With a glut of poblano peppers about to be harvested, I wanted a dehydrator to dry them into ancho chiles. Prices range from £30 for a flimsy piece of junk to hundreds of pounds for ones with stainless steel racks. Then I had a thought: I have a cold smoker cabinet with steel racks, all I needed to add was a clip fan and a heat source (empty slow cooker) that I had lying around. Ten minutes of work and I have it running at a perfect 100F with two racks of banana chips on the go as a test run. If all goes well I'll have a jar of anchos within a week!
Diy food dehydrator by Rob, on Flickr