8 Food Dehydrating Tips Every Beginner Should Know! From An Appalachian

Seventy years of drying food up a mountain holler, and these are the mistakes I see beginners make every single time. Whether you just got your first food dehydrator or you're wanting to put up food for winter the way the old folks did, this one's for you. Mavis has been drying food since she was knee-high on her mama's porch in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, from leather britches beans strung behind Old Nell the wood cookstove, to dried apples for stack cake and fried pies. Today she's sharing the dehydrating tips nobody tells you when you're starting out, comparing the old Appalachian way Mama did it with the electric dehydrator her granddaughter Kaylee talked her into. You'll learn how to dehydrate fruit and vegetables the right way, how to tell when dried food is really done, the "forgotten step" that keeps your jars from spoiling in January, which foods you should never dry at home, and how to store dehydrated food so it lasts. It's practical, safety-checked food preservation and long-term food storage advice for homesteaders, preppers, gardeners, and anybody who wants a fuller pantry and less waste, served up with a little mountain wisdom and a story or two about Hollis along the way. One of these tips has ruined more jars of dried food than all the others put together. Stay to the end to find out which one, and whether you've been making it too.