Gravel?

[Ed C]

I make it every year, but my memory has taken a powder on me. How long do I dehydrate it 12hr. 24hr?

[Sawtooth]

Ed,

It sure doesn't take 24 hours for mine to make. I think around 9-12 hours would do the trick. You want the ground meat to dry out until it's rock hard. I set my thermostat on 155F, and let it go for around 10 hours. Your temperature and time may vary, depending on what dehydrator you have. Mine is a Nesco American Harvest dehydrator.

[Sarbar]

Ed, it usually takes about 8-12 hours for me, depending on humidity/weather. I lived on on Whidbey for about 13 years, and drying food took less time then, than now, where I live on the mainland, away from the open water.

[Ed C]

Saw and Sarbar
Do you have an easy way to measure gravel in the field? Do you just scoop some out and say that's good for tonight? I would like to have the equivalent of 1/4 lb. per meal before dehydration.

[Sawtooth]

I usually make my own rice meals and put everything in a quart ziploc. Along with the ingredients for the rice meal, I will throw in 1/2 to 3/4 cup of gravel. Most of the time I use my Mexican gravel, which has been seasoned with taco seasoning mix and chopped onions when I browned the meat.

So Ed, I pre-measure everything at home and put my meals in individual quart ziplocs. I pre-measure my meals so I KNOW that I have enough for all my meals for a ramble. I found that if I just took a big bag of gravel and threw some in each meal, I either ran short or ran long. Pre-measuring just works for me. YMMV.

[Ed C]

Yeah that's what I thought. Hope you don't get the impression I was being lazy

[img]/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img] How much do you think 1/2 to 3/4 cup is before it was dehydrated?

[Sawtooth]

Maybe 2-3 times that much, at least. Others may have a better estimate. I never measured it out to see. Just guessing on the reduction in size of the meat.

[Cleve]

Ed C-
I've used gravel a bunch and I'm with Sawtooth on premeasuring to the specific meal, about 1/2-2/3 cup per person served as a rough estimate.

And I usually dehydrate it for about 24 hours, but that's mostly just a matter of putting it in the dehydrator in the evening and not getting around to checking it until the next evening -- it would probably be fine by morning. My dehydrator -- an old "Ronco" bought at a garage sale years ago -- has no temp setting, just a heating element in the bottom and vents on top to control rate of drying -- I always just leave them wide open.

Sawtooth -- I'll have to try your taco seasoned version -- sounds great. I made a chili recipe (listed on this forum back in Sept) that came out great, but I used plain gravel and added the spices etc to the bag after the gravel was dried.

See: http://forums.kifaru.net/ubb/ultimat...;f=10;t=000028

[Sawtooth]

Cleve,

I'm going to create a Cajun version of my gravel too, just for Smokepole. He really likes Cajun spice. I dump that stuff into just about everything I cook while rambling, except maybe my oatmeal. It's especially good on trout.

[Cleve]

Yeah, he did like that Jambalaya on the turkey hunt.

What cajun seasoning do you prefer? You buying a premade mix like Tony Cachere's or Paul Prudholme's or making your own blend?