dried

[horse656]

i was thinking of making my own dried food for treats.
although i don't have a dehydrator, would the oven set lowish with the door open work?

has anyone done this before?

i want to use foraging cups for them, so i would need "treats" to put in them.

[kainslie]

Yup! I do it all the time =]

you can vary what kind of treats you want by the amount of time it's in there for.
(hard jerky - ~8 hours) (softer jerky ~4 hours)

I also put uncovered meat in the fridge for a day or two (depending on the size of meat) it will dry into a nice maliable jerky - and can be soft for faster eating (i do this with treats)

but I would freeze anythign not being used or refidgerate it since some of them dont keep well (my fridge ones went bad when left out for 6 days =[ )

[horse656]

you can do it in the fridge? wow, i didn't know that.
i didn't realize it took around 4 hours. would it take less time on a higher temp?

what temperature do you use?
and does the time matter with that the meat is?
so you still have to refrigerate the dried food. it isn't good just to be stored normally?

the fridge ones sound cool, and just a few at a time i'm guessing so they don't go bad. but i doubt my parents would go for that way of drying out the food.

[kainslie]

Yeah, I actually prefer the fridge method because once my dehydrated method got stuck in my dogs teeth =[ but it's still good as a chew (like when i'm busy to keep her occupied)

It is a long process, I know you shoudn't do this, but I let it go even when I leave the house (usually only for a bit) or while I shower, or clean or do homework or even to watch tv.

I believe if you cook it a higher temp it's then a cooked protein so things change in it and it's not as good nutritionally.. but if it's just a treat it doesn't matter - but some people try to get all the nutrition in they can.

I put it just under the lowest temp (180-200F) with the door pried open just a bit (this can be upto 4-5 cm open at the top)

and the meat doesn't matter - i've used venison, beef, pork and chicken. - for my dog - pork turned into puppy crack. seriously.. I can make her do anythign with that stuff.. but it gets oilly because of the fat.

and I think it can be stored normally, but honestly, i am too cheap to find out again. the fridge ones went bad because they were air dried not dehydrated. I think the dehyrdated ones are fine (actually i just thought of this.. i have some that are on the table from about a month ago, that haven't gone bad... so if you dehydrate them long enought it's okay)

[horse656]

ok. i think i shall try dehydrating some pork and gizzards.
i have a ton of them, because i just don't feed pork that often, so i'll use that and the gizzards.

do you just use a cookie tray? or do you put down wax paper, or something else to keep it from sticking?

[WTFerret]

Alton brown says most dehydrators actually cook the meat so I use his method .
Get a box fan and buy 5-6 corrugated air filters ( cotton not fiberglass ). Put strips of meat in the recesses of the corrugation , stack your air filters and add the last one as an endcap then bungee to the box fan. Final step is to point the fan out the window or put it outside and plug it in. Come back in a few hours and check if it's dry.

[horse656]

i've had it in my oven with the door open now for about 3 and half hours i think. and i think it still needs more time

[sherrylynne]

It takes time to make jerky, unfortunately. Some meats are denser than others, but all of them have to be sliced thinnish so they dry throughout the meat, and not just on the outside.

[horse656]

yup. i had it in the oven on for about 5-7 hours. i don't know when my mum turned it off. but then we left it in the oven closed over night and the my girls LOOOVVVEEE it. the were like. whats this at first. then i got pebbles to take a piece after a bit of coaxing, and belle just took it right away.
nom nom nom!

[vkp23]

here is another tip. Look on ebay for oxygen absorbers. Get the 300cc ones. Get you a quart mason jar and put your jerky in with an oxygen absorber on top and put your lid on. this will keep the oxygen out and even make a vacuum. You may even hear it pop once it's sucked all the oxygen out. You can even add one on the bottom if you want. I dry my own foods including ground beef and this is how I store my dried foods. Meats and some veggies can take a LONG time. What I do to speed it up is once I got my stuff in the oven and the door propped open, I turn the fan over the stove on. Since heat rises I figure it helps to keep air flowing faster. I found doing this makes ground beef dry about an hour quicker. The way I dry meats, I take a cookie sheet and place a hand towel on the cookie sheet and my meat on top of that. It CAN stick to the fabric a little if you do it that way but you don't have a problem with it so much if you use paper towel. I just prefer using a hand towel.

[Darlene]

That's so great they love it