A Bit of a Let Down

I ended up pausing the dehydrating last night so that I could go to bed.  I resumed this morning with much anticipation but was a little disappointed at how hot the dehydrator seemed to be running.  Last night I watched a Good Eats video on youtube about dehydrating an Alton Brown said that it should take about 24 - 48 hours to dehydrate fruits at a temperature of 115 - 120 degrees.  I know that for food to be considered "raw" it is not supposed to get above 118 degrees.  This dehydrator said apples would take 6 hours and bananas 12.  I decided to finally put my old meat thermometer (from my pre vegan days) to use and see how hot this thing was actually running.

 

Over 150 degrees!  I don't believe this is really dehydrating.  I think it is cooking at a very low temperature.  I still have bananas and kiwis in there but I have now taken the apples out.  They turned out decent.

 

 I am going to let the bananas and kiwis finish and then I think I am probably done with my adventures into dehydrator land for now.  Over the summer I might like to experiment with using the sun and glass to dehydrate.  For now I am happy to stick to fresh fruit in a city where I am lucky enough to get local produce year round.