Welcome to Moat Cottage. My lovely neighbour has gifted me a watermelon that she grew,
apparently she grew so many that she's sick of watermelon so I've decided to
cut mine in half and we're going to eat half fresh and dehydrate the other half
watermelon obviously has a high concentration of water so dehydrating it in a dehydrator,
a convection oven or sun drying are the recommended ways to dehydrate watermelon, using
a non-convection oven is not recommended because it takes so long and it's just not recommended.
Today I'm going to be dehydrating mine in the dehydrator.
I've sliced my watermelon into half inch slices
and the reason it's half inch for me is because my dehydrated trays are that thick and i need them
to sit on top of each other and sit flatly without any air coming through the sides.
The dehydrated pieces will get quite small so the bigger the pieces you can fit in your dehydrator
the better, but obviously you still need it to dehydrate. I let the watermelon tell me how to cut
it based on where the splits are in the watermelon and where the seeds are growing so that i can get
the seeds out because you need to get all the black seeds out, you can leave the white seeds,
I prefer to get as many out as i possibly can but definitely get all the black seeds out.
This is time consuming so you need to be a little bit patient but it is worth it.
i'm wanting the pieces to be as uniform as possible so that they dry at an even time.
Place the watermelon pieces on the tray, leaving
gaps around each piece so that there's good air circulation in the dehydrator
i cut the watermelon slices to about half inch by two and a half to three inches long
and then i can go over it and get more seeds out. If you have a good light, like a spotlight
or a headlamp torch or something like that, you can shine it into the watermelon while you're
removing the seeds and it helps you to find some of the hidden seeds inside the pieces.
When it comes to dehydrating watermelon there's no other pre-preparation required
apart from removing the seeds, you don't need to add lemon juice, you don't need to blanch,
you don't need to do anything, you just need to cut it and make sure it fits into the trays.
Some pieces may be a bit swiss cheese looking and of course they're going to shrivel up a
fair bit once they're dehydrated, you can either eat those pieces and just get more uniform pieces
or you can add them in and just enjoy them as snacks when they're ready
place them on the dehydrator and the recommended dehydrating temperature is 52 degrees
Celsius that's 135 degrees Fahrenheit and they say it takes around 10 to 15 hours,
i actually like to start off at 70 degrees Celsius and i dehydrate for a lot longer than that as well
because my dehydrator isn't that great. After about five hours i do turn the dehydrator down to
the closest temperature that's 52 degrees celsius and i rearrange the trays every five to six hours,
so that the trays at the bottom get a chance to be on the top and
the whole dehydrator dehydrates evenly. When you no longer feel moisture in your
watermelon, let the trays cool down and then test your watermelon, It should be flexible with no
moisture in the thickest part of the watermelon. You can let them dehydrate a little bit crunchier
for a different texture and that's really good too. Store in an airtight container and enjoy!