Ok . I just received a 5 tray excalibur. The manual suggested using it to raise bread or to make yogurt ?
I had not thought of using it for this, and now I am second guessing my choice .
Well I always thought that around 78 - 80 - 82' 'F was the correct temperature for raising bread ?
and for yogurt 105 - 110, where at 118 F is too hot.
The lowest setting for the excalibur is 115'F , which sounds too hot for raising bread and
on the verge of too hot for yogurt.
Now since I only got the 5 tray , which would fit my yogurt containers or small mason jars
however a 5 tray for raising bread might finish raising and touch the roof of the dehydrator ?
Just guessing on this. Is raising bread only intended for a 9 tray with the added height and
with a model that goes down to 80' ?
It would be nice if excalibur would go to a lower temperature setting of 110'F so you are not on the verge of
too hot for making yogurt. And also a temperature better for raising bread down to 80'F
I am also wondering in a power outage , in a real SHTF situation, how would one store
the yogurt after cultured ? Assuming you used some other method to culture the yogurt such
as a thermal containter when there was no power.
I have the nine and have done both, the bread rises very fast, so if you like a long slow rise for flavour, this does not work, but if you want bread to rise and rise well it does.. it will make the yogurt, done both sheep and cow in it but again watch your times carefully, I forgot four half gallon jars of yogurt in overnight and the next morning at the lowest setting, I had four jars of cheese/whey.. opps
http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/
Does the bread get a strong yeast taste with that high temperature ?
And did you just put the bread pans on a tray , or did you put a bowl of water
underneath and then a tray over that and then the dough ?
I am just wondering if all that would fit in the 5 tray ?
The bread was fine tasting, I just put it its rising bowl with a towel over it like I always do, I make good size batches of bread, all the trays come out of my nine when I do bread or the big half gallon yogurts etc
Make a smaller batch, use a smaller bowl, it will fit if you make it fit.
http://livingmydreamlifeonthefarm.wordpress.com/
somehow I thought the temperature went down to 115 but it looks like it will go down to 95
which is better than the 20' higher I thought was the lowest.
I am NOT at all happy with the poor finish on the stainless steel model. It arrived looking like
the shipping plastic on it has discoloured the finish somehow. I'm trying to get an image but
no easy task. 🙁 At first I thought maybe it had one of those plastic protective films on it.
It does come with very nice stainless steel trays that do not require that plastic mesh so
your food is not drying next to plastic
I will admit I have been using the bread machine to make bread for awhile now. At least 10 - 15 years
because I had no place to raise the dough. That is why when I suddenly noticed that it could raise
bread I wondered if I should have gotten the 9 tray . But the one I got does seem huge and heavy.
LOL