OK....so I just spun up a couple of the 2" reels that I baked on Saturday....I wanted to give them a good 48 hours to settle back down after the baking before trying them out.
These were reels that had serious stickiness to them and I couldn't FF/RW from end to end without stopping several times to clean the sticky gunk off the guides. They would squeal and even come to stop when getting close to the ends of the tape.
I baked them for about 6-7 hours, flipping them each every hour or so, and also changing their position top/bottom in the dehydrator, since I was baking two reels at a time. I did a couple of reels that had very, very mild stickiness for only about 4 hours.....with the 2" tape I think 4 to 8 hours, depending on
original SSS condition...and that's what was recommended on Eddie Ciletti's website. With narrower tape, you can go less time. Also, you should use metal, 10.5" reels when baking. The plastic 7" reels won't fit and the baking would probably deform the plastic reels even if they could.
I have to say....the baking/drying worked like a charm.
On first wind, you could hear little tape noises coming from the reel, which is mostly due to the tape having "set" itself on the metal reel during baking....but otherwise it wound without ANY stickiness, and when I checked the tape guides.....nothing.
I RW & FF twice (4 passes).
The only noticeable thing was that on the first wind there was some mild shed....but this was mostly the tape cleaning itself post-baking. I see this type if shed even with my good 499 reels...it's really nothing worrisome.
Much less on the 2nd wind, and by the 3rd wind it was gone, and on the final wind I did a library wind to spool the tape up neatly.
I didn't spin up the other reels I baked....just no time tonight, but I will in the next couple of days, though I don't expect the results to be any different.
On each case of the baked tapes I wrote the month/year....and now I will see how long they hold like this. I do store all my reels in the most climate steady room of my house, cool and dry, so I think that will help keep them free of SSS for a good time......maybe permanently or maybe not, we'll see.
Anyway...baking works, so no doubts about that, and this Snackmaster FD-50 was a great choice for it....it didn't disappoint.
Now I can use it to make some beef jerky.