Hey, guys! I just wanted to tell you that thanks to your videos I am now the proud owner of a dehydrator and NO FOOD IS SAFE! I have made fruit leathers, pasta sauce, tomatoes, zucchini, and lots of onions. I use the diced n' dehydrated onions in practically everything now! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Thank you for sharing! I gave my teenage son a Nesco dehydrator for making beef jerkey this Christmas (2 weeks ago) & while I was searching videos for making ground turkey jerkey I stumbled upon the world of dehydrating foods for camping. We just got back from a 4 day/3 night backpacking trip & ate a variety of store-bought MREs. Those are expensive & I appreciate your wisdom & advice. Today, I dried carrots/onions/green/red/yellow peppers w/out much success. I'll trying again & ground beef.
Thank you Marcy S. We appreciate hearing that people are finding something of value in these videos. I'm confident your backpacking trips will be more enjoyable once you're able to enjoy your own lightweight and spoil-free meals. Cheers, - Martin
tr9mm: Thanks so much for that generous praise. We're delighted you found our dehydrating series valuable. It's especially nice to hear this from an outfitter. A local outfitter here has just begun selling dehydrators in their store, since it's permits them to profit from campers who don't like buying the commercial meals. If you have customers who don't care for those freeze-dried, pre-packaged meals, please direct them to these videos. It's so easy to do & the food's better. Cheers, - Martin
That was a really great video!! I have always tried to pre-prepare food for camping.. I don't know why I never thought of this!! Great!! I will say.. the whistle in the beginning and end of video..got my dogs up and running around!! Cheers!
Great. Thank you for posting. I ran out today and bought a dehydrator. We leave on Tuesday for a 7 day trip in Algonquin Park. After the pasta sauce I'll try the fruit roll-ups. Thanks again!
Jonathan Danforth: Thanks. Most would probably think it's pretty geeky. As for meeting on the trail, it's always nice to meet up with folks out there, though I might prefer to watch a movie in your awesome home theater. Now that's a cool project you have there. Cheers, - Martin
Dan Krolikowski: Glad to hear it Dan and glad you found the video informative. Making your own dehydrated meals will mark a significant improvement in your enjoyment of the backcountry. As for what else we prepare, we have some videos in the works on that. Regarding the stove you see us using in this video, it's called the Vital Stove. I have a detailed review and cooking demo already posted on my channel wherein I discuss it's pros and cons. Enjoy your trip to the Boundary Waters! -Martin
MrCloudseeker: Thanks. We're glad you found it informative. As for where to find a wife like mine...beats me. I can't believe my good fortune. Cheers, - Martin
Thanks so much! As my husband and I age (we are in our 60's), the weight we carry into the backcountry becomes a huge issue to our aging backs. Thanks much for this video. It demystified lots for me - time to pull my seldom used dehydrator off of the shelf.
Martha Grady I sure can relate. I turned 50 recently and shaving weight off of my gear and pack has never been more of a priority for me. Glad you found this video instructive. Cheers, - Martin
imasurvivor: Glad you liked it. The food barrel you see in this video is one that's commonly sold in specialty camping supply stores. Canoe campers use them because they are completely waterproof, rugged and fairly critterproof (but not bear proof). If you go to a camping store that sells canoes or canoe-camping equipment, you are likely to find them there. They will also likely sell various types of harnesses so that you can carry them just like a camping backpack. Hope this helps, -Martin
+Christopher Bishop You are most welcome, Christopher. Thanks for letting us know. I trust you'll be eating better while packing a lot smaller and lighter now on your trips.Cheers,- Martin
I just picked up a Stockli dehydrator for making meals up for 1 to 2 nighters , this is very helpful specially the fat removal and the soaking to save fuel. thanks
Hedy: The countertop/shelf was made on an previous camping trip by cutting a long live sapling, bending it around one of the trees horizontally, and tying the two ends together around the other tree. Then we cut lots of bits of dead sticks to the appropriate lengths and lay them atop (across) the frame. The sticks were then lashed together and to the frame. All the cordage used was made from spruce roots we dug up and split lengthwise. Hope this helps, - Martin
just wanted to thank you for sharing .. I have three growing grandchildren.. and I am always looking for ways to save time and money... this would be great... also this is a great way to prep for emerg.. such as earthquakes etc... again ty and hope you are having tons of fun in the bush.
JKMaczuga: It took me several minutes to understand your request as I could not figure out what table you could be referring to since we don't pack a camping table I eventually realized you were referring to the table we built for that camping trip. It was made entirely from found materials: 1 long green sapling which we bent around two trees, many dead twigs lain across it, and all bound with spruce roots. It was a fun bushcraft project. Sadly, I didn't take any video of us making it. -Martin
@Fletch6 Thanks Fletch. I'm glad you found it informative. I would expect that you should be able to find a food dehydrator secondhand fairly quickly on E-bay or Kijiji or the like as a lot of people buy them and find they don't use them as much at they thought they would...rather like bread makers. We don't use ours for anything other than preparing camping meals, though some people use them all the time for jerkies, fruit leathers, drying herbs & making dried fruit snacks for kids. -Martin
@ironearth701 The stove you see us using at the end of this video is a kind of twig stove called the Vital Stove made by Sol Huma. It's a terrific little stove. I made a video about that stove on that same camping trip this weekend and will be posting it shortly. Thanks for asking. -Martin
Another really great video. You guy's really know your stuff. I've been a Scout leader for 13 years and try to teach some of this to the kids but sadly, I'm a bit of a rarity. Your videos are wonderfully concise and complete
Great video guys. I've watched both of them now and they are very informative for someone, like me, that is looking to taking the next step of moving away from commercial freeze dried meals to making their own. Thanks.
very cool. Thanks. I have ordered one off the internet. Its a nesco FD-75PR ...this is something completly new to me. I am looking forward to playing and making some meals for camping and conoeing trips. Thanks again.
Andrew Meades: Thanks for the suggestion. That adhesive is from packing tape I used to hold the whole unit together when we had it stored in a compartment of our travel trailer. We lived fulltime and year-round in an old Airstream trailer for four and a half years, travelling through the US and Canada. The tape was needed to ensure the trays all stayed together when our trailer was bouncing around on rough roads. Glad to know there's a way to get that old adhesive off of it. Thanks, - Martin
Enjoying these videos. Just got my Nesco 5 tray dehydrator for only $60.00 on Amazon. Planning a camping trip to The Grand Canyon this fall so your videos are really helpful. Used my dehydrator for the 1st time yesterday with a trial run of jerky. Turned out pretty dry even though most videos I watched said to let it go for 8-9 hours, will go less time next time.
Jason Scheider: Thanks. No, we haven't changed how we do any of this. We still use the same dehydrator we've had for ages and still use it as demonstrated in the video. I hope you find one soon. A good place to find them secondhand is places such as E-Bay, Craigs List, and Kijiji. To get them new, look in big box stores such as CostCo, Sam's Club, or even Walmart. You can also order them directly online if you've decided on a specific model. Cheers, - Martin
Great vid as usual! I'm now going to start dehydrating for my camping trips. Correct me if I'm wrong but as long as the temperature exceeds about 110 degrees fahrenheit bacteria won't be able to live, and therefore there isn't a need to dry meat at anything above 120 degrees. I believe that this is the reason our body gets a fever, as it's the body's way of killing off any hard dying disease by raising the bodies temperature.
I love this idea. I`m going to have to buy a dehydrator and try this. I can see it saving money and with the weight reduced hiking is going to be a lot easier. excellent. thanks for sharing.
+See Min Lim The oven works but is often to hot on the lowest setting and cooks as well and drying the food. Not always a good thing depending on what you are working with.
Good stuff. I skip the pre-soak for the pasta sauce. I start the sauce in cold water in the pot, along with the dried meat, onions, mushrooms, olives, all at the same time, and as it rehydrates I add the pasta later. When the pasta is done, the meal is done. I don't then mess up a soaking container. But whatever works is great. I find the longest rehydrating time is the mushrooms, but I dry them raw. Maybe dehydrated cooked mushrooms would rehydrate faster.
Thanks for the patient demos. I just tried my hand for the first time at dehydrating two large cast iron skillets worth of spaghetti sauce and beef stew. I think I got at least eight meals. Bagged and in the freezer. I'll do more over the winter. Just have to bring sides with me. I picked up a Hamilton Beech digital dehydrator.
Hey guys, another great video. Sort of random, but if you want to remove the leftover adhesive from your dehydrator, WD40 and Windex work great. Use the WD40 to clean the adhesive, and then the Windex to clean the WD40. Just something I noticed while watching. Cheers.
MrBushLife: It stores very well in a ziplock bag for months. If you put the bag in the freezer, it will keep well for a year and beyond, but I've noticed that the following year, it begins to take up a slight freezer burned taste. We dehydrate nearly all our camp meals in the spring, bag 'em, then put them in the freezer for use all spring, summer, autumn and winter of that year. Hope this helps, -Martin
Andrew Meades: We didn't travel along the east coat, except for Florida, but we traveled throughout the rest of the US and Canada. Tobermory is beautiful. Have a great weekend. Cheers, - Martin
Eric Dufresne: Thanks. We're glad to hear you found the video worth your time. The stove you see us using in this video is called the Vital Stove. It's a battery-powered fan-driven twig stove. We have a detailed video review and cooking demo on our channel in case you're interested in learning more about it. Cheers, - Martin
Nice video! That explains the process very well. I have been shopping for a dehydrator, but am hoping to find something either on sale at at a yard sale.
@DrChrisBiomed Thanks Chris. I don't know enough to be able to say what the minimum safe temperature is for dehydrating meat. I follow the manufacturer's recommendation when it comes to that. Since it's designed to dehydrate raw meat (which has been marinated) to make jerky, it's possible they recommend 155F / 68C to partially cook the meat. In any case, we've never had a bad result from dehydrating our meat sauces, ground beef, chicken, etc at that temp. It takes long enough at that temp. :-)
Andrew Paterson: That's very kind of you to say. You're possibly the first person to describe our videos as concise. Despite my best efforts, I'm always so verbose in them. But we do strive to make them informative and as complete as we can without taxing a viewer's attention and interest. My thanks again, - Martin
Great Video! Wish you were doing more. Both the concept and the recipe look good. Definitely will try. Thanks for sharing! Subscribed just in case you decide to do more!
Thanks for subscribing. We have been on a long hiatus from making videos, (health issues put video-making on the backburner) but we've resumed making videos in the past year, so you can expect more to come, including cooking and deyhdration videos. Cheers! - Martin
@@PineMartyn Sorry to hear there were health issues. Glad to hear that it appears circumstances have improved. Looking forward to seeing your channel appear on my listing of new uploaded videos!!
Melissa Liebe: No, we;ve never tried a sauce with a milk product, but we've successfully dehydrated cream cheese. It's worth trying out, but I don't keep it around too long as I can't predict how long it would remain spoil-free. All meats should be ground up. If not, they will not dehydrate well and they will be stringy, fibrous, and very chewy when you rehydrate them. Canned chicken dehydrates very well and it rehydrates well, but not as perfectly as ground beef. Hope this helps, -Martin
Wow, what a FABULOUS video. Thank you so much for sharing your techniques. This video is superb. I've been wanting to get a dehydrator, and this took the mystery out of the entire process. :-)
***** I'm delighted to hear this was of some help to you. We have another video about dehydrating other sorts of foods, if you're interested Cheers, - Martin
Thank you rizzomovie. We will be making more videos featuring camp cuisine in future. I know there is Crown land in Australia, but I've no idea if areas of wilderness on your Crown lands are open for hiking and camping outside of managed park lands. It strikes me as worth looking into. Cheers, - Martin
Jonathan Danforth: You're welcome Jonathan. We're glad you took the plunge and have been giving it a try. Thank you for taking the time to let us know about it and feel free to share any good recipes or dehydrated meals you might come up with. Cheers, - Martin
Looks delicious. Very nice campsite you have there. I made a similiar type of pasta dish. I used homemade sauce & for the noodles I used a Mr. Noodles pack without the flavour pack. I was nice. I think that macaroni like you used would be better. Take care, Bluefin.
Way nice! I was looking for an alternative to pre-packaged dehydrated food where I can control the portions and the flavors. I'm not looking for something that will last 25 years but maybe a week or so on the road (motorcycle camping).This seems to be the perfect solution and now I'm off to start experimenting. Thanks for the introduction video.
I like this presentation and will be doing a batch on my dehydrator which I have just purchased for about double what you guys pay up there for one. The commercially prepared trail meals cost about $14 here Down Under . I reckon I could make myself seven meals for that amount of money. Thanks heaps, I would have liked more detail on the before and after weights though. A kitchen tip if you don't mind me saying when you are loading your sheets is to put your pot in the sink and ladle it into the trays from there, its lower, safer and less chance of spillage.No need to hold the tray up either, put it on the bench near the sink. The other opportunity for improvement in food handling, if you like, would be to have an extra plastic sheet available for when you invert your part dried sauce. After the lid is taken off place your spare sheet inverted over the sauce in the top tray, lift it up and out, flip it and place it the other way up one of those spare trays lifting the used plastic sheet up from the sauce and the using that sheet repeat the process for the other layers. This would be more convenient, quicker, and cleaner.
Tim Yoder: We just keep them in Ziplock freezer bags. We squeeze as much of the air out of the bag before sealing it up, to reduce trapped moisture in the bag. We then put them in our freezer, but that's not necessary. Provided that all is properly dehydrated and low in fat content, it will remain good for months without refrigeration. See our follow-up video for a little more on this. Hope this helps, - Martin
Ah...it takes all kind to make up the world, doesn't it? My wife and I love mushrooms, and we love the wild ones we pick ourselves most of all...but that'll be for a future video. Thanks for posting your comments. -Martin
I already learned a ton from watching your video! I took some pictures of my experiments and now I can see I left the chunks way too large. I'll try again and follow more of your advice. Thanks!!
chuckcoffee: If there's no meat involved, then just set the temperature to the vegetable setting, not the highest (meat) setting. Meat dishes have to be dehydrated faster to ensure they dehydrate before the meat can spoil, but not so fast it will burn. Food will dehydrate better and more thoroughly without risking 'encasement' (hardening on the outside, with moisture trapped inside) if you dehydrate at a lower temperature. In general, dehydrate at the lowest (and slowest) temperature you can.
seattwa: The dehydrator we own is an older Nesco American Harvest, but the model we have is well over 10 years old and they now have newer models on the market. Check out WeRmudfun's channel where he has a recent unboxing video of one of the recent models they now make. It shows the Nesco Gardenmaster Food Dehydrator and Jerky Maker, model FD-1018P. This model is the same as the FD-1010 but has more trays and accessories. Either one would work well. Hope this helps, - Martin
Jinxxed0: Yes, beef jerky and fruit leathers are terrific dehydrated snacks which don't require re-hydration, and which we take with us on every camping trip. - Martin
In another video we demonstrated a bunch of other foods which dehydrate nicely. Chunks of beef, pork or chicken never rehydrate well, so we stick to ground beef or canned (shredded) chicken when it comes to meat. We haven't tried shrimp because so many people report it's chewy. Onions dehydrate well, but will stink up your house in the process, so it's best to buy pre-dried onions. When in doubt, try a tiny portion so as not to waste food if it doesn't rehydrate well. Hope this helps, - Martin
MsKestrela1: Thanks for the tip. We've actually done that on camping trips. It's a practice we'd heard mentioned by others but not one we'd tried for ourselves at the time we made this video, but we think it's a good time-saver when it comes to bush preparation. We welcome any other suggestions you might have. Cheers, - Martin
Hello, you had mentioned there being more videos you made about dehydrating food and meals for backpacking. Amy idea when that will happen? I really love your two videos on this subject I found. I really want to resource myself so I can cook all my own meals while backpacking. Looking forward to your next food videos. Thanks for the info.
Joseph Toth We were on hiatus from making videos for a while (health problems kept us indoors more than we would have liked), but we fully intend to resume making videos this spring, including more videos on camping meals. Thanks for your patience. Cheers, - Martin
This is great if you can get water along the way or at your site. Taking water with you to rehydrate equals the same amount of weight, minus the packaging. Where I go camping in Australia I have to take all my water with me as there is no water around unless I collect dew. I dehydrate meats and fruits to snack on though to snack on. If only there was a way to dehydrate water then rehydrate it without having to add liquid hahaha.
That is true, you would not save any weight if you have to carry all your water. But for food like meats/meat sauce, etc they would not keep without refrigeration for days unless you dehydrated them.
jusfuknwidya if you pack a Berkey traveler water system ( light weight) for camping you could run sewer water through it if that’s All you had to filter! From what the company states. We’ve used a Berkey in our home for a few years now and just purchased the Crown Berkey
AlgonquinBasecamp: Thanks for the comment. We're glad you enjoyed the video. A temperature setting really makes things easier for ensuring that meats dehydrate quickly before they can spoil and to prevent fast-drying veggies and fruits from being accidentally cooked. Cheers, - Martin
Right. I tried out a (non temp ,no dial type) dehydrator again to see if I like doing this. Again I do NOT like this. Its all burned looking after 2 or 3daya. But there is no way of knowing how SOON is safe to remove them and store them in air tight containers..... ughhhh I have a magic mill coming in the mail. If the results are the same I give up and will be looking to save for a freeze drier instead. I just don't like dehydrated foods so far. Its too crunchy and I don't eat fruit leather either.
I'm dehydrating our own foods too. Great video! Where could I get one of those storage barrels from? I LOVE the idea of using it to keep the critters and elements out of the food. Thanks for sharing.
chuckcoffee: I'm sure the dehydrator will serve you well on your camping trips. Remember to rehydrate one meal portion at home first to see what it's like and get a feel for how much (or little) water you need and how long it take to rehydrate. You don't want to rehydrate a meal for the very first time in the bush. Give it a try at home first. Good luck you on your trip and happy camping! Cheers, - Martin
chuckcoffee: The pasta sauce we made contained ground beef, and so we set the dehydrator to it's maximum temperature (the meat setting) which on most dehydrators is around 145-160 F. Hope this helps, - Martin
If you pre-cook your pasta and dehydrate it while you're drying the sauce, it will cook up even quicker. Or, you can add the cooked pasta directly to the sauce after cooking the sauce, and dehydrate it all together. then, just pour boiling water over it in the bush, put it in a cozy or blanket for 20 minutes, and it's done.The same goes for rice. Whenever I make a pot of rice, I make a double batch so I can dehydrate the extra.
Great tutorial for dehydrating foods. We just bought a dehydrator and we're going to start making different jerky and other foods for our outdoor adventures. Thanks for the information. Btw, My wife said she loves your hair. She loves its thickness, natural waves and auburn colour :)
GREAT VIDEO, tho just a tip, my dehydrator says you have to use four trays atleast, to use the dehydrator, even if their empty, your supposed to use 4 trays atleast.You should check that out incase. just advice. great vid
I had the same problem on a microwave when I moved and luckily stumbled upon that solution. Four and a half years - that sounds like quite the adventure! Where didn't you go? I'm currently aching to do some travelling again as its been too long. Luckily get to head up to Tobermory this weekend. I've never been before so am looking forward.
