Good morning friends,
I have an old, cheapo, cheapo food dehydrator. It's one'a 'em 'ere late night, 'As Seen on TV' kind of jobs. I bought it years, and years and years ago to make jerky. But somewhere along the line I lost the manual and on top of that I never made the (*%$#ed) jerky.

I'm looking for either a copy of this manual OR a basic guide that will work on ANY manual. I've looked around and most of the dehydrator books are for units that are way more complicated than this one.

My dryer has NO fan, it has NO temp adjustment, it does have louvers at the top and bottom that adjust air flow. It's about as close to a solar dryer as you can get, without actually using a solar dryer. So if anyone has ANY ideas, I'd be beholden to you.

thanks,
Schteveo

To dry anything including jerky you need three things dry warm air, low humidity and a way for air to circulate-thats it. so if you want to use your dehydrator and are in a dry climate either fill it and sit it outside in a breeze or set a fan so it blows through the louveres. depending upon how full it is it can take 12-24 hours to dry thoroughly. When I say dry thoroughly I mean to the brittle stage. I have had jerky mold because one or two pieces were not brittle because they were thicker and they molded and ruined the entire bag

AH,
thanks, I'll add that to me list of do's, don'ts and no nos.

I'm test drying a can of mandarin oranges, they're very wet. And I'm test drying three different kinds of frozen veggies they're virtually dry. Food Lion had them on sale, so it's a cheap way to go.