Fat loss of sausage during dehydration?

[Gary Dunckel]

I’m trying to estimate what % of the fat is lost during the process of dehydrating oily products such as Spam, Vienna sausages, and the like. I want to nail down the caloric values of my dehydrated concoctions. Does anyone have a good idea? Sarbar?

[Roger Caffin]

Well, basically, you don’t lose the fat content during dehydration. You only lose water.

That is of course a major problem for all dehydrated foods: the fat can still go ‘off’ even when the food is ‘dry’.

Cheers

[jimmer ultralight]

 

Fats do not not dehydrate well at all.

Fatty meats,oil and dairy fats are really best left out of the mix and added when rehyrdating. Stuff like veinna dausahes would.be best removed from the can and the foil vacum packed. Since Vienna Sausages are mostly fat.they would likely be a real wreck dehdrated.

For example,I have a pasta dish call “Pepperotini” .Its a rotini pasta in s spicy marinara sauce with Pepperoni chunks.. I dehyrdate the pasta w sauce and then on rehydration,ii add the Pepperoni and a bit of olive oil with a final.garnish of pre-grated vacum packed parmesian. It comes out fast and perfect on the trail and the weight is minimal.

[Gary Dunckel]

Yes, I don’t think fats actually “dehydrate,” but they sure do seem to weep out of the meat and are lost. The dehydration is merely to remove the water and lighten up the final product.

I held something back on my first post. A couple of days ago I dehydrated 7 small cans of thinly sliced beef Vienna sausages. Having done this before, and knowing how oily the dehydrator trays were at the end, I decided to try to collect as much of the lost fat as I could, and see how much there was. I lined the trays with paper towels (all towels were pre-weighed as a baseline), I frequently blotted the slices as they “weeped” oils, and I weighed all the towels at the end. I also wiped the trays well, in case any oil seeped through. I figured that there would be no water in the towels, and that any extra weight would be purely fat.

According to the nutritional label, there should have been 147 grams of fat in the contents of the 7 cans. The weight of the paper towels increased by 14.0 grams from the absorbed oils. I see that as a 9.5% loss of fat during the dehydration process. This of course would reduce the final caloric value, which is my major interest.

I am just hoping that someone like Sarah will chime in and confirm or deny my observations. I certainly can live with a 9.5% reduction in fat, as I can easily replace those calories in other ways. And heck, maybe this will give me a 9.5% longer shelf life in my freezer!

[James Marco]

Actually, fats are OK, but they often “seal” any water into the item. Soo, if you use a fatty meat it can be very difficult to dry it. Heat, of course, causes the fats to soften and weep out of any meats, as you found. Water causes it to go bad.

Example: Pemmican, Dried meat of some description and fats mixed, usually in about 30% meat/60% fat mix  (according to my grandfather, anyway.) Dried fruits, veggies, grains, especially corn, can also be added as needed. My grandfather used to make small bite sized patties out of well dried beef (from an old milchcow) finely ground,  bacon fat and corn meal (to soak up all the fat.) There is no traditional formula for this. Often used as a soup base or directly with flour gravy (a roux consisting of browned flour and some sort of fat, then milk or water is added.)

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