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I built a tomato dehydrator (partially dried freezer packs from our garden, estrattu from Santa Cruz dry farmed Early Girls). We haven't opened a can of tomatoe
by Syzygies 3y ago
I built a tomato dehydrator (partially dried freezer packs from our garden, estrattu from Santa Cruz dry farmed Early Girls). We haven't opened a can of tomatoes in decades. Using four stacks of consumer dehydrator trays was a nightmare so:
A full sheet pan cart, like used in bakeries. Eight full sheet pans, lined with silpat nonstick sheets. A 1500 watt wall heater, a home brewing temperature controller, and a crawl space fan controller that looks like it belongs in a stereo stack. Build a plywood box around the whole thing. I had to swap in a less sensitive thermal cutoff to keep the heater from shutting off. Now we can process 60 lbs of tomatoes at a go.
There was a lot to figure out, no equations to help guess scale. I should really document this on a web site, the plans out there are very sketchy and wouldn't accommodate our scale.
- peteradio 3y agoThat's sweet! How many tomato plants do you have to grow each year and how many are you feeding?
- tnorthcutt 3y agoSome questions, if you're up for it! - Do you have any pictures? - How do you store the dehydrated tomatoes? - How do you use the dehydrated tomatoes in meals?