Too Many Apples

Maybe someday I will write a children's book with that title.  I could see that happening.

I already have 10 jars of applesauce, four jars of apple butter, and three pies worth of pie-filling in the freezer.  Yet I still have what I think is a quarter-bushel of apples to use in some way.  So I bought a food dehydrator.  Yes, I know you can make one fairly easily and cheaply, even one that uses solar energy.  I did not do this.  Instead, I spent $35 at FleetFarm for a very basic model.

Then I borrowed sab023's hand crank apple corer/slicer to make nice uniform slices.

Then I layered the slices into the dehydrator.  This is only the bottom of five layers:

After filling the entire dehydrator, I still had about three-quarters of the original quarter-bushel left.  Guess I'll be running the dehydrator again tomorrow.  For now, I'm letting it go overnight.  I'll post again in the morning, and let you know how it worked out.

EDIT (10/11/11): Here's how they look this morning:

That's after about 10.5 hours in the dehydrator.  Next time, I'll probably try for more like 8 hours; these came out more like apple chips.  While they are delicious, I'd like to have the more leathery dried apples as well.