Dehydrated bananas in the smoker

[BoxcarBetts]

Hey all,

I was reading a bit on here about using the smoker to dehydrate fruit but couldn't find a whole lot. I decided to experiment and try dehydrating some bananas into chips.  I only used 2 bananas since I wasn't sure if they were going to turn out, but after trying them, I wish I did more!  I realise that the Bradley isn't meant for dehydrating, but I don't have a dehydrator and have never used one.  So I figured I'd give it a shot and share the notes I took during my little experiment here for those folks who find themselves in the same boat I was in.

So first off, I'm a major coffee fan. I decided that instead of just doing raw bananas, I'd get a little creative and sprinkled some coffee grinds right on them. I think they turned out awesome. I also did some just with a little brown sugar, which I'll probably not bother with again as the sugar seemed to hinder the dryout and didn't really add any noticeable sweetness. 

So here's what I did:
1. Preheat smoker tower to 50C. Do not use smoke generator.
2. Spread banana slices over greased grilling tray
3. Sprinkle coffee grinds over banana slices
4. Place grilling tray on top rack. If using more than one rack, alternate racks every hour.
5. Open vent fully and cook at 40C for 24 hrs, turning chips once topside becomes dry.

I chose 40C because I wanted to get enough heat to get some natural convection going through the tower, but didn't want to actually cook them. And it's also probably not necessary to alternate the racks every hour but every 2 or so, but I was checking on them every hour anyway just to see what was going on.

And here are the notes from my little experiment.
7 hrs - flipped coffee bananas. Sugar bananas still moist on tops

10 hrs - flipped sugar bananas, though some not totally dry

12 hrs - coffee bananas still pliable, but dry

12.5 hrs - turn off smoker for night
(Next day)
12.5 hrs - resume dryout. Chips still pliable

15 hrs - flipped all bananas again

25 hrs - took coffee out. Thinner ones fairly crispy, thicker ones chewy

28 hrs - took out sugar chips, same condition as coffee

The coffee bananas were basically done at 24 hours, but I left them in trying  to really accomplish crunchy chips.  Never really did get there and both bananas are actually more chewy than anything. I basically got tired of waiting and ended up kinda liking them this way. My next time I'll probably try drying them out at 50C and hopefully speed up the process a bit.

Oh, and I should mention there was no smokiness to them, but my smoke generator has only run for a total of 8 hours or so as my unit is brand new.

Cheers,
BoxcarBetts

[Saber 4]

They sound good, my wife would like the coffee chips, may have to try that next time I do some in the dehydrator. If you like that kind of stuff I can see a dehydrator in your future which can cut your drying times in half or better and makes it easy to do jerky as well.

[BoxcarBetts]

My wife said the same thing, Saber!

[Saber 4]

You might want to checkout the Redhead SS 10 rack at Bass Pro, It will handle a lot of stuff and the fan/heater can be easily removed from the body for easy cleanup.