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food preservation

Solar or my oven or bought plastic machine - drying

David Livingston

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Location: Anjou ,France

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posted 8 years ago

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Ideally I would like to use a solar drier to dry my fruit unfortunately the time when I want to dry most fruit does not coincide with the time we have the most reliable sun shine

So I ether I make a solar drier and buy a commercial one ( yuk mega amounts of plastic ) , just use a bought one or find out a way of using the electric oven we already have .
This latter idea would involve me constructing some sort of grid to put in the oven to increase the amount I could dry at once .
Any one any thought or tried something similar?

Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873

Jack Fluse

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posted 8 years ago

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Drying with help of electricity is usually pretty expensive, it needs a couple of hours and most machines do not fit very much.

If solar is impossible (there was is some very easy to construct solar dryer, looks like the English construction manual):

http://www.solare-bruecke.org/Bauanleitungen/Tunneltrockner_en.pdf

If you have a wood stove or alike I'd check if there is some possibility to set something up to use it for drying purposes.

We have in addition Stöckli Dörrex (Swiss Made) electric dryer, with 6 inlets (inox) so no plastics directly in contact with what you are drying, but then it takes pretty long to dry making things expensive.I'd like to built the above solar Tunnel-Dryer but had no time to do it so far.

David Livingston

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Location: Anjou ,France

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posted 8 years ago

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Thanks for sharing that I had not seen that type before . I was more thinking of this type as featured by Paul himself

as I would not need an electric fan also maybe a bit smaller

I wonder about some sort of grid I could place in the oven also maybe the same size as the dryer So if the weather plays up I just take it inside and pop it in the oven

Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873

Jack Fluse

Posts: 7

posted 8 years ago

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David Livingston wrote:Thanks for sharing that I had not seen that type before . I was more thinking of this type as featured by Paul himself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVTcnCuX2Qc as I would not need an electric fan also maybe a bit smaller
I wonder about some sort of grid I could place in the oven also maybe the same size as the dryer So if the weather plays up I just take it inside and pop it in the oven

Sounds good have to check the video out later (and I thought on a first glance it would be some kind of dry toilette house)?

The fan at the tunneltrockner is powered with a small solar cell, which in addition regulates the fan speed automatically through the received sun regulating the drying process! It seems like a pretty cool idea in addition you can resize the construction to your needs, length + width should be easily adaptable. I will for sure construct one this year and see if it works for me?

David Livingston

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Posts: 4328

Location: Anjou ,France

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posted 8 years ago

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I thought the fan neat too

but I would prefer something that was solid state

Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873

R Scott

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Location: Kansas Zone 6a

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posted 8 years ago

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What heat source will you be using at the same time as you need to fry fruit?

One or more of these hanging near the wood stove or in a southern window (with shade to keep the sun off the food as much as possible) will work if your humidity isn't too high.

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Jack Fluse

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posted 8 years ago

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R Scott wrote: [..]
One or more of these hanging near the wood stove or in a southern window (with shade to keep the sun off the food as much as possible) will work if your humidity isn't too high.

ebay link

Looks like a good idea, as the OP is in Europe, he should get something in the lines (iirc they a round likely smaller/round but much higher) from IKEA for a fraction of the price. We used them to dry walnuts, likely they are original for children to store toys or so?

Tell me how it all turns out. Here is a tiny ad:

2024 Permaculture Adventure Bundle

https://permies.com/w/bundle