Building Food Dryers--Avril

[Guest guest]

Food dryers are VERY simple to build. Basically it is a box. Mine is big, 2 foot by 2 foot trays. So first you decide how big you want your trays to be. We'll say 2 x 2.

I bought 1 by 2 inch pieces of wood, and 1 inch slats. Here I can find them in Home Depot, but any lumber yard should have them. I just put the 1x2s into a box shape--meaning not mitered edges, just plain edges nailed together to make a 2 foot square. Then you get window screening (preferable not aluminum screening) and staple it tightly to the back of the frame, then staple the 1 inch slats over the staples all around the frame itself for extra support for the screening.

Now what I want to do is replace the screens as they have really stretched out from use, though the screen itself is still perfect. But I imagine that when I pull out the staples it will tear the screen. Anyway, now what I would do is once I stapled the screen back on, I would also staple on about 3 slats running across the screen to give support so the new screens don't sag. So I would make the box frame, staple the screen on, then staple 3 straps divided across the frame (either direction) then I'd have to cut the slats to staple to the rest of the screen edges to fit between the slats running across, so that I will still have a smooth surface to slide the trays on.

Don't know if that's clear, but you'll see what I mean if you go to build one. If I stapled slats all around the frame, and then stapled the 3 cross slats on top of those framing straps, I'd have a double thickness of straps and 3 bumps that would make sliding the trays in and out of the box hard to do.

So--now you have your frames. My box holds 6 big frames. Yours can hold as many as you want. This is where it takes a bit of figuring, but you measure the thickness of all the frames stacked up (we'll call it 6 inches), then you want about an inch between each frame so that's another 5 inches, plus you want about 2 inches underneath the bottom frame and 2 inches above the top frame, so that is 4 more inches, making 15 inches all together.

Then you need to figure a one inch board slide rail (2 per frame, screwed into 2 sides of the box) for the frames to slide on, so that's another 6 inches, making 21 inches total.

So your outside box must be at least 21 inches tall and 24 inches 24 inches deep. I made mine basically 24 inches square. I put mine on legs to raise it up to working height, so the space it took to screw legs up inside the box took up some of the extra 3 inches.

Now you have your basic box. You cut a front piece 24 by 24 and hinge it onto the front of the box, add a small handle of some type and I added cheap cabinet door closing hooks inside, one on each side, between 2 of the frames (under the slide bars) to keep the door shut.

For the top of the box you cut another 24 by 24 square piece of board that just fits INSIDE the box--so it is actually just shy of being 24 by 24. At the top of the box you add 2 more slide bars so the top can just sit level with the top of the box, and slide back and forth.

This is because heat rises, so when you run the dryer you want to slide the top forward about 4 to 6 inches to let the moist heat out. Then when you are not drying something you push the top back so the whole box is sealed up, front, back, sides and top. The bottom of the box is open, which is where the heating element is.

For my heating element, I purchased a small unit that was made to fit this box. My directions for building this particular size box came from a book called Just Dry It (I think, it was back in the 70's, I still have the book someplace here though). The guy that wrote the book that had the actual plans in it also sold the heating elements to fit his plan. This element is actually very small, has a thermostat to set the temp (just 1 through 10, not actual degrees) and the element was placed in the middle of a wire grid that fits inside this box.

I don't know if you can still buy this book, or that heating element, but even his book said the heating element was not necessary--that you can rig up a 60 watt bulb underneath the trays and turn it on. Because heat rises it's a natural convection. The book also said you could get a small fan, like one of those little computer fans they have now, but it's not necessary. I like my set up because there's no noise at all, whereas with a fan I'd be hearing the fan run. Although a fan would make things dry faster.

So, if you have scrap wood, it can be practically free to build. If you have to buy plywood and some lumber it's just basically the cost of the wood. You can get fancy and look around for a heating element or just use a light bulb. You can add a fan or not.

Mine doesn't work as fast at drying things as commercial units, but then it hardly cost me anything at all to build.

I'm sure if you Google there are probably better plans than I am able to describe on the web for free, and maybe places where you can buy small small heating elements that have good temp controls.

Oh--to use the trays I just put a layer of plastic wrap on each tray, if the stuff is juicy. Just be sure to leave an inch or so of one side of the tray screen uncovered, and zig zag the open screen from one tray to the other, to allow for air flow. Like my first tray will have the open space at the front of the tray, the next tray it will be at the back of the tray, and the third tray it will be at the front again, so that the air can flow and criss cross the food, taking the moisture of the food out through the open top of the box.

Now you can buy silicon sheets to put on the trays, but they didn't have that when I built mine.

Samala,