dehidrated meals

[Single Speed George]

right so for the WRT i was looking at buying expensive dehidrated meals ... then i remebered i use to make them years ago for trips with my parents dehidrator. my mum bought it years ago for making meals for lightweight touring (bikepacking hadent been invented yet) and backpacking.
anyway before my parents left for there retirment adventure round europe. i went and collected the dehidrator.
i bought some haet seal pouches
and i made some food.

so i made sure i keep fat content as low as posible using lean chiken for one meal and quorn mince for the other , and chopping things small
de hidrated over night then when i was at work (didnt burn the house down so im happy)
then put rice and chilly in some pouches , and curry and rice in others.
then heat sealed them with my ski waxing iron as it goes well hot !





well i will update on the sucsess or not after the WRT , but it has worked well in the past...
saves tones of money compared to thoes well expensive things u can buy and better nutrition than pot noodles or smash ! so lets see if i have remembered how to do this hahah

[Zippy]

well i will update on the sucsess or not after the WRT , but it has worked well in the past...

So - how were they?

saves tones of money

And can you substantiate that? i.e. how much did it cost for ingredients, but also cost of electrickery and how much time did it take? (Time is money after all )

[Single Speed George]

ye tasted good , couldnt just poor water in and leave as requiered a bit more rehydration time that that so had do simmer for a bit , but ye tasted good and rehydrated well. cost wise i shall work it out , but got to be less that fire pot

[NorwayCalling]

saves tones of money compared to thoes well expensive things u can buy and better nutrition than pot noodles or smash ! so lets see if i have remembered how to do this hahah

And can you substantiate that? i.e. how much did it cost for ingredients, but also cost of electrickery and how much time did it take? (Time is money after all )

I did the maths on this

For my dehydrator based on actual electricity consumed etc (had a plug in electricity measuring thing so thought I would give it a go).

High temp setting ("meat" setting or 70 degrees C) worked out at 8.41 pence/hr operational cost
Low temp setting ("Delicate" or 35 degrees C ) worked out at 5.33 pence/hr operational cost.

Stockli Dehydrator cost £119.00

Ingredients to make 4 x chilli & rice (organic) comes to around £4 ish but possibly quite a bit more....

Then you need to cook it... 0.72kwH used which is around 12p pence

Food storage foil heat sealing pouches 25 1ltr @ £12.99 (52p each)

So... to make one meal it will cost around a quid for ingredients and another for electric for the dehydrator and 52p for the bag you put the end product in... all up £2.64 each... sounds good.... until you add the price of the dehydrator on top.

So the first meal made will have cost me: £121.64

So (realistically) I will consume say 25 dehydrated meals whilst bike packing per year. in the first year, each home made meal will have cost £4.76 (to cover the cost of the dehydrator per meal) + £2.64 for the ingredients and packaging = £7.40 per meal based on 25 servings. This is roughly £185 for 25.

Fire pot would have been £112.50 for 25 servings.

You would have to make at least 64 meals to make the cost per meal the same as a firepot bought off the shelf.

Make 365 dehydrated meals at home and it will cost you £2.97 each - so yes, the more you use it, it can become cheaper than the off the shelf equivalence.


Its just like having a campervan... every night away "for free" is actually costing a fortune (example if you go away in your VWT5 california every day for 4 1/2 years - its still costing you £25 a night (an then you need to add campsite fees on top of that!), assuming you will still get 20k for the van at the end).

[whitestone]

I know that some ovens can't run at the low temps required (ours can) but what would be the cost then? Somewhat difficult to get a usage meter onto the power line for the oven I suspect. Your costings also assume that the dehydrator isn't used for anything else, I suspect that is more than likely.

The cost of the dehydrator is significant, when we got a breadmaker it was probably at least a year before the amortised cost per loaf was actually less than that of one bought in the bakery. Six or seven years down the line and the cost per loaf of the machine is now negligible, an accountant would probably have written off the capital cost by the end of the third or fourth year.

[BikeMedic]

Easy enough to buy a much cheaper dehydrator. I think I paid £45 for an as new Andrew James 6 tray. Does the job perfectly

[NorwayCalling]

Easy enough to buy a much cheaper dehydrator. I think I paid £45 for an as new Andrew James 6 tray. Does the job perfectly

True... and the same with all things, you get what you pay for.

I didn't want plastic shelving in my dehydrator (I have staness steel) as I don't like the plastics that inevitably leach out into the food or having permanent "chilli" taint to everything and red plastic shelves for doing fruit.

[Zippy]

Thankyou for the maths, I do approve

[benp1]

NorwayCalling - kudos for the geekery, love that

I had grand plans of dehydrating stuff and making things like jerky and fruit jelly. Then I realised that I don't eat those meals often enough, and can either by them or make my own with dehydrated ingredients (couscous or noodles). Plus the effort/faff and storage of the actual dehydrator.

In the end I didn't bother - and back then I was away at least 2 nights per month, not the 0.5 nights per month I am now!