I have been drying my sungold cherry tomatoes and they come out great.

But when I tried to dry some paste tomatoes, they turned black. I now have a slicer to give me thin slices, and wonder if that will make a difference. It is time to dry the last of the crop, and I would hate to dry them and have to toss them.

Any ideas from you more experienced food dryers

Mindwing

Typically, in my experience anyway, the darkening or blackening of the tomatoes comes from the heat being a bit too high. The cheaper dehydrators that have a heating element at the bottom can cause this. Be sure to faithfully rotate the trays, keeping any empty trays to the bottom. Use any small household fan on low nearby the dehydrator to keep air moving, or try your oven on it's lowest temperature setting. Sometimes I think the dryer air of the colder season helps them to dry too fast or 'burn' too.

Thanks.

I'll try cooling things down.

mindwing

I used a cheaper store-bought dryer on my maters and they came out fine. I was good about rotating the trays every hour or so though, taking the bottom tray and putting it on top. Bottom definitely dried faster, so I can see where there'd be problems with over-drying if you don't rotate the trays.

I am rotating the trays every hour, so will see how they turn out tomorrow.

Looked this up online also, and found tomatoes with low acid also get black when drying.

I had no trouble with the cherry tomatoes, Have almost two quarts of them dried. Did most of them on the bottom tray, It is only the larger ones that cause trouble.

I used my slicer and got them about 1/8 inch thick this time.

Mindwing