Drying Fruits (2003)

At least in the US it seems to be the exclusive purview of high-end ovens, but there are ovens with proofing modes, which would be even lower temperature than that. Warming modes of around 150F are somewhat more common.

i've seen recommendations about setting the oven at the lowest temp possible, and then leaving the door slightly open. i've also seen electric only ovens be able to set lower temps than gas only. i've only ever dried herbs in the oven because of the temp issue. for everything else, i just bought a dehydrator that can be set to the lower temps.

I've used the incandescent light in my oven to keep sourdough starter warm before. If the wattage is too low, you could hack together a simple thermostat driven relay and a larger light bulb run into your oven.

I bet my car hits 140 in the summer sun.

Toaster ovens are cheap and have good enough thermostats.

Not household ovens as far as I know, this is why I bought a commercial one (UNOX - an Italian brand) that allows me to set a low temperature. It’s basically a convection oven with PID.

I use convection mode on my oven and set it to 170F. Convection mode on my oven doesn't actually use the temperature you set it to, but some auto slightly lower temperature to accommodate for the convection.

I don't think it's as low as 140F, but I get good sundried cherry tomatoes out of it.

For dehydrating food, you'd also want it to have a fan + turn over air pretty rapidly. That speeds up the process, which matters even more if it's monopolizing your oven!

A "food dehydrator" mode would be much more than at least half of the dozen modes our oven does have; I wonder why they omitted it, or if one mode could be tricked into that use case. It definitely has a fan to actively vent hot air from the oven cavity (I think this is mostly to protect its computer, and not particularly useful for anything except cost reduction), and it has a proof mode, so I know the thermostat can drop down far enough.

As an aside, LG ovens have the worst firmware I've ever encountered on a home appliance, and it is by a large margin.

Many air fryers have a "Dehydrate" setting.

My oven can be used to prove bread dough at 30°C

> Does anyone have an oven that can maintain such low temps?

They seem quite common for ovens outside of the US but most digital US ovens I've used have a minimum temp of 170F for what I assume is some liability reason.

I own an Excalibur food dehydrator (since approx 2005), but using it requires adequate space and electricity.

We have a fig tree, a pear tree, and tons of herbs. Most of that is for whatever frolics outside though. Last year I was also on vacation at a farmer who had tons of fruit and nut trees on his yard. But people didn't wanna come to pluck so it ended up rotting on the floor. That made me sad, and it makes me sad I have this amazing device unused. But at least the birds and other animals such as bees and insects get to utilize them.

The Anova Precision Oven is one, it goes as low as 77F (25C).

Bosch ones (at least the one I have) can even be set to 100F. I haven't actually tested how well it maintains such low temps, but I use it for proofing.

You can just prop the door slightly open, and use convection, if possible. It sounds energy inefficient, but when you are drying, not just heating, you also have to replace that humid air in the oven.

My grandpa used his attic to make raisins. I don't know the process he used but we kids would sneak up on a rickety wooden ladder and there they were, hanging from a strings. The raises were never like the packaged ones, they were a lot bigger and chewier and a lot tastier.

I grow a lot of catnip. A few weeks ago, I dried enough to fill up an empty 40oz peanut butter jar. My cats won't touch the store bought stuff anymore. The stuff I dried is so fragrant that the cats magically show up like the "runs can opener" meme. Makes me want to become a catnip dealer at my local farmer's market.

I've tried bananas, but honestly, the whole slicing part and keeping them whole slices is just too much effort for me. Do you have a tip on how to keep it from being so frustrating?

Vitamin C is a temperamental thing. It oxidizes very easily, and then just becomes this inert thing. Luckily, it turns color when it oxidizes, so it lets you know it happened. Skin care products try to stabilize it with other ingredients while packaging it in UV protective containers. Some even go so far as to recommend keeping the product refrigerated. There are now many options for adding Vitamin C with the majority of them reducing the effectiveness of the Vitamin C to gain stability in the product as in some are not as efficiently absorbed by the body, but won't oxidize. Some are water soluble, some are oil soluble. Of all of the ingredients, VitC is definitely the most finky

as far as vitamin and mineral intakes, vitamin C is the thing you need to worry about the least because it's so highly abundant in so many fruits and vegetables. I've calculated VitC density in foods and normalized it to calorie intake: It's incredibly abundant in many real foods.

I found Drying Vegetables

https://extension.colostate.edu/docs/pubs/foodnut/09308.pdf

And a catalog:

https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/nutrition-food-s...

The National Center for Home Food Preservation has an extensive website for canning, pickling, drying, and fermenting.

https://nchfp.uga.edu/

What gives you that idea?!

Heavy metals and pathogens being retained in fruit juices is widespread and heavily checked by USDA etc.

How can it be pure if it's in fruit? I'd think the fiber, sugars, acid, etc would all be considered impurities.