• If you have a question about commercial production or the hot sauce business, please post in The Food Biz.

Used to freeze pods for sauce now dehydrate!

Torch

Torch

Hey chilli heads,

I grow several peppers. I have several species that are starting to ripen. I used to freeze them until I had enough of a particular species to make a batch of sauce with...Due to power outages last year I loss several several pounds of peppers. So I'm done freezing and will be dehydrating here on out....

All my sauce recipes that I made use 8oz-10oz of peppers ( pods not dehydrated).

My question:
If I want to keep my new batches consistent with the 8oz-10oz pepper weight from the past, should I weigh out 8-10 oz' of the peppers, then dehydrate them... That way when I'm ready for sauce day I'll know that was the same amount of pepper heat?

Obviously 8oz of pods would turn into barely nothing on the scale once dehydrated.

Thanks in advance!

Carlo
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Unless you are going for texture after rehydrating, flake or powder them.
The smaller the particle, the more accurate the measure for consistant results.
A little math comparing wet weight to teaspoons of dry weight to figure out your ratio.
 
Conversly, if you only put a certain desired weight---say 8 ounces--per drying tray, and package each tray seperately, you will automatically know just how much each package contains in wet weight.
 
Works best for recipies where you want to have visible pieces of ingredients.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Gotrox said:
Unless you are going for texture after rehydrating, flake or powder them.
The smaller the particle, the more accurate the measure for consistant results.
Click to expand...
 
I disagree. powders are terrible for sauces. makes them gritty. Flakes may be okay, and certainly dehydrated whole peppers work fine but avoid the powder.
 
PrimeTime said:
Im confused. Wouldn't you just rehydrate them fully then follow your weights in your recipes?
Click to expand...
 
That seems like i would work.
 
I think the general consensus is 1lb of pods=1 ounce of dried. You could try that too.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Good responses! I wasn't going to crush them into flakes or powder... Just de-stem and dehydrate.... Then throw them into my sauce as I would if they were just picked from the garden.... I'll weight out the 8oz-10oz when fresh... Then dehydrate and put in little baggies... Ready to go per batch! This way no worries if the power goes out or if I run out of room in the freezer!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
 
I disagree. powders are terrible for sauces. makes them gritty.
Click to expand...
Depends.
If you let them sit a while, they rehydrate just like whole or part peppers do.
Add the powder to your wet ingredients and let sit overnight.
 
 
Im confused. Wouldn't you just rehydrate them fully then follow your weights in your recipes?
Click to expand...
 
No.
You rehydrate in your recipe.
Rehydrated peppers are slimey, gnarley pieces of work, and then there is the water you used to rehydrate them.
Lots of good stuff in the water.
 
Just MHO, you understand.
There are a million ways and everyone has a favorite.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I guess Im misunderstanding because in my opinion if the OP used 10 oz of frozen pods in the past for a recipe the water in the frozen pepper was included in that 10 oz.
 
If you follow the same recipe and add 10 oz of dried peppers you will end up with a completely different product.
 
Im I off track?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
PrimeTime it looks like a placement error, like this
 
10 oz dried pods versus 10 oz Pods Dried
 
They're not the same. Using the 1lb fresh = 1oz dried your talking about using the equivalent of 10 pounds of pods in a recipe that called for 10 ounces of pods.
 
He would need to use 10 oz or pods dried to make his sauce the same and weighting out re-hydrated pods would not necessarily be the same as those dried pods could soak up more water than they originally had.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
aha. Weigh 10 oz fresh pods then dry and use those exact pods... Got it.
 
I was also gonna say that a rehydrated pod probably won't weigh exactly what it did when fresh...
 
My bad folks, carry on, thanks RM
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I have a 21 cufu, 15 cufu, 9 cufu, 5 cufu and the freezer above my fridge and space is still an issue :)  
 
Its like building a new shed to have plenty of room for all your junk...you just get more junk :)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top