The dryer is made with four sides but no bottom. In this photo it sits on a piece of Plexiglass which rests on a piece of plywood. The whole arrangement is on my utility trailer, but if I didn't have that, it would do just as well on the ground. I've been using Plexiglass underneath this summer because I happened to have a piece, but plywood or an old window would do just as well.

In this photo, a piece of Plexiglass is on the top, in addition to the one mentioned above that's on the bottom. Sometimes I use glass. If you're in a nice dry location you can probably dry without going to the trouble of making up something like this, but I'm in Massachusetts where the summers are humid and I don't think it would work well if I didn't do it this way.    I didn't buy anything for this. There are usually plenty of old windows available for free and I had plywood scraps and some old hinges.

There's no reason the dryer couldn't be made by attaching all four sides, but for storage purposes I hinged them. Because of the hinges, there are gaps at the hinged corners. I may eventually get around to closing them, probably by stapling a strip of fabric in the corners, but a little air circulation probably isn't a bad thing. If the air becomes saturated, evaporation will slow down. The trick is to allow enough circulation so that doesn't happen, without so much that the temperature doesn't get high enough. There are too many variables in this process for me to experiment with and come up with the perfect design, so I'm just going with what seems to work reasonably well.

In this view you can see the plywood that sets on top of the trailer and the Plexiglass that serves as the bottom of the dryer.

Here's the dryer with tomatoes (mostly cherry tomatoes) on a broiling pan rack and apples on a cookie sheet. I took the Plexiglass off of the top of it to take the picture. I'm out in the yard near it for much of the day, so every now and then I turn it a bit to face it toward the sun. If left untouched through the entire process, they'll stick to the surface they're on, so around the halfway point I poke each item with a knife and move it just a little. Done at the right time, this prevents sticking. I usually smear the pan I'm using for the tomatoes with olive oil. If I just have a couple of tomatoes, I sometimes use a dinner plate.

This photo was taken about six hours after the one above. You can see that the drying has resulted in some shrinking. The apples were finished. The tomatoes will take a bit longer. I left them in there until early evening and then put them in my car, which is parked just a few feet away, for the night. There are skunks and raccoons that would get into them if I left them out. Actually, a car parked in the sun can work as a dryer also.

Food Drying I started drying many years ago because I have two apple trees and I thought it would be a good way to preserve some of the apples. I also do few other things; mainly tomatoes.    I try to do all my drying without using electricity. During the winter, I sometimes do drying in the house. If you have a wood stove you may be able to come up with an arrangement that allows food to get enough heat from it without burning the food. My winter drying usually involves small amounts of items that we've had around too long. Sometimes we have tomatoes that are starting to get soft. At that point I preferred them dried than used as is. I've made raisins from grapes that were past their prime. You can make some very good raisins this way.    Occasionally I've started some drying and I have to use electricty to finish. For that I have two ways I can go. I have an "as seen on TV" dryer that I got for free about fifteen years ago. You may have seen them. They come with five round trays. Food on the bottom dries fastest, so I do a lot of rearranging of trays when using it. Sometimes I use the oven. I turn it on to warm and stick a wooden spoon in the door to keep it open just a bit.    If you have questions or suggestions, click on HOME below. There's a link to my email on my homepage. (BTW, the rest of my site has nothing to do with drying food.)                                                                  HOME