Ezidri food driers

Those of you who have done the Tripping Skills dry side course will be very familiar with these good bits of kit. They come from New Zealand and are basically a compact stack of cleverly designed trays atop a convection heater.

You can dry all sorts of food from fruit and veg to meat, cooked dishes such as casseroles, stews and even eggs! I’m currently dealing with a massive crop of apples and drying them, either fresh or stewed as spiced roll-ups. Not that I’m trying to confine you to the kitchen - this must be one of the best ways out for preparing food before a paddling trip as dried food stores well with care, is compact and light. The drier doesn’t blast all the goodness out of food but uses surprisingly low temperatures. It also runs quietly and economically.

It is also astonishingly simple to maintain. On moving house ours got thumped, unbalancing the fan mounting. It was a simple matter to disassemble the base, reorientate the fan mounting and put the whole thing back together again.

There are a variety of models available but the best for processing a family’s food is probably the Ultra 1000. This comes with five 30cm wide drying trays at a cost (in 1999) of £145. Its wise to get a couple of extra trays at least plus some solid and mesh sheets to fit inside them as this gives you much greater flexibility. There are several different drying programmes available depending upon what the food is.

Geoff Kroll is no longer the supplier of Ezidri Dehydrators, including the Ultra 1000. The new agents are :

BSK Co Ltd,
Murdock Road,
Bedford MK41 7LE

The suggested contact there is Garry Carter: e-mail : garry@bsk.co.uk;
Tel : 01234 217 096 Fax : 01234 271 537