Want to preserve the bounty of your harvest, without using fossil
fuel for either preservation or storage? To maximize the vitamin
content of your stored food? Then solar food dehydration is for you.
Here's a chance to buy a solar food dryer, made by Otto Ottoson, a
local carpenter. The dryer is similar to Eben Fodor's Sun Works
design in his book The Solar Food Dryer: How to Make and Use Your Own
Low-Cost, High Performance, Sun-Powered Food Dehydrator. We thank
Eben for his permission to use his design, and we highly recommend
his book and his websites http://www.solarfooddryer.com/ and http://
www.fodorandassociates.com/index.html.
On sunny days the dehydrator runs entirely on passive solar energy.
If the day turns cloudy or rainy, there's an electric backup. The
dryers are screened to keep out insects, and adjustable venting
allows you to control the temperature. It's quiet because there is no
fan; air circulates by natural convection (hot air rises and cool air
flows in from below).
Because these dryers are American-made, they are more expensive than
the imported products we may be used to. The cost is $375, our best
estimate of the cost of labor and materials.If it turns out to cost
less, we'll charge less. The cabinet will be made from pine rather
than plywood as in the original design, to address concerns we heard
about possible off-gassing of formaldehyde from plywood. In addition,
these dryers will use a small ceramic heating unit for backup, which
should be even more energy efficient than the light bulb in the
original design.
I tried Otto's prototype with tomatoes, green peppers, even onions.
The green peppers did look like dried spiders, but I thought they
tasted good. Best of all were the cherries, which I doled out like
candy all winter long. I liked the solar food dryer much better than
a conventional electric dehydrator, which I found noisy and hot.
If you would like to order a solar food dryer, please send or bring a
down payment of $100 to arrive by the end of the week to Otto
Ottoson, 207 Rachel Carson Way, Ithaca, NY 14850. You can also call
him at 277-0589. The rest of the money will be due when the dryers
are ready. This is anticipated to be an ongoing project, with
dehydrators built from time to time when there are enough orders to
warrant making more. However if you want to dry this year's cherries,
better place your order now!
If you need to contact me, I'm at [email protected],
or 272-4921 before 9 pm. You're welcome to forward this to others who
might be interested.
Yours for off-grid food storage,
Valorie
_______________________________________________
For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please
visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
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