The devils of food storage are:
- Heat
- Light
- Oxygen
- Moisture.
Dehydrating helps increase shelf life because many organisms (like Botulism) cannot thrive in dry spaces. If you vacuum seal moist food and botulism is present,the bacteria grow and create enough toxin to kill.
However, if you vacuum seal food with less than a 10% moisture level the bacteria stays dormant. So it does not produce toxins. This works well for things that you don’t want to super heat using a pressure cooker.
I have a pretty good electric dehydrator that I use to make jerky and other dried foods. However, it is small and takes up valuable kitchen space when it’s working. Besides that, my wife doesn’t sleep very well if I try to leave it running overnight. She worries about the catching the house on fire.
Research
Build it Solar was first resource I found online, and I went there quite a bit. The idea of the J R Whipple solar dehydrator is really cool, but I wanted it in wood. Root Simple also provided some ideas.
A large wooden shipping crate came from the trash and I decided to get to work.
*I later found a PDF entitled How to Build a Solar Crop Dryer that I believe this research was based on, I linked to it in my download section.
Building the Solar Dehydrator
Basically all I did was to cut a shipping crate to a manageable size, add a door, some legs and a few tray supports on the inside to make the drying cabinet. I will probably add some ventilation later once I know how much I need. I don’t want to cut a bunch of holes on the front end of the experiment as I don’t want to cut too many.
The next stage was to build the solar collector. My original idea was to use some glass scrounged from a storm door. Unfortunately, it was a couple inches too wide. (BTW you cannot cut storm door glass; it’s tempered and will shatter into thousands of pieces). But for an unnamed reason I ended up going with a large 24 x 60 piece of Plexiglass as the top of the collector. The sides and bottom end are 1×6 boards, and the underside is a piece of plywood I had left from my chicken coop shipping box project.
I cut the top end of the 1x6s at an angle (I did not measure the angle, just marked it as the angle it would take to lay flush against the drying cabinet with the bottom end of the collector sitting on the ground. This allows me to hinge the two pieces together so that the solar collector rests on the ground when in use, but folds up for storage. The inside of the collector is painted black to help absorb heat. I painted the outside white because I had white paint. I also cut some ventilation holes in the bottom end of the solar collector, as there will need to be airflow to remove the moisture out of the drying box.
The drying trays and screens for the air vents are aluminum screen. I simply made some frames out of strips of molding and stapled the screen tightly to the frames.
I still need to experiment with the correct drying times and amount of airflow needed, but the plan is to set this on the sunny side of my house, fill with vegetables and see how long it takes to turn them nice and dry.
Stay tuned, and I will add to this post as I learn more about my Solar Dehydrator….
When I arrived, I was met by the owner who graciously let me have the run of the place as I looked around the store. He apologized for the lack of space, as the building was jam packed with cases of mountain house food, books, and tons of preparedness supplies. He told me that most everything he had was being shipped out, and that his priority was getting the gear shipped out to the consumer as soon as it was ordered.
Being a book lover, I really spent some time looking at his selection of books, we share a lot of the same books, but he had many that are on my wish list, and a few I had never heard about. I bought a bean recipe book that is the genesis of the tofu project I have planned for this weekend. Until my visit, I never realized you could use bean flour in bread (more on that to come)…
When they weren’t packing and shipping orders the staff was very friendly and even though I had to be in the way, they took the time to converse with me and make me feel welcome.
But besides all of that, what impressed me the most was the fact that this was not a store filled with the typical businessman. They USE the equipment they sell. From the rain barrel attached to the gutters, to the solar on the roof. Ready Made Resources is an actual working homestead. That is really important to me, because before I spend my money I want to make sure that I am getting good equipment because I may one day stake my life on its quality. They can do more than just tell you what shelf something’s on, they can help you find what will work best for you.
I recommend you looking at their website, not only for their professionalism, but because anyone that organically raises Chickens, Geese, Ducks, Goats, and Horses, as well as using solar and wind power on a working homestead is someone you definitely want to support.
I want to learn to weld, it’s on my “hope I never kick the bucket” list. You know skills I wish I had, but if I had them all I would be 176 years old simply due to the time it takes to learn everything. I also have the unfortunate experience of working somewhat close to a harbor freight store. Due to the cost I tend to buy a lot of consumables there – media for my bullet tumbler comes to mind. I tend to stay away from their durable goods though because I am concerned about quality, but something about a $100 welder just called my name.
I have the willpower to say no when something calls my name once, but this darn thing was persistent, it just kept calling. Finally after getting some overtime from working the last TN disaster I bought it. I bought it after looking at hundreds of reviews that says this thing is junk. BUT, all of these reviews were from professionals that use big name welders for commercial purposes. The lowest cost welder these guys were recommending cost thousands of dollars and with capabilities far beyond my scope of use.
Now, that’s not to say I don’t WANT some of these great welders, just that even if I had the cash to spend on one, my money would be better served buying tools I actually need.
As one review said “Anyone who does fabrication and builds for pay simply needs the ability to lay heavy bead, with long duty cycles. If you were a factory mechanic, and spun wrenches for a living, you wouldn’t use 99 cent store sockets for long term. A full-time logger doesn’t use $100 kmart chainsaws. For the homeowner trimming one tree once a year, it works. You don’t need a $700 Husqvarna ‘Rancher’ chainsaw with a 20+ inch bar for that kind of like duty. Not that it wouldn’t be nice to own….”
I need something simple, and cheap that lets me weld up to 3/8 inch thick steel. And this welder does that.
Out of the box the Harbor Freight Welder comes with one 2 lb roll of flux core wire, a combo brush/slag hammer, and a face shield. I bought some heavy welder gloves when I bought it, and picked up (but set down) a auto darkening helmet. Next time I go back to the store I am going to pick it back up, as not being able to see until the spark is stuck is a little scary for me.
It did take some minor assembly to get it ready, but it took less than 10 minutes and the hardest part was assembling the cheap welding face shield. The instructions were not that hard to follow especially considering they were written overseas.
I tried to weld two things one was a cheap china made charcoal grill that had a leg knocked off during our April storms (it stuck, but I melted through some sheet metal), the other was a set of crucible tongs I made. Once again it made a very ugly weld, but in fairness it was probably more my lack of skill than the limitations of the welder.
I can hit the target with a cheap pistol, but my group size is tighter with a better quality pistol, but when I started shooting I did not know enough to tell the difference.
I have read that with a better quality torch tip and flux core wire it improves its weld capabilities. But it will sputter a lot and cause lots of little balls of slag to be thrown all over your work.
Is it worth it? I say yes if you’re going to use it irregularly and can get it for less than $100. My mind may change after I gain some skills – especially after I make that battery powered stick welder and the alternator welder I have on the project list, but who knows.
Watch the video below to see what it does out of the box, but be warned I don’t know much (anything) about actually welding…
BTW – Constructive comments about how I’m doing it are much appreciated…