Who's drying (dehydrating) food?

[JAB]

My dehydrator is just a small unit and I have mostly used it for chili peppers.  I have done fresh peppers but my favorite, when I have a good crop, is to smoke them first (which starts the dehydrating process) then dry them in the dehydrator.

 

I have dried apples by laying them out in the sun in a single layer on an old screen door laid across a couple of saw horses.  We covered them with some tobacco cloth a friend of mine had but any thin, breathable fabric would work.  Heck, my great-grandmother used to dry apples by spreading dish towels in back window of her car then spreading the peeled, cored and cut apples out on them.  She'd leave her windows down just a little and the apples would dry pretty quickly.  The side effect was that her car smelled like dried apples pretty much year round, even when she didn't have any drying.

 

I recently got a used food vacuum sealer at an estate sale but am not sure I have really figured it out, yet.  I'd like to dry a pretty good batch of the kind of vegetables I'd want in a soup/stew and then vacuum seal them already mixed together, maybe even with a sealed packet of chicken or beef bullion sealed in with them.  I haven't gotten that far, yet though. 

 

Out of curiosity, for you guys who make jerky, how long will it usually keep?  I have made home-made jerky, before, but it was mostly just because I like jerky so it didn't stay around very long before I ate it.  If drying it for storage - say, maybe, to mix with a pack of the aforementioned dehydrated vegetables to create a stew - how long would beef jerky keep, do you think?

Edited January 8, 2013 by JAB