Dehydrating fruit - part 6 - using a tray liner

A glut of tomatoes in the Southern Annex

2018 and a very hot summer has produced an enormous crop which is too much to eat  fresh so I decided to dry some.
Preparation was wash, slice about ¹/₂" (12.7 mm) thick, remove the hard cores.
Various sources on the www recommend using a tray liner to avoid dripping onto the tray below and sticking.
The options:

• Excalibur sheets at £7 a pop
• 9 Chuzy Chef sheets for £10.99 + 4.49 p&p
• 5 NUTRIDRY mesh sheets for £16.95 + 3.95 p&p
• Plastic Canvas from the local craft shop £3 each, probably not food safe
• Teflon baking sheet from the cupboard £0.

So the last one won and you can see the result in the graph below.

The absence of airflow on the lower surface reduced the rate of drying dramatically so out it came and that tray went on to more or less catch up with the others.
In the final analysis, sticking wasn't a problem and the tomatoes came off easily.

The dehydrator ran overnight on cheap juice so they were moon dried - a world first. Some were drier than others so they all went into a sealed container overnight to balance out the moisture then they were wrapped in cling film and frozen in batches.
I tasted one and it was almost a sultana.
Initial weight  3168g.

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