Thread: Meet my 90, and share the adventure.

I've got one of those little gas burner stove things, they go pretty good as long as you can keep the wind off them.

My cooker is a dual fuel coleman like this:


With a wind deflector thing from ebay like this:

Originally Posted by Toxic_Avenger

My cooker is a dual fuel coleman like this:


With a wind deflector thing from ebay like this:

Very nice! But not what I thought it was.... sorry. I've got a little hiking propane burner. I do like your wind-shield though.

I like the direction your going with your gear, all nice and compact! I have a couple of hiking bits that are nice and small, they are great for space but I do like my big coleman 3 burner gas stove with a bbq plate connected to the ol' 9kg gas bottle pity it takes up so much valuable space. I'm just resigning to having to pull a trailer

Originally Posted by Toxic_Avenger

Also spending some time in the kitchen experimenting with dehydrating pasta sauce, for the inevitable overnight roadside stop along the barrier highway on the way to melrose. I might even get to do some balcony cooking to 'test it out'. I'll report back...

So it happened.

Round 1 was just some Beef / veg pasta sauce I had in the freezer.
About 1L of sauce was spread onto the dehydrator sheet, and dehydrated on high for about 18 hrs.
After the time was up, the sauce had turned dry to the touch, but not completely brittle. Somewhere between the consistency of a soft muesli bar and toffee

After all was said and done, this is what i was left with:



I added approx 800ml of water to the camp stove, and brought it to the boil, then added the entire pack (1 pack was about 1L before dehydrating).



Seemed that I added too much water to the mix, butin the end, I added some risoni pasta to the mix and it absorbed the extra water no worries.

No noticable loss of flavour.

Use in the field may involve adding a can of tomatoes or something else to bulk it out a bit more. Likewise I'd think that any recipe specifically for dehydrating would probably have a bit higher salt and meat content than the recipe I dehydrated down.

Originally Posted by Toxic_Avenger

So it happened.

Round 1 was just some Beef / veg pasta sauce I had in the freezer.
About 1L of sauce was spread onto the dehydrator sheet, and dehydrated on high for about 18 hrs.
After the time was up, the sauce had turned dry to the touch, but not completely brittle. Somewhere between the consistency of a soft muesli bar and toffee

After all was said and done, this is what i was left with:



I added approx 800ml of water to the camp stove, and brought it to the boil, then added the entire pack (1 pack was about 1L before dehydrating).



Seemed that I added too much water to the mix, butin the end, I added some risoni pasta to the mix and it absorbed the extra water no worries.

No noticable loss of flavour.

Use in the field may involve adding a can of tomatoes or something else to bulk it out a bit more. Likewise I'd think that any recipe specifically for dehydrating would probably have a bit higher salt and meat content than the recipe I dehydrated down.

Thats an excellent idea! Would be heaps cheaper than buying those 'hiking' meal things. AND for anyone with dietary requirements you could add/remove whatever! nice. I'm gluten intollerant so that's always a pain when travelling.

Where could one acquire one of these Dehydrator Gizmotrons pleas Mitch?

I've got a sunbeam one which was a hand-me-down from my partner's parents (they never used it, taking up kitchen space etc).
Before that I had a lumia one which we picked up rather cheap from aldi on special. Before that I used my parent's fowlers vacola.
There is also heaps on ebay, I think harvey norman can get them, etc. The ducks nuts would be a commercial grade one, but they are big, cumbersome and very expensive. If you wanted a DIY solution, a blow heater, ducting and a suitable box with sufficient airflow would be an easy weekend project.
...Or you could usse an old fridge and some computer fans and 75W light globes, like this bloke:
Food Dehydrator


Like any kitchen gadget, it's only worth it if you use it. So I make the occasional batch of dried fruit (apples, banana chips etc), and make a pretty mean Beef Jerky, with chilli, soy and all the other good stuff! You can make fruit Leather - roll-up style snacks too if you wish.

The dried pasta sauce was the first time I've tried doing it, and I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out.

Today involved a few little mods, nothing major, mainly just tying up loose ends from other jobs.

1) Deutsch plug for rear work light
The rear work light is basically hard wired, but I'm looking to gain the ability to easily remove it. Deustch plugs to the rescue!

The wires were crimped to the pins with the tool, and it was a relatively easy way to get the 3-pole connector assembled. The longest part was removing the rear tyre off the carrier so I didn't have to contort myself behind there to do the crimps.

For now the connector is zip tied to the lever catch. There are some cool deutsch mounting clips which will work with the connector, but no one has them locally, and I'll probably source via snail mail from some far flung corner of the globe.




2) New handle for rear bar latch
I'm no softie, but the rear latch on the jerry can holder was always a bit of a battle to get right. I believe the rubber bump stop is probably still wearing in, but the profile of the handle was always a bit difficult to use with any force.
This was solved by melting on some 34-39mm glue lined heat shrink, applied in 2 layers to the offending handle. Now there is a good 4mm of plastic and glue making the handle much easier to reef on without a moment's hesitation. I'll probably look into trimming up the skinny end of the heat shrink at a later date.





3) Re-fitting Sub woofer RCA cables

About 8 months ago, in a fit of wiring rage, I cut the RCA cable to the sub woofer shorter, as the stereo install used about 11ty billion meters of cable for a 1.5m run between the sub and the head unit.
Being a smart bugger, I thought it would be an easy matter to use an off the shelf RCA plug end kit to re-solder a new end on the shortened cable.
Oh, how wrong I was...
The cable was made up of the tiniest little wires with an imperial ass tonne of foil shielding, and a big rubberized insulation sleeve. I made a bit of a dogs breakfast of it soldering it up in the vehicle in the confined quarters I was working in.

When it came to install, the barrel length of the RCA plug was too long, and was stopping the passenger seat from being reclined back or moved...



Needless to say I retired to the house for a beer.


Cue today, I removed the centre panel, and jerry-rigged up the cables using a new belkin cable and a right-angle RCA adaptor. It all works now, and I have fully sick bass.

All is now good in the world.