What are you dehydrating?

[Quill]

Dang it! I cannot get the hang of dehydrating spuds!

Has anyone here successfully made their own instant dried mash by dehydrating their own spuds?
Please tell me the secret!

I don't know if this is of any use to you Jenny but I got a copy of the Ball Blue Book in Metric and they recommended the below for dehydrated potatoes:

"Choose any white variety. Wash, peel and cut into slices 0.65cm/ quarter-inch thick [probably handy to have a mandolin or food processor for that]. Steam blanch 5 to 6 minutes. Rinse well in cold water to remove starch. Dry at 52 degrees C until crisp. Use in soups, casseroles and potato dishes"

[jennyjj01]

Dang it! I cannot get the hang of dehydrating spuds!

Has anyone here successfully made their own instant dried mash by dehydrating their own spuds?
Please tell me the secret!

I don't know if this is of any use to you Jenny but I got a copy of the Ball Blue Book in Metric and they recommended the below for dehydrated potatoes:

"Choose any white variety. Wash, peel and cut into slices 0.65cm/ quarter-inch thick [probably handy to have a mandolin or food processor for that]. Steam blanch 5 to 6 minutes. Rinse well in cold water to remove starch. Dry at 52 degrees C until crisp. Use in soups, casseroles and potato dishes"

Thanks Quill,
I did succeed in using blanched diced or sliced spuds in a casserole and in a dauphinois. However, I dislike the amount of jar space wasted on dried slices, and I found cubes didn't rehydrate very well. Adequate for soups and stews and even ok to cook on to make mash.
But my real objective is to make my own instant or quick mash by powdering my fully cooked spuds. As a powder, I could shrink 10 pounds of spuds to a small mason jar, or vacc bag, saving a load of space. I just can't get the damned powder to rehydrate nicely. Maybe I need to grind it a LOT longer and finer. Already, I expect my coffee grinder to burn out on the next batch. Food processor never came close to success.

[ForgeCorvus]

You might need something more like a flour mill to get the fine powder you're after.
Mind you, they're not cheap........ Got a big birthday coming??

[jennyjj01]

You might need something more like a flour mill to get the fine powder you're after.
Mind you, they're not cheap........ Got a big birthday coming??

OK..... Some deeper research. This IS rocket science and all those smarmy youtubers that say this is easy, seem to be short changing us! Maybe there's a myriad preppers out there with buckets full of dried mash that they have never tried!

Anyhow. Here is my research so far.... Fascinating!!!
The TLDR version is:
Must maintain cell structure, temperature is critical. Grinding is not the answer!
Conclusion 1: Forget about trying to replicate instant mash!
Conclusion 2: Go back to drying blanched cubes.


Long version.

First I consulted Youtube and found this.

This Youtuber .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMH_aPUsdTc ....describes exactly the same issue with the re-hydrate not working out as an INSTANT mash. She uses a coffee grinder to grind the 5h1t out of the dried flakes, just as I did. There were some smarmy comments, but so far, the hint seems to be to re-hydrate longer and even boil them up again before remashing.

I compared my home made grindings with the contents of a sachet of cheapest Asda dried mash. There is a definite difference in structure. Mine is something like sandy dust: I'll say roughly spherical grains. Examining the commercial product, it has flakes of a wholly different structure. Not a powder at all, but small VERY fine, soft flakes. Popping a bit of the Asda stuff on my tongue and it dissolves in my mouth. Try that with my powder and it stayed gritty. That flake structure must be giving it more surface area to let the water in.

Then I checked out Wikipedia that gave great clues about the flake structure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_mashed_potatoes

There are two patents for the manufacture of instant mash. Interesting in that they discuss how the cell structure needs to be maintained and how grinding is bad...


https://patents.google.com/patent/US2759832
"The critical feature of that process was the application of the potatoes to the heated surface in a substantially monocellular layer. The product was thus obtained as a thin sheet or flake of about 0.004 to 0.010 inch thickness."


https://patents.google.com/patent/US1025373
"... comminute the potato to the desired degree without producing any substantial 'disintegration of the resulting particles...

The resulting-material may be shredded, or otherwise more finely divided, but it is essential that in this operation the cellwalls which inclose the starch cells or granules be not. ruptured, as would be the case if the potatoes were divided by a grinding or. crushing operation. The shredding may be performed by forcing the potatoes through a screen in such a manner as not to pulp or otherwise destroy the cellular structure and the resulting material is then dehydrated by being subjected to the action of and does not reach a temperature at which any substantial injurious" change of. the potato will result. ,While this shredding operation divides the potatoes into small particles, yet the latter are still relatively large compared with the cells inclosing the starch granules, and I have discovered that. said cells, or at any rate the vastly greater number of the said cells, are not ruptured by shredding where proper methods of comminution are adopted. It is the fact that these cells'are maintained intact which enables the potatoes on remoistening to be perfectly returned-to their original condition.
The stated temperature of the air employed in dehydrating is essential, for I have found that unless the temperature is maintained between the limits mentioned mechanically present it has not lost its water of constitution. If the water of constitution be expelled, as may happen if the conditions set forth are not adhered to, the product cannot be restored to its original texture and composition by the addition of water. The addition of water to the dried material can only restore the original material where the drying operation has removed only the water mechanically present."

[Quill]

That's fascinating, and bravo for doing your due diligence! What's the mash like from dried blanched cubes? Not instant obvs, but quick?

[jennyjj01]

That's fascinating, and bravo for doing your due diligence! What's the mash like from dried blanched cubes? Not instant obvs, but quick?

That's one I'll be revisiting over the weekend. I plan on 20mm dice, Some chip shaped sticks and some julienne/french fry sticks, just blanched 2 to 4 minutes, then ice bath before drying on a rather low heat. My thinking for the chip shapes is that they won't fall through my trays. On past form, I expect rehydration to be slow, maybe an hour or 30 mins at a low simmer.

I will master this! Maximum compaction into jars is what I'm now after, coupled with long shelf life.

[ForgeCorvus]

Who thought that something so simple can be so complex?

Jenny, you're either mad or a genius....... Or maybe a mad genius


I don't think anyone will be rolling out mashed spud to fag paper thickness at home

[jennyjj01]

Who thought that something so simple can be so complex?

Jenny, you're either mad or a genius....... Or maybe a mad genius
I don't think anyone will be rolling out mashed spud to fag paper thickness at home

I certainly went down a rabbit-hole. Expected it to be easy.

The jury is still out on my sanity, but when I post the time lapse video of my sprouting tomato and onion seedlings (my babies) , that might clinch it

But seriously.... I've watched so many YouTube vids of preppers dehydrating spuds and whooping and cheering that the end product had not gone black. But very few follow through to show the rehydrated product on a plate. Some do, and you might pick up the disappointment in the tone of their voices. I really do imagine lots of preppers being distressed, post apocalypse as they make gluey gritty mush out of their stockpiled spuds.

Currently blanching some chip shaped spuds on the basis they won't fall through my dryer trays.

Speaking of dried mashed spuds.... Morrison's instant mash with chives and onions and other flavours, is brilliant and now reduced to 45p. I use that as my go to mash. It's the best I've tried and so very cheap. As good as home made mash. Indeed the chives and onions makes me want to grow chives.

[jansman]

Who thought that something so simple can be so complex?

Jenny, you're either mad or a genius....... Or maybe a mad genius
I don't think anyone will be rolling out mashed spud to fag paper thickness at home

I certainly went down a rabbit-hole. Expected it to be easy.

The jury is still out on my sanity, but when I post the time lapse video of my sprouting tomato and onion seedlings (my babies) , that might clinch it

But seriously.... I've watched so many YouTube vids of preppers dehydrating spuds and whooping and cheering that the end product had not gone black. But very few follow through to show the rehydrated product on a plate. Some do, and you might pick up the disappointment in the tone of their voices. I really do imagine lots of preppers being distressed, post apocalypse as they make gluey gritty mush out of their stockpiled spuds.

Currently blanching some chip shaped spuds on the basis they won't fall through my dryer trays.

Speaking of dried mashed spuds.... Morrison's instant mash with chives and onions and other flavours, is brilliant and now reduced to 45p. I use that as my go to mash. It's the best I've tried and so very cheap. As good as home made mash. Indeed the chives and onions makes me want to grow chives.

Buy a chive plant, and simply root divide it to make more plants. Simple as it gets.

[jennyjj01]

Currently blanching some chip shaped spuds on the basis they won't fall through my dryer trays.

The Great Dehydrated Spud experiments continue.

Overnight, I dehydrated a tray of french fry sized 7mm chips and some regular 1/2 inch chips. I'd blanched both lots for a generous 5 minutes. Both dried at 53C overnight.

This morning, both lots were hard as bullets and had shrunk as expected, but none fell through the tray, so success there. They had gone almost translucent, some with a dark looking inner. Used less jar space than slices.

Of those, I tried three approaches.
1)Grind in the coffee grinder. FAIL. Even the french fry ones were too hard to powder. Dead loss!

2)With one batch, I put them in a pan of boiling water and simmered VERY gently for a whole hour, topping up the water along the way. They still never re-inflated to the right shape and were just starting to break up a bit. I drained them and mashed them as I would with freshly boiled spuds. Added salt, butter and milk. They were a bit tough to mash, but I gave it my best shot with the tater masher. Result was the best so far. I did have to mash them thoroughly and re-warm them afterwards in the microwave.

3)Third batch rehydrated a LONG time. Soak in some boiled water: I allowed FIVE HOURS!!!!!. after that time, they were still conspicuously 'sucked in' along the sides and no way were they ever going to inflate to shape. Some of the fatter chips had blackened down the centre. Reboiled for 20 mins and mashed, as per batch 2. Similar result to batch 2, but with some distastefully grey bits.

Conclusion to this attempt: Partial success.
Trying to use blanched spuds did not give the grittiness experienced where I dehydrated completely cooked mash. But this was far from a quick process. The hour long simmer worked better than the long LONG soak.
Some of the blanched chips STILL went dark on the INSIDE? That's a bit weird. I thought it should be the surface that would oxidise and go dark, but it was definitely the centre.
Dehydrating in this shape was much more practical than diced or sliced or mash.

Next experiment will be to try blanching thinner 'matchstick' sized pieces.
I had another idea, inspired by my evening meal: I'm going to try crumbling and fluffing up and then dehydrating some long baked spuds.

I will not be beaten.
Dammit. Damn those deceitful youtubing Americans that make it look easy, but probably never ate their product..