Drying Rack

"Yum, meaty leather!"

- Wolfgang

The Drying Rack is a structure which allows the player to dry meats into Jerky, increasing health value and prolonging the rate of spoilage. It requires 3 Twigs, 2 Charcoal, and 3 Ropes to craft a Drying Rack, and a Science Machine to prototype it. Meat, Monster Meat, Morsel, Frog Legs, Fish, Drumstick and Batilisk Wing can all be dryed.

Jerky
Only uncooked meats can be dried into Jerky. Jerky, Small Jerky, and Monster Jerky can all be created using a Drying Rack, each of which spoils much more slowly than either their fresh or cooked counterparts. Dried foods also provide a greater health bonus when eaten. For example a Small Jerky provides 8 Health, while a Cooked Morsel provides only 1 health; large Jerky provides 20 health, while Cooked Meat provides only 3 health. Monster Jerky still drains health and sanity, but to a lesser degree.

Unlike cooking meat, the jerky created will always be completely fresh, instead of having half less spoilage than the meat used. This means a spoiled morsel can be dried to get a completely fresh piece of jerky. Meat left on the racks does not spoil until collected.

Note that while meat always becomes jerky, and monster meat always becomes monster jerky, small jerky may be made by drying any of the following: Morsel, Frog Legs and Drumstick take only one day to dry, whereas Batilisk Wing, Monster Meat and Meat take two days. It is unknown why Batilisk Wing takes two days to dry even though it becomes a small meat - there appears to be no logical reason to this other than the developers wanted to confuse the player.
 * Morsel
 * Frog Legs
 * Drumstick
 * Batilisk Wing
 * Fish

Tips

 * Drying Racks are very useful for storing meats. Jerky and Small Jerky take 20 days to completely spoil, while Meat and Morsel will spoil in 6 days, and cooked Meat/Morsel will spoil in 10 days. Storing any kind of jerky in  the Ice Box will give 40 days before they spoil, allowing the player to focus on concerns other than gathering fresh food.
 * It is a good idea to try and build at least one drying rack fairly early on (ie. before the first winter). This then allows you to store meat on the drying rack ready for the winter, and will easily last throughout winter once picked, allowing you to have an emercency food source should you fail to find any one day. Additionally, the jerky versions provide improved stats over regular and cooked meats (in particular, sanity).
 * Drying a Fish, Frog Legs, or Drumstick will turn them into Small Jerky, which prevents it from being used as a specific ingredient for certain Crock Pot meals, such as Fish Sticks (which need fish) or Froggle Bunwich (which need frog legs).

Bugs
Sometimes whenever you try to place the rack, it disapears but ressources are still consumed