Dehydrating Tomatoes Questions

[FarmerShawn]

I like sqwib's recipe, and it looks like brokenbar's, who was a master. It's a bit too involved for my operation, however. I dry LOTS of tomatoes for sale at a farmers market, and here's some things I do. First, I slice them thick - 3/8-1/2" thick. I use Excalibur dryers (2) with the plastic flexible trays. I also got second hand a dryer with stainless steel trays, and found out pretty quickly that investing in some extra plastic liners from Excalibur dryers saved me much time and headache. I simply slice and arrange on the trays as tightly as I can, sprinkle lightly with salt, and dry for 24 hours on the low end of the recommended temperature range on the dryer. (Sorry, I don't recall the actual temp.) they are done when fairly crisp with no soft spots. The keep bagged in a dark room temperature place for years with no problems. I sell a lot of them!

[Labradors]

Farmer Shawn. What do you do at the end of the cycle? I don't want to bag up hot slices, but if I leave them for any length of time, they get moist again.....

Linda

[SQWIB]

I like sqwib's recipe, and it looks like brokenbar's, who was a master. It's a bit too involved for my operation, however. I dry LOTS of tomatoes for sale at a farmers market, and here's some things I do. First, I slice them thick - 3/8-1/2" thick. I use Excalibur dryers (2) with the plastic flexible trays. I also got second hand a dryer with stainless steel trays, and found out pretty quickly that investing in some extra plastic liners from Excalibur dryers saved me much time and headache. I simply slice and arrange on the trays as tightly as I can, sprinkle lightly with salt, and dry for 24 hours on the low end of the recommended temperature range on the dryer. (Sorry, I don't recall the actual temp.) they are done when fairly crisp with no soft spots. The keep bagged in a dark room temperature place for years with no problems. I sell a lot of them!

Actually it is Brokenbars recipe, I thought I posted the Link to the Original conversation, oh well.
Anyhow, here is the link to where I got the recipe from.
https://www.houzz.com/discussions/19608 ... d-tomatoes

[FarmerShawn]

Farmer Shawn. What do you do at the end of the cycle? I don't want to bag up hot slices, but if I leave them for any length of time, they get moist again.....

Linda

I unload all the trays from a single batch into a big bowl, and then immediately bag the whole batch in large (more than one gallon) bags. By the time I get them bagged they are actually pretty cool. Later, for sale, I put into smaller ziplock bags. Or just grab a handful to soak for a few minutes to top a pizza.