One thing you might try for the browning is to soak overnight to remove as much starch as possible. I have seen someone who did russet potatoes, soaked overnight to remove starch, drained and dehydrated the potato starch and then dehydrated the potaties! Love your dehydrator by the way!
love love your dehydrator, Iam from south africa and imported a dehydrator to SA ,but the power failures and loadshedding are becoming a problem would love to have one like your we have a lot of sun 😃thank you for your video and sharing your knowledge are just about to dehydrate some potatoes
yay! BTW those potatoes are still good and i'm using them without issue. I just pulled off several pounds of dried peaches from the outdoor solar dryer this morning!
@@OldSchoolPrepper That is great! I am in Louisiana. Getting ready for my fall garden. One thing I haven't done yet is canned meat, so I watched your video on canning chicken. We have lots of frozen and dried meats, but I was nervous about canning it. I know lots of people do it. just afraid I would mess it up, so thanks for posting about that, as well. I watched multiple videos of yours today. I love how you jump right into it. Seriously, I am thrilled I found your channel. No one in my area truly preps, so it is nice finding connections with that.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge! At this very moment I’m dehydrating potatoes while YT videos about the subject run in the background. You have turned me onto a new method. I’ve never considered a solar drier and love the idea. In the next few days I’ll begin designing something that works for my homestead. Any suggestions that you can give me regarding materials, etc would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again and I’m now a new subscriber. 🙂
Welcome Grace! it is really easy to make...you are the 5th or so person to ask me about the construction...I should really do a video on that ;) we went with our own idea which you can think of as two screen doors (one on the bottom, the other hinged on the top for the lid), plus legs. we have actually added another 'door' on top of the lid so now I have two huge drying sections. I will highly suggest that the screening be metal (we had animals dig thru our plastic screening) and lineed the inside with something that is good and food safe. Non-galvanized steel works, I lined mine with dehyrating try liners (in large roles) and nothing sticks to them and they are food safe. I got them from Lem Products: www.lemproducts.com/product/dehydrator-screen-material?rrec=true Happy dehydrating!
@@OldSchoolPrepper, thank you so much for getting me started in the right direction! You’ve just saved me tons of time trying to figure it out. I look forward to your next video and God bless you!
I've never considered using zinc as a way to avoid oxidation or use in food preservation...so I tried to look it up and I can't find any information on using Zinc for home food preservation...can you give me a link or any data on using this method?
thanks for the compliment on the dehydrator...I just finished drying 25 pounds of fresh peaches on it...soooo good and easy to build. Citric acid, I used 1 tablespoon per quart of water and the same for the same amount of lemon juice. I used bottled lemon juice so the acidity is standardized...if you use fresh lemon you may have to use more or less depending on how acidic the lemon is....good luck! I still have some potatoes in storage and they are looking good and cooking up well.
@@OldSchoolPrepper I just finished dehydrating about 5 lbs. of potatoes in an electric dehydrator before I watched your video. They became darkened but good to know they're still edible. Going to do a batch with citric acid next now that I've been educated. I've been wanting to construct a primitive dehydrator for a while now, something that I could use outside as well as over my wood burning stove. Thanks again.
hi Donna, great question...I have no idea. :) which is how I roll....I rewatched the video and I can make educated guess'. I'd say I put about 3 cups of water over the potatoes, then added 2 tablespoons of lemon juice into one bowl and one tablespoon of citric acid into the other bowl. If using the citric acid make sure the water is room temp-ish...if the water is too cold then the citric acid won't mix well. Good Luck~
something i keep forgetting to mention but was rudely reminded of today. when drying anything sweet, put the legs of the dryer into a container with water (yogurt container or whatever) the damn ants will be into whatever sweetness you are trying to dry. even thu tiny mesh...they left me alone so far this season but I just found them making a trail to some tomatoes....i just threw them out (luckily it was only one tomato worth) and will start over tomorrow. I always forget the water thing. oh and keep the water topped up...my dog, the neighborhood cats and the sun are all greedy for water. ; )
@@OldSchoolPrepper oh absolutely. Here in the southeast everything that held food came on little metal feet that were designed to sit in small cups of water to stop the ants. Luckily the ants havs left mine alone so far but ive only done apples, peppers, and mushrooms
hi Redwoodsgal....I'm assuming you are in the US, these gloves are everywhere....and they are cheap. You can find them in the beauty section of the grocery store (next to the loofa's and foot scrubbers) or off Amazon. They are like $5 for a couple pair. I think they are called "Exfoliating Gloves" mine have lasted for several years.
that is an interesting question, however it is such a little amount that I don't think it would amount to much overall. Of course every little bit helps.
Like I said in the video and wrote in the description I used lemon juice ( liquid citric acid being the acid ingredient) and powdered edible citric acid. Used in canning amongst other food preservation techniques.
Couldn't you dehydrate the potatoes that are in the pan and turn them into potato flakes? I am new to this. Haven't been brave enough to try my Excalibur yet.
sure you can definetly do that. I use the outdoor solar type of dehyrator so they don't get hard and crispy like the Excalibur....but the way i do it is free and the Exalibur takes energy...but I think it's not much. Since i'm a food preservertionist and a prepper I also look for alternative should I be without power hence the solar dryer instead of an elecrical device. That said you can certainly use the excalibur, dehydrate and then pulverize in a food processor or blender. I'm not sure if you'd end up with flakes I think you'll end up with powder.... however it might be just as good. Have you checked out Carol's station yet (Thrify Chic Housewife) she had a good video on dehydrating: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dUw-wj2-zqw.html
minimum of 5 minutes, I think 10 is best....if you soak too long the potatoes may start to fall apparat due to the wet and the acid in the soaking liquid. Good Luck Teri, I did this about a year ago and the potatoes are still looking GREAT! and taste great.
@@OldSchoolPrepper Do you rinse the potatoes that have been soaking in the citric acid before putting in the dehydrator or can they just go straight from the solution to the dehydrator?
@@Nefertitidancer hi, i put them directly onto the dryer as is. I think it helps protect the potato slice and I don't taste anything once they are reconsituted....they seem like regular potatoes to me!
try them after they were dehydrated? bleh....I have used them to cook since then and they are great.....would you like to see a video on them being cooked? I can sure do that. ;)
it worked! the control pot i had to water every day (like I did all of my containers) but the one with the Sodium polyacrylate only every other day. I'm doing a more intensive experiment this year and just did a video on the prep (with hanging flower pots this time) you might be interested in that one too: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TR_ASPvtTUY.html
All types of potatoes are NOT created equal. Thats why some are best for mash. some for baking an some for fries etc. Its all about the starch content. and how readily they convert that starch into sugars when dried or cooked. Also...the AGE of the potatoes. All potatoes will convert starch into sugar eventually. but at different rates. Thats why some potatoes store well and other types rot quicker. The faster the conversion, the sooner they rot.
I wouldnt recommend ANY type of potatoes for drying. Those boxes you buy in the store of scalloped potatoes are processed with sulphites and other chemicals to stop them from oxidizing during the drying process. There is little you can do to stop the graying of any potatoes without the chemicals when making sliced. You will have reasonable success making dried mash potato powder by cooking older storage-type baking potatoes, but honestly, the time and effort is not cost effective.
@@marcakennington5231 did you notice my original video was on home drying of potatoes? grey or not they work very well after being reconstituted and are yummy...they work for me and my storage, Oxidizing doesn't change the nutritional value nor the taste....and since I dry them outside in the sun (for free) or on my woodstove (for free) it is very cost effective. I also can them (generally Yukon Golds or fingerlings) and they keep well for years and years, I make a mean breakfast hashbrown...but that's just me being cheap. BTW I popped over to your channel, you have excellent taste in music. We maybe around the same age or at least you like music from my high school years. I listened to most of your Mellow Intersective playlist, thanks for that!
Huh, isnt "citric acid" synthetic lemon juice. Why use that when you can use the REAL thing and just use plain lemon juice whereas "citric acid" is "processed"
You are kind of correct. Citric acid is a byproduct of processing sucralose or glucose. It is natural and comes from many citrus fruits, not just lemons. The 3 major benefits are: it is cheaper to use (year around), it stores long term and it has a known acid value...e.g. 5% acid. With fresh citrus it is more expensive(generally in the winter unless you live in a sub or tropicalarea), doesn't store for years and you are taking a guess at the % of acid. That said for this use you can just use lemon juice and I did as well as the citric acid.
@@OldSchoolPrepper Thank you for responding and explaining that. I just did some spuds and didnt know about the lemon juice and they went brown 😱I guess if we are talking about dehydrating, I have dehydrated lemons and limes so if I didnt have any lemon juice or lemons on my tree could I use rehydrated lemons? Im trying to set myself up where what I buy each week I am dehydrating to stock up on a food supply, then take what I need from my supply to use for food and cooking eventually so I am then rotating stock. So if I am going to be working like this, I should be able to simply rehydrate some lemons to use for when Im dehydrating spuds lol ? What would work better in this regard, rehydrating slices and using the slices or powdering up the slices and adding the powder to the spuds soaking water? Because the powder would be more concentrated? Thanks again
@@-Free.Spirit- that is an excellent question, but I have no idea about the answer...I think it would work but I'm not sure....soooo.. you can just try it, or ask your local state extension service (they should have a place to submit questions online, mine gets back to me in a couple days) or pop over to @RoseRedHomestead. Pam knows everything and she is some kind of food scientist and college professor...good luck and I'd love to know the answer so I can include into a future video... giving you credit of course.
@@-Free.Spirit- I also forgot to mention that the brown potatoes are okay to eat. It's just oxidation so it won't hurt anyone, it just doesn't look the best, but when you're hungry you'll eat it.
