ISO help/tips dehydrating strawberries

[aangellmouse]

My dehydrator doesn't have a heat adjustment and I have looked online and followed the book. All the advice I see says to slice then dehydrate strawberries without a pretreatment. I cut mine in half and they are horrible. The taste is sour when there is taste when there isn't there is no real flavor the color is a lovely deep red. I feel I must be doing something wrong. I checked them after 4 hours they were still very moist after six hours many were still moist where the top of the berry is but the flavor was so far off. My other fruits in the other batches I did are all beautiful I did apples, bananas and pineapple. Only the strawberries are not right. I am looking for any advice you can give on this as we all love them and with a farmer's market nearby we get lots during the next few months I was looking forward to these in the winter oatmeal. Thank you in advance for your help

 

[GotGarlic]

Hi and welcome to Discuss Cooking

This is just a guess, but try slicing them into four or five pieces instead of just two. It sounds like they're too thick to dry correctly.

 

[Maelinde]

Is it very humid by where you are right now? High humidity will definitely affect the dehydration process. The humidity by me is very high right now, so I haven't done much food drying at the moment. Just check your local weather and the humidity levels should be posted. Humidity levels really do make a difference.

My dehydrator has a thermostat (heat adjustment) on it, and it says to dehydrate fruits at 125 Fahrenheit. You could preheat your dehydrator and use an oven thermometer to get the heat right, then place your fruit in it.

Try slicing your strawberries in 1/4" pieces to get a more even dehydrated fruit.

I've only had my dehydrator since this January, so I'm no expert by any means. I've mostly dehydrated fruit & veg, but have also done a couple tries at beef jerky.

Hope this helps.

 

[CWS4322]

Welcome to DC! I like to roast the strawberries first and then dehydrate them. The roasting intensifies the flavor to another level that you can't achieve with just dehydrating them. Love roasted dehydrated strawberries!