Turn Your Freezer Into A Dehydrator

Turn Your Freezer Into A Dehydrator FARM HOME Food 33-4-7 Jared Laca uses an old upright freezer to dry forage samples. Because the Fallon, Nevada, dairy farmer pays for his forage based on dry matter, he needs to dry and weigh it. The $120 electric dryer he previously purchased would only do two samples at a time. "I needed something to do 40 samples, and I had this old freezer," Laca says. "It took $85 in parts to turn the freezer into a dryer, using instructions I found on the internet." Laca installed two 3-in. vents at the bottom of the freezer and cut a hole for a bathroom fan at the top. He wired five porcelain lights with splitters (10 100-watt bulbs) in parallel and connected them to a switch. Though the dryer heats up to 120 to 130 degrees, the temperature isn't the crucial part. "It's the air movement that's pulled in from the bottom vents by the bathroom fan," Laca says. "The fan never stops." He weighs out 100-gram samples on 40 paper plates and places them on the freezer racks. After two days he removes and weighs each plate to determine the dry matter. Laca likes getting the job done all at once, and his forage supplier is happy because he gets paid sooner. "It was an easy project. It only took about four hours to put together," Laca says. So far he has only used the dryer for forage, but notes that it should also work as a dehydrator for drying jerky and other foods. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Jared Laca, 5255 Casey Rd., Fallon, Nevada 89406 (ph 775 217-2052; jaredlaca@yahoo.com).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.