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OMG!!ITS HUGE......

omshantiomshanti Raw Newbie

I got home to find the new dehydrator here, its the size of my oven!!!! i cannot believe it( im grinning ear to ear) sooo guess i need to get busy! looks like a cooking weekend! thought you all would like to see the starter dehydrator next to the “real” dehydrator how do i post a pic here on this thread?

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  • Hi That’s cool.I don’t know how to post a pic but that’s exciting! =)

  • Unfortunately you can’t post pictures here directly – you can only post them somewhere else, and link to them here. Try a free account from Flickr, it’s very handy!

  • WooHoo! Ahh yes, shiny new dehydrator pics. Me likey!

  • omshantiomshanti Raw Newbie

    ;( sad news! my dehydrator had some conflicting info in the manual and seperate tip sheet. you know where they put “yes use in your regular 120 outlet”, then in the tip sheet they put always( in big bold print) use on its own circuit with a 20 amp circuit breaker…..grrr no satisfaction from the manufacturer soooo it might go back. the last gasp effort is to drill a hole through the garage wall into the pantry as there was a freezer out in the garage with the previous owners…that would be the right sized circuit. I ordered the 9 tray excalibur just in case! boohoo! its soooo pretty!

  • so what is the best dehydrator the most powerful one that will hook up in the kitchen outlet, I have a round one that i bought at walmart, and it works good but not very fast u know got to dehydrate for EVER to get anywhere with iy, I was looking on ebay last night and there are alot of excalibers but if they won’t work with regular plug ins in don;t know if i can have one please do tell.

  • Wait, so i you get an excalibur you cant plug it in to a normal outlet? I would have never thought to read the pamphlet. I would have just plugged it in to the kitchen. Will the house burn down? I guess I will have to ask my husband as he will be so pleased that I asked such a question about breakers and amps that he will delightfully take me on a boring tour of the house, basement and garages for an hour explaining something that could be answered in 5 minutes or less! I guess seeing the excited look in his eyes as he chatters on and on will be well worth it!

  • coconuttycoconutty Raw Newbie

    Haaaaaa! RAWmen you crack me up!

    Yeah does anyone have any info out there about the outlets? I don’t have a dehydrator but have every now and then considered buying one. But I guess if there’s outlet issues, then there’s no dehydrator in my future :(

  • did you order the 120 International model, or the standard model?

    120 International model – http://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/9-Tray-LARGE…

    Standard model (110) – http://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/9-Tray-Large…

    I see your profile lists you in SoCal, so since you are in the States you are most likely supplied for 110 and should be OK unless you ordered the International 120 model. Or are you running on an unusual power source are you are operating at 120 in your house on those outlets? That would be unusual but not impossible I suppose.

  • queenfluffqueenfluff Raw Newbie

    I never heard of the Excalibur not being able to be used in regular outlets. I would plug it into one of those power strips though. I have a Sausage Maker dehydrator and it is big and has more power than the Exacalibur and I still use it in my kitchen on the same power strip as my Blendtec (which is also really powerful). Even my desktop is on the same power strip. Sometimes I even run them at the same time and no issues.

    I would call again instead and talk to someone to get a definate answer instead of just sending it back right away.

    Maybe you ordered the wrong one like RawVegan4Health said?

  • rawmamarawmama Raw Newbie

    omshanti, what is the name of your new dehydrator, the huge one, that you just got? I was looking at dehydrators today and would love to know which one has this “tip”? Thanks…

  • omshantiomshanti Raw Newbie

    hey guys , the excalubur all models that i can see available here in the states can be used in a regular kitchen(your home) In the rare instance you live in some antiquated building the only thing that would happen would be your breaker would blow everytime you tried to use your dehydrator, if you somehow managed to over ride your breaker(unlikely and would have to be tampered with) you could melt the wires in the wall rendering that outlet useless. If it was bad enough then your house would burn down….(THIS SCENERIO HUGELY UNLIKELY!!!)

    rawmama, the model i purchased was through www.cabellas.com ( a huge hunting and fishing store) hunters like to dehydrate their carcasses for jerky so i figured whats gonna dry deer would do a bang up job on raw food. It has a beautiful glass door on the front for veiwing the stuff(no heat loss) and a timer and temp set….i may keep it still as i found a organic kitchen to work from(for my fledgling raw food production company see other thread)

    rawvegan4health, thanks for the info, had no idea there was an international model, although it makes sence as raw foodies are world wide!

  • raw_earthraw_earth Raw Newbie

    Wow, that’s a sweet looking dehydrator, omshanti! I love the glass door! I kinda wish I knew about those before I got my Excalibur.

  • queenfluffqueenfluff Raw Newbie

    Those do look nice. They are Commerical dehydrators – that is probably why you have the power problem.

    Those are sort of similar to the SausageMaker that I have. Similar price too. Except we have a smaller five tray and it is meant for home use. They make the commerical ones too. It is really more designed for meat but it has a dial for veggies and such. No digital though. I would love that. I use a little digital therometer to check on the temp. Mine is stainless steel. The door isn’t see through though. Are the Cabela’s stainless steel?

    Alissa Cohen is coming out with a new dehydrator in August 2007. Apparently it has a see-through door too. I don’t know what the rest of it is like.

    My bf is actually designing a new type of dehydrator that will cut dehydrating time significantly. So one day I will be using that!

    Good luck with your business Omshanti. I thought about doing something like that too since I am always making new chips, cracker and breads and people love them. But there really isn’t any market for them where I live right now – probably once I get to California. :)

  • rawmamarawmama Raw Newbie

    UGH! I was afraid you’d say that model from Cabellas! :( We JUST looked at them yesterday at their store. They had $30 off $150 purchase and we were going to get one but decided to wait until later because I couldn’t decide whether I liked the smaller or larger model best…Thank you so much for the warning/heads up, we don’t have any more room on our circuit panel to wire anything else in so I would have been out of luck!

  • omshantiomshanti Raw Newbie

    rawmama, bummer! but glad i saved you the trouble for home use. It may cook like crap though so ill post when i use it at the commercial kitchen!

    queenfluff, i would love to try some of your chip creations! so far im going to offer three breads, two cakes, biscotti, granola and four different types of crackers( like my famouse cheezits) i may offer Better Than Roasted nuts too(* thats soaked , and dehydrated to all of us in the know) Im stealing the moniker from diamond organics who offers dehydrated nuts in their catalog. hey when you get here look me up! ;)

  • rawmamarawmama Raw Newbie

    omshanti, These are the dehydrators that are used in lovinglifecafe.com and also lunapastelcafe.com. We had dinners at these raw rood restaurants and asked what they used. loving life has about 4 of them stacked one on top of another :) I guarantee you that what we ate was DELICIOUS from both places! I love the digital display. I am looking into having things rewired so we can get one in the future.

  • omshantiomshanti Raw Newbie

    i knew i was on to something! big grin! it is a great looking dehydrator…test run tomarrow at the commercial kitchen, should be fun!

  • That dehydrator looks so great! If I could cook like you or sell things like you I’m sure my boyfriend would buy me one. I am so excited to see how you do Omshanti! It really amazes me you were able to get so many different aspects together so quickly. You are really a great role model.

    I am curious about the demographics around where you live. You’ve shown from your friends that they like your products but do you see an overall raw market there? How does someone research and identify a raw market for a business plan per say? I saw a link on this site and in the local magazine here about some people wanting to start a raw restaurant here in Sarasota. They need a $100,000 investor(s). That actually doesn’t seem like very much to me to start a business and particularily in this area. The average home here is $500,000. But from what I see half of the people have million dollar homes and half have small run down homes- so what does that say.

    I did notice that I can’t find a restaurant with a decent salad and basically gave up looking. People are older here so I don’t know how open they’d be to change- but the whole foods is doing great here and they had a beer bash and we went by there and it was packed.

    From how resourceful you are I can see you going much farther than the farmers market and catering if you have the time or want to take the time in your personal life. You could open a cafe or just go into supplying other restaurants with raw options.

    What there is a need for: In addition to what you’ve done so far- have you thought about salad dressings? Believe it or not good ones are hard to find. I know you could do several that would be original, fresh, and most importantly exciting! You could be the next “Newmans Own”.

    Good luck- I am so interested in seeing how today and the rest of the business goes for you! =)

  • omshantiomshanti Raw Newbie

    gee, WE thanks so much for the kind words! Im sure you know CA is the home of many “free spirited” people. The raw movement seems very “in ” right now with the beautiful people in LA and is thriving int he santa monica area with many raw food choices in resteraunts, coops and farmers markets. Its not as big here in socal yet but we are on the verge i think. Im lucky in my friends as ive always been the cook of the group so they expect it to taste good, no real winning over needed! teehee(thats not to say some of my raw stuff hasnt been god awful!)im going to be making some samples today at the commercial kitchen to take to some of the smaller , non startbucks coffee houses and the yoga studio i go to. so maybe between the farmers markets, a line or two on a coffee house, and some of the coops up north i should be able to kick this thing off the ground.

    I have my own business now that is very specialized( natural horsmanship) and its found a comfy place to be here. but as much as i love it its a hard way to make a living. I beleive is doing what you love and success will follow, cooking is my second passion, then writing. ive tried horses and writing as a career and while they are wonderful and i will continue with them as i can i think cooking might just be the path i should have taken. of course i may get my stuff to the farmers market and get pelted with rotten fruit…..;) Its funny you mention dressing cause i made that oriental version of my ice box salad the other day and the dressing got raves, they said i should make that too and sell. I think ill stick to “Baked” goods as they are the most labor intensive time consuming items to do, therefore maybe people could go raw if these items where provided for them. plus the shelf life seems longer on them and they can freeze.

    my folks live in florida and have tried like heck to get me there….not my cup of tea really to hot, to south, to east! hahahaha, (my roots are southern:KYand TN) I know what you mean about salad there, its similar to wisconsin where salad is a plate of thousand island on one brownish leaf of iceburg and maybe an onion ring. my folks are in hernando and retiring there from the DC area was a shock to their palates! i think the resteraunt biz would be hell myself, things here open and close at the speed of light. But you gotta try, right? i think raw is easy to sell here, the ingredients are plentiful and year round, the beauty aspect of it speaks to many of the silicone set( if you know what i mean) and people got there own way out here which is why i love it. Florida is so much more conservative, and i know my folks where raised on the fda food pyramid and the thought of getting protein from a raw vegitable is foreign to them. On the other hand if an enterprizing person could push the health angle to the retirees and make the food very nice for their ageing palates it could work! isnt alissa cohen in florida? maybe push the weight loss angle….shallow but effective! So many people are transplants from big citys up north a really good resteraunt should do well. but to compete with the cheap plates of cooked gunk….hmmm. there is a gal here in socal who holds yoga at her home for older women, then she makes them an organic vegan lunch so its like an outing for the ladys….yoga and lunch, again its a niche thing and im not sure how profitable, but hey, seems to work for her! with all the women groups this might appeal.

    i cant take any credit for the speed in which my fledgeling biz is going really, everyone in the raw food biz ive spoken to has been soooo nice to me. now the other vendors at the farmers markets not so much but heck , i wont be any compatition to them with their salsas and jams! ill keep you posted and when i get my website up, ill post that too! thanks again for the encouragement! hugs…

  • Wow I finally just had to know what was huge.. And look who I find but my buddy Omshanti! AND I find out that she’s into selling her goodies.. so now my question becomes just were in SoCal are you? I’m seriously thinking I gotta talk my parents into getting in touch with you so that they might be able to buy some raw granola and send it to me (that’s if you think it’d be ok after a month-long trip in the mail.. sealed of course).. Cause I just know I’d never be able to get granola here and suddenly I’m really craving some (maybe it’s just cause I’m pregnant?? I don’t think so) Infact the parents are planning on sending a box soon with baby stuff for me (from Sacramento CA to Soran Kurdistan-N.Iraq it takes aprox. 5 weeks by mail) so I’m thinking that a sealed bag of granola tucked in with the stuff would be ok..By the way I had to laugh about the “silicone set” which seems so popular in CA… Anyways let me not bable on, as I sometimes do… Lemme know what you think.. K-Mom

  • omshantiomshanti Raw Newbie

    kmom! no problem im in san diego, let me know where to send it and i can a) send it to your folks or b) send it directly to you, i think it should be fine and ill try the handy dandy food sealer thingy at the commercial kitchen so it will be sealed with all the air out of the package. might make it last longer and it would be an awesome test of the viability of the product! on the house to you as you will be my test subject! i use agave and cinnimon but could leave both out if you would rather have more of a muslix that is unsweetened and unspiced. wht fun let me know!!! hugs.

  • Aww that’s so sweet/thoughtful/great of you.. (And that’s not just lip service) The sweet+cinnamon version sounds just wonderful.. you can get in contact with me at my yahoo email/messenger id:jhoshsamo@yahoo.com or just jhoshsamo for messenger.. and I can give you more details and see which way would be easier for you (sending to my parents or sending to me) wow I’m so anxious to see how this works!! Take care!!

  • Wow this is really cool. I can’t wait to hear how the package works out. When I went to the bookstore this week I found a cookbook on what to cook when the electricity goes out.

    Basically everyone would be forced to be a vegan\raw foodist if there wasn’t electricity for a while. We’d need to have lettuces growing and a stockpile of raw nuts and beans. I have an added interest in this because I have been in situations where I had to survive like that. We were in several hurricanes when I was growing up. It was such a scene- we had several big dogs, some canaries, my parents and my brother and I in a station wagon fleeing the destruction of course stuck in traffic. Even though most people get out we were forced to check into a hotel right in the path of the flood waters and when we woke up in the morning the flood water had come up to our floor (the 4th) and was lapping at our balcony. My parents packed bologne, squirt cheese, etc. But that wouldn’t have lasted long. There have been so many more horrible cases like New Orleans since and I think this is a wake up call to peole to be prepared.

    It has been hitting me more recently how fragile we are and the way we are living is. I became a vegetarian when I was 15 and it was a horrible experience because the people around me were really angry about it. I am suprised that things have gone even more extreeme (appearing). But I think this is really a way to simplify eating even though it seems complicated with the devices we are using like dehydrators. Ultimately the idea of raw is to eat foods in their most natural state.

  • omshantiomshanti Raw Newbie

    WE, i agree when i was a kid in the Dominican Republic, we went vegan during hurricane david, that is until dad fired up the grill! teehee but with no electricity and all the food going bad we ate off of our fruit trees and had some nice veggies in the house. of course we had crackers and such but it was an interesting test of ingenuity! I am noticing that i like the creative side of the more complicated raw cuisine. But for just plain good eats give me a cuke and corn on the cob, some fresh cherry tomatoes…and im just fine thanks! also your tip on paper bags for the freezer worked fab!

    pets and disasters worry the heck out of me, firstly i have so many(grin) and secondly i dont stock pile to much for them as their food seem s to have limited shelf life. Except the hay for the horses which would most likely become a liability here as the disasters that are most frequent are fires!its good to know what to do though and think about these things! you should start a new thread with disaster preparedness ideas!

  • rawmamarawmama Raw Newbie

    omshanti I had to write to tell you about a conversation my husband had with Cabellas today! He was calling them about a gift certificate and got into talking about the dehydrators…the person there told him that they BOTH, the 1/2 size and the full size dehydrators will work in a regular outlet, no special outlets needed…now go figure? Who do you believe? I just wanted to let you know what he was told today…

  • Hi I showed my boyfriend the cabellas site and he thought it was great. It had stuff that we don’t have out here at Bass Pro Outlet. Basically it made everything seem cool so he decided to order the same thing as you. I would rather experiment with a solar dehydrator but it is so humid here and has been raining for about a week I can see it’s not very practical.

    Ultimately I may move to Arizona because my parents want to move there. Of course I am worried about the sand storms I hear they have been having out there but they wouldn’t be suseptable to hurricanes and I’d like to get away from those. Also up in the mountains would be nice – some place like Asheville NC they’re supposed to be a great dog friendly city.

    Have you made a lot more things on your dehydrator? How hard is it to clean? On your latest recipe- Chili con fungi did you use it to heat up your plates and can you take one layer out to put larger sized bowls in? Can’t wait to hear how you’re biz is going!

  • omshantiomshanti Raw Newbie

    hi rawmama, I called cabellas too when i read the conflicting instructions( the booklet with the dehydrator and the tip sheet included with the dehydrator) they refered me to the manufactuer. no luck in straightening it out…. we blew the fuze when trying to run the blender and the dehydrator…no biggie though as i can use it at the commercial kitchen! my 9 tray excaliber is humming nicely as i write this and no fuses gone!!! thanks for thinking of me though… Write E, I cant imagine florida to be easy to dehydrate in!!!! solar especially! but i think you will love that dehydrator you ordered… it is huge! and you can remove trays just like the excalibur to heat bowls in . I have been very busy making some staples to take as samples to a few of the places i hope to carry my food. Im still waiting to hear from the farmers markets! can you believe you must apply? so i have my commercial kitchen,, i have my insurance, i have my biz cards, im cursing my website on yahoo for its rediculous layout options and slow design tools( been up early two morning in a row trying to publish the dern thing and it refuses to cooperate!! grrrrr, course my lack of computer skills might have something to do with it!!;) ive got my menu and ingredients list ready to go on what ever labels i come up with and my packageing ordered….so things are coming along! thanks! i taste tested some more of my items on my friend diana and her kids yesterday, its a good gauge, the kids wrinkled their noses at a few things( these are nonraw meat eaters) but everyone loved the corn tortillas and cheezits, mixed reviews on the tomatoe bread, onion bread and mock tuna…they liked the “raw”cees milk chocolate almond butter cups though…cant really offer those for sale regularly, they cost over a dollar a peice to make! sigh the granola was a hit too. I sent kurdishmom hers in the mail on monday. i hope the mason jar i put it in keeps it fresh.. i sent her some of my chips too( overdried corn tortillas) arizona is a nice place i have good friends in prescott, you should check out that area! its mountains and has seasons, not deathly hot like pheonix or tuscon…where do your folks wanna move? will your BF go with you? if you ever get to San Diego please let me know….

  • rawmamarawmama Raw Newbie

    Thanks for the update :) I don’t know what to do, I guess I could always return it if it didn’t work out aok. FYI, to keep moisture out of mason jars, put cotton balls in with your dehydrated foods :) I read that somewhere years ago and it works great! Hope you keep on making great things…you are so inspiring! :) Have a great weekend…

  • Wow now my mouth is just watering for my goodies!! Of course I’d probably laugh if I found cotten balls in with the granola.. (Maybe a new kind of raw I didn’t know about?) :) I found this nifty little contraption here, it’s kind of like a mesh tent to keep the flies and mosquitos off the babies, I’m thinking this would be a great thing (not for a baby but for foods) cause it is hot here, let me tell you we are in the low to mid 120’s and a few days have been close to 130, so I’m thinking just stick something on a tray, cover with the mesh-tent and let’er dry. It may not be as cool as your dehydrator Omshanti but I’m not gonna blow a fuse that way either.. Plus it’s the sun or nothing for me. >I did however find out that my sister-in-law has a nice blender she isn’t using so I’ll be long-term borrowing it till I can get one of my own< Thanks so much again for the granola (and chips I hear) My mom said that she’ll be sending the box the day after she gets the stuff from you. So somewhere around this time next month I’ll be able to tell everyone how delicious Omshanti’s granola is..

  • That sounds so awesome! I love your taste testers! I’m back from Florida and outside of Atlanta now. I would probably take my boyfriend but would want to check things out on my own first. We have 3 dogs and a lot of stuff so it would be a pretty major move.

    Let us know how it goes with the dehydrating. I would be curious how it turns out. I used a solar oven at camp growing up and you’d be suprised how well it works- just off of reflection off of metal. You can also heat things up on a flipped over metal canoe!

    I’ve been to Taos before and my parents have already looked at some real estate. My mom doesn’t want to go as much as my dad.

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