Solar Food Dehydrators
Solar food dehydrators are easy to make and they work really well, enabling yout to preserve your harvest and get the full benefit from all of your hard work in the garden.
Dehydrating food is one of the oldest ways of preserving the bounty from your garden and it’s a method that doesn’t require any electricity.
Dehydrated foods can be eaten as-is after drying but many are soaked in water prior to cooking to improve their texture and flavor.
Dehydrated vegetables are commonly used in soups and casseroles, allowing for summer flavors and nutrients to be kept in the diet long after the garden has been put to bed for the year.
Instant Solar Food Dehydrator
All you need to do is put trays of the food that you want to dehydrate inside your car on a warm day.
Place the trays up on the top of the dash and let the sun get to work
Place a thermometer in the car with your trays so that you can keep an eye on the temperature. if it gets too warm in there, open a window. Very high temperatures will destroy the enzymes in the food and its nutritional content will be greatly reduced.
You can read up on temperature requirments for dehydrating food here.
Do you know what else a car is really useful for on a sunny day?
It makes an ideal spot for bread dough to rise!
Make Your Own
Solar food dehydrators are easy enough to make. This great video shows you exactly what to do, to make a diy solar food dehydrator.
One thing that we really like about this design is that the heat supply unit can beseparated from the dehydrator box.
In winter it can be used on its own as a solar furnace to supply heat to the house, chicken coop or other animal shelter.
You Could Even Use An Old Fridge!
Giving a new purpose to broken down fridges that would otherwise end up in the dump, is an excellent way to to get yourself a food dehydrator.
As the fridge is insulated, the dehydrator will stay at a warm temperature for longer.
The video below shows you one way to do this. If you make it so tht the heat unit is demountable then you can use it as a solar furnace as described above.
Cardboard Box Food Dehydrator
This option is very quick, easy and cheap to make but it’s much less durable than the others.
Still, it’s a good way to try out drying food and it makes an interesting project for kids too.
All you need are cardboard boxes, tape and plastic wrap.
This one can’t be left outdoors, if it gets wet it will become useless, so you’ll need space to store it indoors.
The instructions are here
