Dehydrating bananas

[noxwaste]

So, dehydrated bananas are some of my favorite snacks of all time. Getting them from the grocery store, they always have that perfect crisp texture that's slightly sweet with a very deep banana flavor. However, my wife and I have tried our own homemade dehydrated bananas quite a few times, and they always come out HORRIBLE. They taste very pungent, and not even close to what we've ever had in the store. I've tried soaking them in lime, soaking them in lemon, adding honey to the lemon/lime, adding honey straight to the banana, etc, etc, etc. We've tried many different combinations of lemon/lime/honey and various variations with just one of those ingredients, and it never turns out right.

Do any of you know what I'm talking about, and find a way around that?

 

[daveomak]

I find a lower temperature gives better flavor....   My garlic dries at 110 F...   I have a fan forced drier...   Sausage maker unit...   I do the same with plums to make prunes...    Haven't tried bananas... they are too sweet for my tastes...

 

[chef jimmyj]

Can we assume you are using ripe as in speckled plus bananas. Any green on the stem end is not ripe or going to be sweet. The pH of a banana is between 4&5, add lemon as an antioxidant and you get closer to 3, pretty acidic. You can safely dry them at a low temp as Dave suggests. Please describe Pungent. Garlic and Skunks are Pungent. Bitter flavor can be greatly reduced with a pinch of salt...JJ

 

[dward51]

I tried drying bananas one time in my dehydrator. Results were sort of "meh".... No where near what you buy in the store. I wish I know what they are putting on the commercial ones as they have a shiny outer shell almost.  I'm sure it is some sort of sugary coating, but they are good and super crisp.

 

[noxwaste]

Can we assume you are using ripe as in speckled plus bananas. Any green on the stem end is not ripe or going to be sweet. The pH of a banana is between 4&5, add lemon as an antioxidant and you get closer to 3, pretty acidic. You can safely dry them at a low temp as Dave suggests. Please describe Pungent. Garlic and Skunks are Pungent. Bitter flavor can be greatly reduced with a pinch of salt...JJ

Yep, the bananas I use are always fully yellowed on the skin, and sometimes with just a speckling of dark brown starting to creep in. I don't even like to eat bananas that still have green on the skin, much less trying to dehydrate them. :P And when I say pungent, they taste the way ass smells. It's been a year or two since I've made them, so I can't really describe it with any more descriptors than that. But they are not pleasant, at all.

 
I tried drying bananas one time in my dehydrator. Results were sort of "meh".... No where near what you buy in the store. I wish I know what they are putting on the commercial ones as they have a shiny outer shell almost.  I'm sure it is some sort of sugary coating, but they are good and super crisp.

I know what you mean. I tried even coating them in a sugar water mixture before dehydrating, and although they were semi-sweet, they still tasted horrible once you got past the sugar. Maybe the corporations are throwing all kinds of chemical crap into them that isn't really "dehydrating" them, but more like preserving them...

 

[daveomak]

Maybe commercial places freeze dry them....  No heat involved...   I have NO idea.....