Cool air vs. warm air?

[pengyou]

I have read on a couple of webpages that cool air is better to dry food than heated air, although it may take a longer time. Is that true?

 

[CraigC]

Probably depends on what you're drying. I'm pretty sure most meats are dried in cool conditions to avoid spoilage. Think dry sausages. Chilis are dried in hot, pretty arid conditions.

Craig

 

[BigAL]

I think the dehydrators I have go up to about 145*. Don't have to worry too much about "bad stuff" due to the marinade which is high in salt and acid.

Alton Brown has a good eats show about it and he just used house ac/heater filters and a box fan, iirc.

 

[GB]

I think it depends on what you are drying although I am not sure when one would be used over the other. I have made beef jerky both with cool air (using Alton Browns method) and warm air in my dehydrator. Aprons reason for using cool air with beef jerky is so that the meat does not get cooked. I have not noticed a difference using either method. The end product looks and tastes the same to me.

 

[n2cookin]

Some people that are into eating RAW or living foods. In other words they don't eat anything cooked. From my understanding it is about not losing the enzymes in the food. Anyway that is the reason they like to dehydrate foods at a low or cool temperature. The Excalibur has a section in their manual about dehydrating RAW foods. I have never done anything at that low of a temperature. I like to use a low and slow method. I dry almost always at about 120 to 125 degrees.

 

[pengyou]

Thanks! What about fruits and veggies? I do not want to work on meats until I can get the process down.

 

[CraigC]

My bad. I should read the catagory next time.

Craig

 

[Fortuna]

I dry everything at 95-105F except jerky. I dry jerky at 120F.
Lower temperature means longer time for drying. But you'll have living food which will make you healthy and younger. ;-) I usually dry food overnight because since I dry at low temperature, it takes more time. But I'm sleeping anyway.

By the way, try to dry water melon. That's really a yummy snack!