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drying Dehydration and seed viability

N

nicksbonsai

Other than my introductory post, this is my second post here. I did some searching but wasn't able to find an answer to this question, apologies if it in fact was covered previously.
 
My method for preserving peppers has been to dry them in my dehydrator (air drying led to poor results here in FL) and either keep them in bags or powder them using a coffee grinder. I'd like to find out of dehydration, and more specifically temperatures achieved while dehydrating, affect seed viability. I plan on keeping/sharing seeds and it'd be nice to collect seeds after drying rather than before. 
 
Thanks in advance for your help.
 
nicksbonsai said:
 
Is there an average/typical length of time you use?
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That was just a test, if I had a choice and wanted seeds to have the best chance, I'd set my dehydrator to the lowest at 95 and allow enough time for everything to become 100% dry. This could take up to a week. I am sure seed sellers will tell you there are much better ways :) I simply wanted to test at 115 if seeds were still good and I hit 100% on 5 of 5. I saved a few hundred from the batch and plan to test every few months. 
 
JoynersHotPeppers said:
That was just a test, if I had a choice and wanted seeds to have the best chance, I'd set my dehydrator to the lowest at 95 and allow enough time for everything to become 100% dry. This could take up to a week. I am sure seed sellers will tell you there are much better ways :) I simply wanted to test at 115 if seeds were still good and I hit 100% on 5 of 5. I saved a few hundred from the batch and plan to test every few months. 
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I have a dozen chocolate trinidads in the dehydrator as we speak at 115*. I plan to keep a few dozen seeds from the batch. I'll let you know how it turns out next spring.  :?:
 
Looks like you kinda beat me to the punch, sir. I was also going to ask about dehydrating peppers and seed viability. I was mainly asking since there's more than a few sites out there which say the recommended temp to dehydrate peppers is in the range of 125-135. Still, I'll try 115 with my Nesco when I have more pods, and see how they turn out...
 
My mom recently gave me a bag of dried japones chilis. No idea how they were dried or how old they were. I saved a bunch of seeds from them and planted a half dozen or so as a test. 4 of them sprouted after two weeks. I pulled the rest and left one to grow as a head start for next year. I would recommend doing your own test. You just never know. I also have a bag of dried guajillos I may do the same with.
 
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