Any safety issues w/ using the gas oven as a dehydrator: low temp and
door not fully closed to vent moisture? Thinking of carbon monoxide formation or over temp issues or anything else.
Any issues w/ the range top burners? I don't recall reading anything in
the owner's manual but that was some months ago. Seems like the issue
w/ the range top would be less of an issue because cooking is usually shorter times but the dehydration in the oven would be like an all day (12 hr) thing.
You'll be putting CO into your house, but it's hard to know if it will be a problem. Gas stoves aren't vented to the outside, so all combustion that occurs results in CO being added to your room air. OTOH, all the older stoves had pilot lights that burned continuously (oven's warmth/lower relative humidity from the pilot light was often sufficient to dry foods, etc). And, obviously, the stove is safe for cooking, and you could conceivable have all four burners going plus your oven, which would add much more CO (in a shorter time) than your little dessication project. But, stoves are not to be used to heat a house, for instance, because the CO buildup would be a problem if you keep the oven going for hours.
Here's the problem: It's hard to know how much your oven burner will actually be running. Sure, you only set the thermostat to 120, but the burner is either on or it s off. If the door is open, then conceivably the temp would never get to 120 (until your whole house were that hot) and the oven burner would stay on continuously. That doesn't sound safe.
How much the CO builds up will depend on the air exchange in your house and how much you add..
The best thing to do is to get a good CO alarm (one with a digital readout of CO) and plug it in. You should have one anyway if you have gas appliances. And, don't do this food drying when you are asleep. If you feel like you
want to go to sleep, that could indicate another problem.
Or, go
buy a bag of dried goodies for 5 bucks.