My background was as a farm girl living where stored food was a necessity. Then I grew up and wished to find a way to dry my herbs, which led to both the invention of the Living Foods Dehydrator (the first electric food dehydrator) by my husband Bob, and the writing of Dry It, You'll Like It.

Along the way to inventing an electric dehydrator, we found many non-electric ways to dehydrate food. The basic principle of drying is movement of warm air around the thing to be dried. Warm air rises. This principle is Nature's most valuable contribution to dehydrators. Therefore, setting the food to be dried over any source of heat will do. Be sure it is not too hot or the heat will cook the food instead of drying it, and destroy the enzymes. Temperatures between 80ºF and 120ºF (25-50º Celsius) are best. Also, make sure it is a gentle air flow, not a huge wind.

In this article we use the word "rack" to mean a framework on legs, and a "tray" to mean mesh or screening stretched over a wooden frame.

Air drying

I've put sheets over the furniture and dried herbs on them at room temperature. I've taken herbs and other leafy plants and tied them in clumps and hung them from the ceiling. Flowers can be dried this way, too. It's interesting to see flowers hanging upside down from the ceiling. Drying flowers this way means the stems will dry straight instead of flopped over as they would if dried in a vase.

Some people put the herbs or flowers into mesh or cloth bags before hanging them from the ceiling. (Do not use plastic bags or any other bags that block air flow!)

In Medieval times, people dried apples by slicing them and then loosely stringing them on a thread. The American Indians hung food from tree limbs to dry.

It can't be repeated often enough: air flow is the basis of dehydration, so make sure the room you're using has good air flow.

Using the sun's warmth

My grandparents used a shed roof as a food dryer. My mother and her siblings took turns sitting on the roof with a huge fan to discourage flying insects.

Another place the sun's warmth was used was my grandmother's attic. She had trays, racks and paper-covered floors to arrange the drying foods where they would dry the best. All this was very hard but necessary for the long Kansas winters, when trips to the grocery store were four months apart. Drying foods was an important way of life in those years preceding the 1900s.

One of our neighbors dried walnuts in the attic of her barn.

Many attics have heat but not much in the way of air flow. A fan helps, but a fan blowing air into an attic flows dust onto the food, and also toughens it. Much better is to have a fan pulling air out of the attic.

A friend in Oregon used a pile of rocks that were in full sun as a heat source. Her trays were window screens that she borrowed from their regular use. She dutifully carried them out each morning to the rack she had built over her pile of rocks. She brought them in each night so that they would stay dry (dew falls at night), and so that the wild things wouldn't have a free meal.

Keep the bugs at bay

Similarly, we've found that dehydrator trays used in pairs will capture the sun's warmth. One tray is used as a screened lid with the food on the other tray. The two then are taped or clamped together. No bugs can have a free lunch and the foods dry safely. Bricks or stones can be used to support the trays.

A more modern use of the sun's heat is a sheet of black plastic about 10 feet square, spread out on the ground. The plastic becomes a solar collector for your dehydrator which stands in the middle of the plastic. To use this method, be sure you have a dehydrator designed for the heat to come up from the bottom and go out the top. Also, you need to turn the lid crossways so that air comes out of each corner.

Fire heat

In my teens, in the 1930s, we owned a farm of filbert trees in Oregon, which is when I first saw things being dried. It is very important that nuts are dried if you want to keep them. The nuts were dried in a tumbler over heat. A tumbler could be turned by a hand crank and the heat was provided by a wood fire.

American Indians dried food on a rock above a campfire. This is one of the ways they made pemmican (a concentrated food of dried beef, suet, dried fruit, etc.).

One of our friends smoked meats to dry them in a smoke house.

Wood stove heat

We found that you need to use at least two ceiling hooks to hang your dehydrator over a wood stove. If hooks aren't possible, make or find a rack that will straddle the stove.

Drying food on a rack over a wood stove is a pioneer design. The National Geographic (June 1917) has pictures showing food drying on racks over a wood stove. In this case, the food was either placed directly on the racks, or on trays that were set on the racks.

Another way we found to dry food was to pin them in bundles with clothes pins to a clothes line that was hung over the stove. Or hang them from the ceiling over the stove where it's cozy warm. Garlic, apple slices on strings, or bundles of herbs can be dried this way.

Hot water heat

My hot water tank was my first dryer. I took the insulation off the top of my hot water tank and put my drying tray over the top. This was a dependable heat source.

Coils of copper pipe or other flexible pipes can be built into a hot-water heat source for a dehydrator, much the same way as a bottom-mounted heating unit is used. In one method, the hot water first goes through the water heater (which can be part of a wood stove), then under the dehydrator and then into the hot water tank.

Heaters and furnaces

One of my dryers was simply a tray on a rack over a propane heater. (Make sure the propane heater is properly vented.) Friends in Canada set their dryer over a steam radiator.

We found that setting food over a furnace floor register works, too. A filter, such as an old towel or piece of terry cloth is needed to keep the dust off. Cover the vent with the cloth and then wash the cloth frequently.

There are many, many ways to do things without electricity. Look around, maybe you'll invent a new one. Just keep in mind that air movement is the secret of drying for all items and you'll do well.

Dry It, You'll Like It includes recipes and plans for building your own food dehydrator. To learn more about the MacManiman's dehydrator, get plans for a solar panel for a dehydrator, or to purchase a copy of the book, write to: Living Foods Dehydrators, 3023-362nd Ave. SE, Fall City, WA 98024.