Herdy

I used to own a small restaurant and we were known for really good battered fish, mostly frozen of course, we usually used Pearl perch, but Basa is good too, the secret is the batter of course. Which is no secret at all, after a dusting in the flour, a dip in the batter which is just Self Raising Flour and water, mixed to a rather thin consistency, then let a lot of it drip off before laying gently into the oil. If you make the batter thick it is not nice, and using eggs or milk just makes it rubbery, IE: you don't want your fish enclosed in a pancake.

The hose is just a bit too short for me to pull it to the edge of the shelf it is on under the drier without undoing it, so I found a small wooden box in my shed about the same dimensions as the pump, which I pop the pump up on to drain. I take the pump outside onto a small table to do a power flush and a remove the cover clean though. I was going to just leave it on the box, but thought it might not be too level and I might not get the oil level correct.

Does anyone else feel the need to stop and defrost during a cycle, I have had a few things mainly Berries that go on and on and never seem to finish so I stop and defrost and there is a lot of Ice, and even after the second reset there is always still Ice touching the trays. Cheese, Apples and Bacon and a few others, I have not had to do this but berries seem the worst, mostly Mulberries and those that fit this type, have been taking over 40 hours even with the defrost.

All fixed, HR sent me some ideas and it seems the Power Flush a couple of times sorted it out, Happy happy.

Any one that is a bit more technical than me got any ideas, I went to bed last night and forgot to shut the drain valve, woke up this morning to a room full of oil vapour mist, not splashed up on the top of my drying table though, as has happened at other dumb person moments. Anyway, since then I have not been able to pull a vacuum, I have tried draining the oil and cleaning out the whole cover etc, even though it looked clean and I had done this only 2 batches ago. I have tried a couple of times for about 35 minutes and it won't get off xxx. Do you think I have stuffed the machine. Or any ideas what to try next.

OK, I have now had my Dryer for about a month, I am in Australia, so I had to buy a bigger step down transformer than the one I already owned. Batch 1: Raw Minced meat ( Hamburger) I had pre frozen this in anticipation, I had spread it flat on a cookie sheet and then cut it up like large chocolate squares. Was taking too long in my estimation ( about 30 hours) so stopped the machine, it looked dry enough so I packaged it. Reconstitution was pretty instant, but a little harder to break up when cooking, a bit more like cooking from frozen. Batch 2: Red and Green Apples cut into small wedges skin on, took about 24hrs, only fit about 6 large apples, turned out nice to eat also stewed up nicely. Batch 3: Bacon almost all fat removed, 1 kilo fresh, only single layer, our bacon is a bit different than US more ham like, dried well in 18hrs, reconstituted and fried very well. Batch 4: Granny Smith Apples, cut with a slicer corer peeler. 11 Large Apples, after about 24 hours it finished but there were a few cold pieces which started to soften so put back in for 1 hr freezing (probably unnecessary) and 2 hrs drying, all looks good. Batch 5 Pre cooked Mince (Hamburger) Liquid (fat and Gelatine) removed good stock, about 4 and a half kilo, did not note the time but about 24 hrs. Nice and crumbly. Batch 6: Teriyaki Chicken thighs cooked , and Diced chicken thigh cooked, added the fat and gelatine back to the mix, would not do so next time as there is fat attached to the cooked product, which may go rancid so will probably need to eat it up. Teriyaki Chicken looks great, reconstituted great. First mistake made forgot to close the water outlet... Oil spurted out all over the top of the shelf the pump is on, stopped it lightly defrosted and started up again half hour freezing several hours past and still no cycling turned off and decided to clean pump. Full oil change, removed cover and cleaned out fully, small amount of rust. Started again 1 hour freeze still cycling 8 hours later so stopped and removed food all looked dry enough. Batch 7: Blueberries Frozen, after 10hrs still not cycling and some oil escaping, so stopped reseated the rubber and set to drying, Blueberries nice and dry, small amount of mango on tray was not, so I ate this. Oil looked rather milky so drained it again. Batch 8: Frozen Peas, reduced the freezing time to 3 1/2 hrs probably a mistake, the cycling kept going back to xxx stopped reseated rubber etc, could not pull a vacuum, in despair I stopped it put the food back in the freezer and went to bed, Rang HR told me to try starting the whole process again, still no luck with a vacuum and going back to xxx, rang a local vacuum pump company they tried to be helpful, I thought it might be the oil I had purchased locally, but all experts seemed to say it was ok. Took a day or two to talk to these people so what to do now. Oil looked ok so started the pump with no food set to drying pulled a total vacuum to 0mt so lets try next batch. Batch 9: Bacon...just to be safe 1kg about 20hrs all good. Batch 10: Grated Cheese, at 7am it showed it had 1 1/2 hrs to go but at 8.30am was back to 6.50 hrs to go, left it alone and all finished at 3.45pm nice and dry. Batches 10 and 1: Mixed Berries frozen, strawberries cut smaller to make them more un form to Blueberries and raspberries, a bit overcrowded so after 26 to 32 hrs stopped m,machine defrosted and reset to drying , stopped and checked towards to end and Blueberries were still moist so reset both took over 42 hours each. Oil Changed between these two batches. Batch 12: in now White Fish Fillets will post results later.