Dehydrator Project

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Cornelius
Heinous Anus

Registered: 02/12/04
Posts: 694
Loc: T.O.
Last seen: 12 years, 4 months

Dehydrator Project

#3182839 - 09/26/04 02:34 PM (21 years, 11 months ago)

If you have an old foor dehydrator lying around and you're afraid to use it on your shooms because of the heat issue, then here's something you can do to adapt it into a nice dessicant dehydrator :grin:

Firstly, if you bought a dehydrator brand new, then I wouldn't recommend this incase you're not happy with the results or you suddenly find that you have a bunch of apples you want to make into apple chips. I found mine for 2 bucks at a thrift store so I wasn't too concerned with tampering with it. :tongue:

One thing I've certainly noticed at thrift stores is that while their supply of pressure cookers is next to zero, they almost always have at least one food dehydrator - it's just one of those items that people often buy compulsively and only use once or twice. I also see them all the time at garage sales.

First thing is to remove the heating element and/or the fan from the bottom of the unit. Most of the dehydrators I have seen do not have fans built in but apparently some do. In my particular case this made room for the tub of dessicant that sits in the bottom. I suppose if your model has room, then you can leave the element intact. (I found that it's nice to have the cord removed so the unit becomes easier to move around though):

removed heating element:

This is the bottom portion of the dehydrator. I cut up pieces of tough plastic sheeting and taped them over the bottom holes. Simple enough. The tub of dessicant sits here in the centre (the tub that came with the small jug of Damp-Rid was perfect):

bottom of dehydrator:

Next, measure the diameter of the drying trays and cut to size pieces of thin metal window screening (available in rolls at large Hardware stores and sometimes sold by the foot). The sreening prevents the smaller shrooms from falling through the rather large holes in the original trays. Place the newly cut screens into the trays:

original tray:

window screen:

screen close up:

screen inside the original tray:

The final step is to seal up the vent holes in the dehydrator lid. Mine had an adjustable one, but none of the settings would be fully closed. I used the same plastic sheeting that i used to seal the holes in the bottom of the unit. I'm sure every model is slightly different, so you'll have to improvise a little:

Lid of Dehydrator:

And that's it!

All the components fit together and create a decent seal for optimal drying action.

The beauty of this setup is that most dehydrators come wih several trays (mine had 6!) So you can add trays as you need them. This allows for quite a bit of space and more importantly it also allows you to keep different strains seperate during drying. It's a good idea to label the trays since it's easy to mix up strains especially when they're dry and shrivelled :smirk:

Have fun!! :thumbup:

Edited by Cornelius (09/26/04 07:23 PM)

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