A food dehydrator is a kitchen appliance, which eliminates humidity from food items for effective preservation. A food dehydrator utilizes hot air flow to minimize the water content on food items.
Overview
Usually, the content of water in food is very high typically from 80 to 95 percent for various vegetables and fruits and 50 to 75 percent for different types of meats. The moisture on food causes the bacteria to grow, and in turn spoils the food. After dehydrating food, weight of the food will be drastically reduced. However, food dehydrators are employed to store the food for longer period, rather than reducing their weight.
Construction of Food Dehydrators
Basically, a food dehydrator has a fan, a heating element, and air vents for circulation of air and foodstuff trays for keeping food items. Air vents, fans, and dehydrating heating element all work together to remove humidity from the food.
A heating element in dehydrator heats the food causing the humidity of food to be removed, while the fan blows the moist and warm air out of the device through the air vents. This procedure continues for a long period, until the dehydration process is over.
Different Kinds of Food Dehydrators
There are many types of food dehydrators available in markets; let’s take a look at the most common ones.
Stackable Food Dehydrator
This dehydrator comprises of detachable trays, which can be stacked. At the bottom of some units, the mechanism is fixed, whereas some units have dehydration mechanism at their top.
Box-Type Food Dehydrator
The Box-type Food Dehydrators are hard and have detachable shelves. The mechanical components are fixed either at top or bottom of units.
Fan-Type Food Dehydrator
This is one method that uses fan for dehydration purpose. In this process, the fan blows air for hours together to remove moisture from food. This type of dehydrators has an in-built fan.
Convection-Type Food Dehydrators
A fan is absent in this type of food dehydrator; instead of fan, it has a heater located at its bottom. The heat coming from heater causes the food to dehydrate.
Working of a Food Dehydrator
Coming to working of a dehydrator, it works by subjecting food to low temperatures for longer duration of time for elimination of water molecules. In the absence of moisture, bacteria, yeasts and molds cannot survive. This method is called food drying that helps in storing the food so that it can be used later. Nowadays, the electric food dehydrator is employed to make low weight foods for children’s snack, hiking, or camping.
Procedure of Removing Moisture
To dehydrate food, a dehydrator uses very high temperature; approximately 140 degrees F for quick and easy dehydration. On every dehydrator, a knob is designed to adjust the temperature.
To dehydrate food, hot air is also used in some cases, as mentioned earlier. Moist air is eliminated and it is substituted with dry air; so, faster the flow of air, quicker the food dehydrates. The premium electric food dehydrators have adaptable air speeds, lot of ventilation, and powerful fans.