Last month, we found ourselves with 60 pounds of cherries and no plan, so my husband quickly built an outdoor dehydrating rack. Here’s how:
(Note: The tutorial was an after thought, thus yielding only cell phone pictures)
Materials:
- 4 – 1 x 2 x 8s
- Aluminum window screening (we bought this)
- 1 1/4″ brads or nails
- Wood glue
- Staples
Tools:
- Miter saw
- Brad gun or hammer
- Staple gun
Cuts:
- 2 – 34.5″
- 2 – 42″
- 4 – 12″
Yield:
Time: 2 hours or less
Steps:
1. Cut the wood into desired lengths. We chose 2 – 34.5″ and 2 – 42″ so we didn’t have to trim the window screening. Cut the edges at 45 degree angles.
2. Glue corners together to make a large picture frame. Then nail (with a brad gun) on both sides to strengthen it.
3. Lay the screen out on the frame and secure with a staple gun.
4. Cut lengths of the remaining wood into 4 – 12″ pieces, with angles cut at 45 degrees into a trapezoid. Nail the wood into the corner of the frame for reinforcement. You can also use a brad gun, but we ran out of brads. Repeat on all four corners.
5. Your end result looks like this:
6. Repeat this process to make a second screen to place on top or simply use cheesecloth to cover the fruit.
How to Use:
We set the drying rack out on planters, piled it with loads of cherries, and placed a second drying rack on top.
The cherries sat for three days in my parents’ backyard, coming inside at night (probably unnecessary). After three days, the cherries looked like this…
…and my children happily harvested the lot.
Additional Notes:
- The drying rack can also be made with the simplest of tools and materials–hand saw, hammer, and nails–but since we had a brad gun, staple gun, and miter saw, we took advantage of our good fortune. Play around with what you’ve got!
- This large rack worked beautifully and didn’t appear to have any trouble with the weight. Nevertheless, we will likely make a smaller one in the future.
- Clamps on the side would have eased my mind in case the wind picked up.
- We’re not really a DIY family, but this project was easy-peasy for my husband (and I’m sure I could have done it as well)
Do you dehydrate fruit outdoors? What methods have worked best for you?
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TESTING!
Great tutorial! My only concern is the screen material – aluminum. We don’t like it to come in contact with our food, plus heat can cause it to leech.
I would look for stainless steel mesh window screening.
Vickilynn, thank you-that’s a great point! I had an inkling there was a better way so I’ll keep my eyes peeled for some stainless steel. With 60 pounds of cherries already picked, we had to make-do. My husband was tempted to take the screens off our windows
I just read about employees at Mother Earth News using solar dehydrators at work and wondered how to go about doing something similar. While this isn’t quite the same, it’s exactly what I needed. Great timing, and thanks so much for being my guiding light in this!
Rebecca, you are welcome! I’m not familiar with the solar dehydrators, but I can say that we wish we had dehydrated even more fruit using this method. It was so much easier than we anticipated.
My hubby and I were just talking about this today. I bought a food dehydrator at a garage sale today for $2 and now I’m starting to think maybe I shouldn’t have. We used to watch “Good Eats” with Alton Brown. This is about 1.5 years ago when we still had cable. What he does was just have a racks full of fruits and then turn on a fan that blows on the fruit…this was all done inside.
This is a great idea too. Thanks for sharing!
I would have never thought about the fan. How high were they turned on? Was it mostly for circulation or was there another purpose as well?
This is so great! Not very useful here in UK, too much rain
Well done, Jennifer! I’m featuring this on the Barn Hop tomorrow! Come grab an “I’ve been featured” button!
Amy, I am honored! I will be sure to grab a button. Thanks for the shout-out.
Nice job! It would be a lot cheaper to cover the aluminium with cheese cloth or fabric, than stainless steel.