For two seasons I have had the problem of dehydrated tomatoes sticking to the plastic trays. I tried no stick sprays, fruit leather trays, freezing the trays, and countless other ways. What I finally settled on is slicing them, using an electric knife, between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick and laying the slices on a flattened out sandwich bag on the tray in the forced air dryers for about four hours, then move them to the heat convection cyclone dryers for completion. Lay across from each other only two sandwich bags per tray to allow sufficient air circulation. When the drying is finished, the tomato slice and sandwich bag are pliable enough for easy seperation. Total drying time is seven to ten hours and produces a full diameter slice that is plenty thick for snacking.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), July 08, 2001

Answers

I find also that spraying the trays with cooking spray helps this, although you gotta clean the trays as soon as the slices are done, or the old, heated oil can set up really gummy.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), July 08, 2001.

I get around that by only drying paste, plum, or cherry types. Split them in halves or quarters, and lay them skin side down. I've gone from planting just a few of the 'salad' types, to concentrating on them, because they are so easy to dry.

-- Connie (Connie@lunehaven.com), July 10, 2001.

Article in the current Farm Show issue about someone who made a dryer for apple slices and used eggtray flourescent light panels which he cut in half to fit his drier. Also says he uses the dryer for tomatoes. He can process three bushels of applies in 12-15 hours. Plans for his dryer are at www.magma.ca./~barkhm5. He built his for about $200.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), July 18, 2001.