a whole lot I want to dry at one time I take a needle with a long piece of thread and just start stringing them. Leave a tiny bit of space between each mushroom. Hang them wherever you like.Two to three days drying usually does it. This works equally well for whole or sliced. When dry just slide off the thread and store. I usually vacuum seal mine then freeze. You can do a very large amount of mushrooms at one time. Have a great day.

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