BWCA Dehydrating for our July trip Boundary Waters BWCA Food and Recipes
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dblwhiskey
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06/20/2016 10:16PM   (Thread Older Than 3 Years)
People seem to ask quite frequently about different ideas for food to dehydrate so I thought I would show our process for dehydrating apples.

We use one of the apple pealers to do our prep of the apples,it peals, slices into spirals and removes the core with just a few cranks of the handle. It also nice to use as it provides a pretty uniform thickness of all the slices.







As I'm processing the apples my wife loads them onto the trays and sprinkles them with a coating of cinnamon and sugar, we recycled an old salt shaker for the container to use.





Trays are loaded, top 2 are Granny Smiths and the bottom 3 are Pink Ladies.




Even the dogs help with the process, they clean up any scrap ends or odd pieces of apples that come along.




The end product after 22 hours at 135 degrees and now comes the hard part, getting them to the BWCA before they get ate at home.
 
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06/20/2016 11:15PM  
awesome, might have to do this...
 
muddyfeet
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06/21/2016 01:59PM  
Do they end up rubbery and chewy? I like chewy dried fruit, but have a hard time achieving it. We've sliced our apples much thinner before, and left the skins on. If thin, they turn out crispy, like chips. Our 2- and 3-year old boys love 'em.
 
mhart
member (38)member
  
06/21/2016 03:25PM  
Dehydrating apples like this make the whole house smell like apple pie! I also add a little bit of cayenne pepper to the apples.
 
billconner
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06/21/2016 04:24PM  
quote muddyfeet: "Do they end up rubbery and chewy? I like chewy dried fruit, but have a hard time achieving it. We've sliced our apples much thinner before, and left the skins on. If thin, they turn out crispy, like chips. Our 2- and 3-year old boys love 'em."


We (me) let this years get a little dry - just too long. They'd last forever but I missed a little of he chewiness. (Cooked up with some water and sugar, they made a great filling for some fry pan bread.)

 
dblwhiskey
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06/21/2016 08:33PM  
quote muddyfeet: "Do they end up rubbery and chewy? I like chewy dried fruit, but have a hard time achieving it. We've sliced our apples much thinner before, and left the skins on. If thin, they turn out crispy, like chips. Our 2- and 3-year old boys love 'em."


I think the apple pealer slices the rings about 1/4 inch thick maybe a little less so our apples turn out both crisp and chewy. My wife and I would both guess it to be about a 30/70 ratio of crisp/chewy. The outer edges will get crisp or crunchy and the inner part stays chewy. Some of the end pieces that are smaller will be crunchier through out but it is probably due time their size.
 
dblwhiskey
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06/21/2016 08:33PM  
Double post, oops.
 
dblwhiskey
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06/21/2016 08:42PM  
quote mhart: "Dehydrating apples like this make the whole house smell like apple pie! I also add a little bit of cayenne pepper to the apples."


So that was just a first round of apples for us, we are going to make more because that won't last even a day for the 6 of us. 4 young adults with ages ranging from 16 to 22 will devour them quickly. So what are apples with cayenne pepper like. Sounds interesting, is it just apples and the pepper or do you add anything else? I may just try a half tray for a taste. Thanks for the idea.
 
wingnut
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06/22/2016 06:51AM  
Apples that are too dry soften up by just letting them sit in a bowl.
 
06/22/2016 11:14AM  
I just finished mine. I hadn't thought of adding cinnamon sugar before. I was going to bring whole apples but this weighs much less. So thank you.

I dried both Gala and Honeycrisp. I like the Honeycrisp much better. They taste better plus the pieces were sturdier when raw and broke up less. This is good for dehydrating because the more uniform the slices, the better the result (without fussing around).

Used my apple peeler/slicer thing (like you have) for the first time. I got it used. Something is wrong with the peeler part of it. It at first did not work at all and then after some fiddling around it worked but was taking off about 1/4" of skin + apple. Bummer. But like you said, the uniform slice aspect is really nice.
 
mhart
member (38)member
  
06/22/2016 08:04PM  
quote dblwhiskey: "
quote mhart: "Dehydrating apples like this make the whole house smell like apple pie! I also add a little bit of cayenne pepper to the apples."



So that was just a first round of apples for us, we are going to make more because that won't last even a day for the 6 of us. 4 young adults with ages ranging from 16 to 22 will devour them quickly. So what are apples with cayenne pepper like. Sounds interesting, is it just apples and the pepper or do you add anything else? I may just try a half tray for a taste. Thanks for the idea."



I still add the cinnamon, but I also add cayenne pepper to give it a little heat. How much depends on your affinity for spicy food. I don't add sugar as the natural sugars in the apples becomes a little more concentrated after dehydrating.
 
dblwhiskey
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06/22/2016 08:24PM  
quote nojobro: "I just finished mine. I hadn't thought of adding cinnamon sugar before. I was going to bring whole apples but this weighs much less. So thank you.


I dried both Gala and Honeycrisp. I like the Honeycrisp much better. They taste better plus the pieces were sturdier when raw and broke up less. This is good for dehydrating because the more uniform the slices, the better the result (without fussing around).


Used my apple peeler/slicer thing (like you have) for the first time. I got it used. Something is wrong with the peeler part of it. It at first did not work at all and then after some fiddling around it worked but was taking off about 1/4" of skin + apple. Bummer. But like you said, the uniform slice aspect is really nice."


You probably need to adjust the blade that peels the apples a little, I normally have to play with mine after I've taken it apart to clean it. I have also used a small jewelers file and a diamond stone to touch up the edge if that blade and resharpen it.
 
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