Drew,
Not trying to be disagreeable but even honey can go bad if it’s not handled properly. Honey when not capped fully by the bees will spoil if taken off the hives to soon. Like all foods the proper amounts of moisture must be removed. Bees put the honey through a drying process the same as we do our foods. Food drying techniques are improved with practice. I’m very careful in drying foods and some things every year i put in the freezer. Meats with high fat content , thick pieces of fruit etc should go in the freezer. I would never feel confident saying everything can be dried and stored outside the freezer. If we Freeze food, dry food, or can food each has a set of rules and storing the harvest should always be done carefully.
Well yes, i would disagree with that. You can use it as an antiseptic, put it on any wounds to sterilize. Honey never goes bad, you will not find any reference that it does.
Either would I. If that is your take, my bad. I certainly didn’t mean that. I said I’m not worried about it. If it goes bad, no big deal. I don’t use meat, so I would not know. What I meant was if I have to freeze it, it does me no good to dry. I need to dry stuff I don’t have to store in the freezer. I use drying to help store stuff out of the freezer. I would rather freeze stuff I can’t dry properly or have a short shelf life dried, I would rather not dry.
Yeah for sure, i always do, it’s was my profession to work with bacteria.
I also like to ferment foods. I see bacteria as a very good thing. Fermented food is extremely good for you and a major factor missing from many diets. Mold is removed off some fermented foods (cheese, salami) . I don’t know of any dangerous molds that form on foods? I’m sure some exist. I just don’t know of any. So if your dried product goes bad after a few years, well just dry more. 1 year is all I need, if it lasts that long, I will not further protect it.
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Honey will ferment if you add water.
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I can see that and also Clark mentioning removing it before ready is not a good idea. I bet though fermented honey will only get you drunk. Which some may view as a good thing. Beer is a very good thing and it is fermented, wine too!
Most of our history we have ate fermented foods, as in many cases only spoiled food was available. I do know of a very dangerous fungi which infects grains, and is extremely dangerous, but few spoiled items are actually dangerous, my concern is will it hurt me? In most cases the answer is no. Although spoiled meat or animal by products spoiled may give you food poisoning, which can be serious, very serious.
I want to add what Clark says is a must. Follow all safety regulations for processing food. It’'s not worth it to do otherwise. Thanks Clark for bringing this up. I will try and be more careful with my statements in the future.
Once I had food poisoning so bad, I was throwing up anything and everything! So much so I could taste what comes out the other end.(just kidding!- I never been so sick as I was with food poisoning! I was lucky I didn’t sustain any permanent damage.Be careful people!).
Using good air tight jars is best, but I do not because I use this stuff up fairly quickly. Peppers no, but they last dried a long time. As mentioned I have 2 and 3 year old peppers that I still use kept in a regular jar.
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I have canned (meat, veggies) and dehydrated (mostly veggies) and vacuumed sealed and I’ve never had a problem with mold. I’ve kept many things 3-5 years - but generally we use them up before that. If I want to preserve something for 20 years, I will use an O2 absorber. The thing is: If it is ‘bad’ it will smell off, the lid will be loose or bubbled, AND, anything I preserve with few exceptions will be boiled before serving. So there are many safeguards.
OK, don’t shoot, but the hydrochloric acid that is in your stomach is supposed to sterlize your food, killing bacteria, parasites, etc. Note: If you overwhelm this by overeating, or, if you are on an acid blocker, you do not have this providential protection, so a little more care in food prep is advisable.
Also sauerkraut & kimchi. The preservative in thesefermented foods is salt and then the lactic acid they produce. Very good for digestion.
Thanks everyone. I seem to be testing a lot of samples. Yum. 
Anne, thanks so much. I knew there had to be Paprika peppers out there some where, like Hungary! Thanks for all of the methods and descriptions.
Yep. Actually, that is what I grew. I grew a lot of plants (I love paprika but didn’t realize how prolific they were) 3 years ago and still have a few jars with the vacuumed sealed dehy peppers in them. What is interesting to me is that fresh, their flavor is kinda unremarkable, but dried, dif story.
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I think I grew them one year, agree on the unremarkable - also when dried, if those are the peppers I think they are
I know of over 15 Hungarian paprika peppers. I agree many are boring. I myself like a little heat. I don’t like the sweet ones. If I need paprika I grow Leutschauer Paprika Pepper - A lovely drying pepper that comes from
Matrafured, Hungary. It has been grown there since the 1800s when it was
brought from Leutschau (Slovakia). The medium-hot paprikas have great
flavor, are terrific for drying, and make a delicious spicy powder.
Very rare! Purchased from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company
This year I’m letting my jalapenos go red for drying - don’t know what else to do with the things
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Yes, I often have that problem too. What I did is pickle them. I thought they tasted good on burgers pickled. I think most jalapeno’s are pickled, say at Subway or other fast food place.
Also I dried them green, and man they are really good! Red would be excellent too. Probably cayenne level heat. They become hotter when red! If you save seed, you want to let a few go red to get the best seeds.
Some like jalapeno jam. Eaten with cream cheese and crackers. I made some hot pepper jam, I used it on pork chops. After being grilled I would nuke the jam in the microwave, and spread it over the chops. I used it as a glaze.
Properly dried fruit has no need to be frozen. I’ve eaten year-old fruit sitting in our pantry and it is fine. Yes, lemon juice is good to help with browning, sulfur smoke is good for apricots if you really want to be a perfectionist.
Those Nesco stackable plastic cylinder driers are a joke, they are underpowered and require constant shifting of the trays from top to bottom to get even drying. A toy, not a tool.
For the real deal get a dehydrator from The Sausage Maker. Not surprisingly, they do cost more than a plastic toy. We have been drying our excess fruit and making fruit leather for several years, works great. No freezer required.
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Thanks for the site reference. I’ll bookmark for future possibilities. This is only my second year of growing veggies , so my garden is only around 200 sq ft and 7 straw bales (an experiment) the Nesco is an inexpensive way to begin dehydrating and so far has been fun and successful. Hopefully in the future, I’ll expand plantings and harvests so that the Nesco can’t keep up.
Those dedyrators come with a hefty price tag. The ‘plastic toys’ work just fine for small amounts of fruit. I have one. They might not be perfect but they work. With excess veg’s like tomatoes, I made jars of ‘dried- tomatoes in olive oil’ for gifts for friends for the holidays. Also making fruit leather with them is excellent.
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They certainly aren’t cheap, get what you pay for and all that. We (and by we I mean my wife) struggled with that Nesco for a couple years. You don’t realize how bad they are until you get a dryer that works.
I understand we all have our financial limits. Just wanted to point out that some issues might originate with the dryer.
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I think the Nesco’s work fine for my needs. I could get 8 nesco’s or one of the high end types. It’s not 8 times better, else I would consider it. I would put up my dried food against any others. I also sun dried stuff, you don’t need high tech for drying. it is a rather simple process.
Also I never rotate trays and drying appears very even to me.
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If you’re struggling with the Nesco type, it’s time to think about upgrading, but mine never gives me a struggle and it’s sufficient for my needs
If the prune plums dry unevenly, it’s mainly because they’re different sizes and thicknesses, as well as different stages of ripeness I see no difference among the trays and where they’re positioned
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Ive been coveting one of these
They have a contest monthly that converse 50% (or more) of the cost
Not a dehydrator, but definitely the next level
Scott