Round dehydrator teflex? Advice Please :)

[Analeah]

Hi everyone, just went to the store today and got a stockli dehydrator. I am so stoked, I have some cookie bread and zucchini pizza's already dehydrating. I want to do some flax crackers and try some pizza crust but I realized I don't have any teflex and the only teflex I have seen is the square kind designed for the excalibur. I am wondering if anyone has thought of another way to dehydrate things that might drip through the regular dehydrator tray? I was thinking about wax paper but I don't know if that would be a good idea or not. Any advice? TIA!

[kirk]

Hi Analeah,

I've used wax paper before. It worked for me. You could go ahead and purchase the square ones and cut them to fit. But, I would think that wax paper is somewhat less toxic then teflex.

kirk

[Analeah]

Okay cool Kirk thanks, I'll have to try some wax paper then! I had no idea teflex was toxic...where did you get the info from on that?

[kirk]

Analeah,

I once had a friend who had a rock cutting hobby simular to mine and he accidently put acetone in an alcohol lamp that had a teflex washer in it. The teflex washer crinkled up and started to dissolve and he put it on his tongue without thinking to try and straiten the washer out. He told me that he could feel the teflex enter his bloodstrem and go strait to his head. He got real dizzy and sick from it. Anything that powerful and sudden has got to be toxic. :)

[marigold]

i just cut my square sheets into circles..all the raw people seem to use em so ???? they are lots easier than greaseproof which i used before..

[Analeah]

Hey guys, just tried wax paper to make some cookies and it turned out pretty well. I found it goes faster without using any wax paper and the holes are small enough that nothing much falls through. I just bought four extra trays for the stockli. I am concerned about the heat not getting to all the trays though? Do you have extra trays Marigold? What is the max temp you think it's okay to dehydrate stuff at so that the enzymes and all the other good stuff are intact?

[kirk]

105 degrees is usually recommended to preserve the life of the food. I'm not familiar with stockli so I can't help you there. I only have 5 trays in my excalliber.

[FEELIN'GOOD]

On Alissa's videos, she suggests using Seran Wrap... I have a round dehydrator too. I tried the Seran and it works great! The air goes through it well, and once your food gets stiff enough, you just flip it over on the tray and peel the seran off. Just continue cooking till it's done. Hope this helps...

[Analeah]

Hey cool, thanks for the suggestion! I have been using wax paper but I don't know how healthy it is to use and stuff ends up sticking to it sometimes. I am definately going to give seran wrap a try!

[vegbaby]

Hey cool, thanks for the suggestion! I have been using wax paper but I don't know how healthy it is to use and stuff ends up sticking to it sometimes. I am definately going to give seran wrap a try!

I tried wax paper a couple weeks ago when dehydrating marinated kale, and it was a pretty sticky mess!

[Analeah]

I think wax paper works good for some things but not so good for other things. I have dried small seeds with the wax paper and it works great for that and it works alright for pizza crusts and things like that. I tried the seran wrap for pizza crusts but it didn't work very well I think because it is hard to spread everything out evenly. The pizza crusts came out with little creases on the bottom. I am curious if it's bad to have food dehydrate for a long time on plastic? I guess it probably isn't any worse than wax paper though.

[vegangurl22]

I just bought the square teflex and cut them into circles. I love the stuff!

[dstar]

Do you girls/guys have any experience with using a hydrator that doesn't have a temperature setting, but just an on/off switch. It's a circular dehydrator with five trays but I have no idea how to tell when something is done or if it's even safe to keep something in there for 20 hours like it says for veggies.......not to mention the electric bill!!! :)

Also do you guys blanch your veggies before dehydrating?

[Rawkinlocs]

dstar,
Why oh why didn't you get the American Harvest Snack Master? It's a round model with temp. control from 95 degrees +

I saw it on Target.com for $40-something. Maybe you can take the one back that you have and get the other one because you'll need a temp control. That thing is probably set way higher than what is considered safe for the enzymes.

[Sharon in Colorado]

Before I got my teflex sheets, I used parchment paper. It dries out a bit, but I think it's a lot better than wax, especially if you buy the non-bleached parchment.

And here's a good tip to make a circle: fold it in half twice, then just cut a quarter circle out along the edge. You can actually press the folded sheet onto the dehydrator tray and make an imprint as a guide. I was a Pampered Chef kitchen consultant & picked up lots of cooking tips.

Another good tip if you don't have a dehydrator - replace your oven lightbulb with a higher wattage (check to make sure it'll handle it) and then simply turn the light on. I used to do this using a 100 watt bulb and measured the temp in there and it was right around 100 degrees. Of course, the baking sheet has to be turned as all the heat is in the back plus there's no fan to move the air around, but it does work really well!