Drying…
For a long time I have hung driend sprigs, gourds, twigs, sticks, leaves, flowers, buds, and roots. Currently I have worked making mashed up service berries cakes/loaves in pie pans about 1/2 inch think filling the bottom of the pan. I have placed them in the sun all day today and for about 4 hours in the oven turned to170 with door cracked. Unfortunately, all my resources, so far, don’t show me any ‘drying times’ for cakes/loaves, estimated times for how long I may want to keep them in the sun, in the oven, over a warm fire, in a dark dry cool place, and so on, to get them dry and safe to store long term.
On top of this, I also hope this subject includes information on everything I haven’t mentioned drying such as meats, vegetables, funus, skin, and so on.
US
I heard through the grape vine that you dried salal berries in to cakes. Care to share?
Also, does anyone have any experience or resources on drying insect people? If so, do share, 'cause I’d much appreciate it and I think many others here would aswell. 
So I heard drying dates back as the oldest way of perserving that we humans do. Does anyone know if I heard right? Well, honestly, IDC ;), I just love drying and eating dried wild and organic foods.
Dried juice and syrup??? Anybody? :-X
i have dried blackberry pulp (mashed them up) into fruit leather. i think as far as drying times goes, you just have to keep checking on it until if feels right. the thicker the cake, the longer it will take to dry out.
Until it ‘feels’ dry??? I don’t know about the others, but not quite what I want. Does anybody have some aged experience like from some aboriginal person(s) or professional. See, I think I just got done over drying some service berry leathers, but they still taste really delicious. I would really like to no the secrets if I can, so if anyone out there has some ‘drying time’ or aged resources under their belt please comment.
That doesn’t mean this that I don’t want to hear other laymens like myself comment too.
Peace.
Mods: Turned a ‘wish’ in to a ‘want’ and ‘have’ into a ‘hear.’
dunno
whenever i’ve dried fruit, it comes down to: does it feel dry enough?
/shrug
not sure what else to do…
If you’re asking for a number of hours to dry something, then I’m afraid you’re out of luck, Eric. The conditions will always be different, from food to food with different moisture contents, from day to day with different humidity levels. I could tell you “dry your apples for 8 hours” but what if your apples are wetter than mine or the humidity where you live is lower than where I live.
It really comes down to getting a feel for the moisture left in the food. And “getting a feel” comes down to trying it enough times to have some experience to go off of.
Does anyone know what I might won’t to do with my crushed berry cakes at night? I mean, do I bring them in at night so that they don’t get morning dew on them in the morning and something else??? Also, once inside where would I put them? A cool dark place? With or without drafts? Would it work to dig a whole and put them in the ground with leave over them and refill the whole with dirt for the night, and in the morning dig’em out to place in full(?) sun again? Any ideas? Once I put them into my Taker refrigerator in my Taker kitchen for the night. But that never makes me feel good (if you know what I mean), so presently, I’ve just brought them into my room at night no where special. I hope they don’t turn out inedible this way; I hate failing experiments with food.
Anything would help and thanks for all the comments.
I would try to store them in a dry, dark place. Just in a cupboard. I kept my pemmican on top of my refrigerator for months with no problems. I just finished the last of it last month, and I made it at the end of February.
I mean, do I bring them in at night so that they don't get morning dew on them in the morning and something else???
Do you mean while they’re drying? Keeping dew off them would help them dry faster–so you don’t have to take two steps forward and one step back. Just putting them under some kind of cover–a tarp, a tent, the eaves of your front porch–should keep the dew off, as it only settles on a top surface (hence why we sleep in tents–other than of course to avoid rain).
roflmao ;D
Check it…remenants of an over dried saskatoon berry cake.
I made a blue berry one about 1 month ago or something and it got devoured by my appetite before I had the chance to take pics:( To me, it felt moist, not wet, when I finished drying it. I left a piece of it out, wraped in plastic wrap, for about three weeks or longer, I don’t remember exactly, to see if it would mold or anything, and it didn’t.
Thanks for all the advice.
We do a similar thing with Nettles (boiled, mashed, dried) to re-constitute for broth.
We have no refrigeration, electricity (well, limited solar that goes to the computer and satellite, but not enough for kitchen appliances etc), running water and so on… We also live in NM, so it makes keeping things safely stored interesting at times.
We dry things (meat, plants, haven’t tried bugs yet) in the shade outside with free air circulation… but they must be brought in at night, not because of dew (don’t have much of that round these parts) but because the critters will get it (those woodrats and skunks will eat anything!).
Your saskatoon berry cake looks fabulous, I LOVE LOVE LOVE saskatoons, though we have only a half a dozen trees here. They taste like a cross between blueberries, almonds and something else completely. YUM!
Is there somthing like salt that is natural for storing food?
Salt itself is natural. Though you might find it a little labor intensive to harvest. You can use smoke to preserve foods as well–same principle as salt, i think, keeping the microbes at bay.
Well-dried food tends to last pretty well. If you get the moisture out and can keep it out, then you don’t have as much chance for rot. I have some pemmican and shredded jerky sitting on top of my refrigerator that I have purposely left to see how long it will last. So far, it looks as good as when I made it.
[quote=“WildeRix, post:19, topic:256”]Salt itself is natural. Though you might find it a little labor intensive to harvest. You can use smoke to preserve foods as well–same principle as salt, i think, keeping the microbes at bay.
Well-dried food tends to last pretty well. If you get the moisture out and can keep it out, then you don’t have as much chance for rot. I have some pemmican and shredded jerky sitting on top of my refrigerator that I have purposely left to see how long it will last. So far, it looks as good as when I made it.[/quote]
Yeah, it’s essentially all about moisture. We could take a look at honey, for example. It’s one of the longest lasting natural foods (as long as no water is added). It accomplishes this by virtue of 1) having a very low moisture content and 2) small amounts of anti-microbial compounds (such as hydrogen peroxide, assorted anti-oxidants, etc). The biggest impact tho’ is the low moisture content. The proof? Add water to honey and let it sit for a little bit. You’ll soon have mead… (maybe not good mead, but that’s a different story…)