The EZ-Stove Top Food Dehydrator measures 19” X 16” with 1” sides. The total thickness of the sides is 2-1/2”. The tray features carrying handles welded on each end that extend out 1” on each end.
The pan has rolled edges to strengthen the sides and to prevent sharp edges.
The water fill hole has a channel built to make it easy to fill. The pan should never be used dry or allowed to run dry as the stainless may warp. The fill hole should never be plugged or covered so that any buildup of steam cannot be released.
Like all pans, this pan should be coated to prevent the food from sticking. We use spray olive oil.
A USA Amish-made Product.
Please allow 2-3 weeks for shipping.
It is a perfect alternative drying method for those living off the grid with limited sun exposure for adequate drying. The pan will work on pellet and corn stoves, any heat source that will heat the water up to the 150° drying range.
They are used for dehydrating fruits, vegetables, and spices. They are also used to dry fresh noodles, and to make beef jerky items. Just about anything you would dry in an oven or electric dehydrator can be dried on the drying pan up to just over 200 degrees or just under the boiling point of water to keep the pan from boiling over.
The advantage over oven drying is the water-filled drying pan is easier to maintain consistent temperatures without the worry of burning the food. The stovetop position also makes the pan easier to monitor and stir grains and nuts, such as sprouted grains.
The Amish really like this water pan method for quickly drying noodles.
Dehydrating is one of the oldest methods of preserving the harvest. Before refrigeration and other preserving methods were developed the spring and summer harvest would be dried on one of these drying pans and then stored for the winter food supply.
Dehydrated food is lightweight and was the only way to carry fresh food on long travels by horse saddlebags and wagons. With today’s outdoor enthusiasts, dried foods still make handy healthy meals and snacks to carry in back-backs. You can make your own dried soup mixes and jerky topped off with a fruit snack.
Our EZ-Stove Top Dehydrator is designed to fit over two burners and is built just like the old ones. We felt this is a convenient size for most to carry and store. It is also a perfect size for shipping. We can have custom sizes made larger; just e-mail us for a custom quote.
At Cottage Craft Works we enjoy looking back in time and finding old-time products to reproduce and bring back into the marketplace.
Our EZ-Stove Top Dehydrator is just one of our many products. We also like to improve the functionality, redesign or improve the original product using modern technology.
The original drying pans were made from galvanized metal, which was soldered. They probably contained lead, as those dangers were not known during this time in history.
Our EZ-Stove Top Dehydrator is made from USA 304 Stainless Steel, with the seams welded using no solders.
The galvanized metal over time started to rust and pit, creating leaks. This is probably one of the reasons why very few of these pans still even exist. We could only find three of the old ones being sold as antiques. Stainless steel will not rust or pit.
When companies reproduce old-time products, they most often will make it as cheaply as possible having an overseas company with substandard labor practices and living standards produce it for them.
At Cottage Craft Works, we want our reproduction products made just like they would have been made in a USA factory in the 50s and 60s. The EZ-Stove Top Dehydrator is made of heavy 22 gauge stainless. We could have it made using a lighter gauge metal, but then it would not be a product that we would be proud of.
We also want to provide our customers with products that will serve generations to come. This is a lost thought in our country as planned obsolesce somehow has translated into forcing a customer to purchase an item every few years instead of creating loyal customers for life.
We had a difficult time finding very much history about these pans. Some told us they were commercially produced, but in the few, we have found there is no consistent size, and the soldered joints varied. We believe they may have been an item that came across with the German settlements and were then made in local metal shops.
The drying pans were popular when wood stoves were used for cooking and heating. Having a ready heat source available also made good use of these drying pans. The EZ- Stove Top Dehydrator has a flat bottom and can be used on gas and electric stoves as well as outdoor barbecues.
We have found this pan to be very efficient. With the hot water maintaining the heat it takes only a small flame to keep it at temp during the drying period. We use both burners on our gas stove to bring it up to 150 degrees and then turn off one burner and bring the other small burner down to simmer. The small simmer burner keeps the temperature right in this ideal drying range. When drying grains under 110 degrees you may even have to shut the simmer burner off for an hour at a time.
The hot water maintains the same heat across the surface of the pan without any hot spots. The pan even continues to maintain the temperature for up to an hour or more after the burner has been turned off.
Note: We do not recommend the drying pan for glass top stoves. Also Fill the pan with lukewarm or hot water, as cold water will initially condense when the heat hits the bottom of the pan and drip down onto the burners.
The pan holds 1.9 gallons of water. The water allows the pan to maintain a constant stable temperature without ever scorching the food. The pan also makes a wonderful food warming tray to maintain heated party snacks and items that would normally be left on the stove to simmer and serve.
Using a stovetop drying pan with the hot water drying method reportedly also maintains more nutrient content; we really don’t have any scientific data to share on this, it is just one of the advantages that our Amish friends have told us about.
We did find significant information about conserving more nutrients by drying at a lower temperature over a period of time. As we experimented with peanuts, we found a wide range of discussion on roasting them at 300 degrees in an oven for 20 minutes or at a temperature of around 180 degrees over several hours to maintain more nutrient value. We set our pan right under 200 degrees and it took about 4 hours to reach the crunchy stage of our sample raw peanuts still in the shell. The few we had outside the shell were crunchy in 3 hours.
We use a standard oven thermometer in the water fill hole.
While we don't suggest using the pan all the time to roast peanuts, we wanted to see what other capabilities it had.
Since we have a low sodium diet in our family, we also wanted to see how well the pan dried bread to make our own salad croutons. As expected, it does a great job of this task.
We then let the pan cool down to just under 100 degrees and set another pan on top filled with wet wheat berries soaked in water. With the heat to stimulate the sprouting process the wheat evenly sprouted in 12 hours, we left it for 24 hours and then brought the heat up to just under 110 degrees to dry the sprouted grain after we washed and sanitized it.
For our International customers, we can ship this product USPS Priority International to most countries. Canada customers should have UPS Standard or USPS Priority show in shipping during the checkout. If for some reason the shipping cost runs higher, we will contact you.