Making Power

Z

zappa883

Just curious how fellow addicts make their power at the end of the season. (Canada has severe seasons) Was think of trying out an inexpensive dehydrater as that appears to be the norm here instead of needle and thread to hang them as mommy does. Once dried toss them in a hand held Braun type of coffee bean grinder. Sounds like a plan but are there alternatives ?
 
Thinner walled peppers like cayennes dry quickly on a screen or strung up but generally you need a dehydrator for chiles in this climate.
A nesco dehydrator is probably the easiest to find and is a good bang for the buck, and then just get a cheapo coffee grinder. You can also use your oven on low but I don't really recommend it
 
here's a thread with some good pictures, options, and discussion of brands, etc.

one idea that they posted was to put the blade assembly from the blender onto a glass jar and use that on the blender base. There's pictured of that in the post.

http://www.thehotpepper.com/topic/15858-making-pepper-powder/
 
This winter I just sliced up my peppers and put them in trays and set them on the furnace register, this dried within in 3 days, I moved the sliced peppers around a couple of times during the days to prevent any molding. Put them into a bean grinder, ground them up and put the powder into small containers in the fridge.

I am too cheap to purchase a food dehydrator but have done the research and am going to purchase the Open Country 500 brand. $89 with jerky kit.

I did the comparison between the less than $100 dehydrators and found Open Country 500 had the most for the dollar value. It has temperature control unlike the $50 versions that just have the heater and fan, this way I can dehydrate foods as well at their specific drying temperatures. It has 4 trays but more important in comes with the spice/herb trays and fruit trays. Plus it comes with a jerky kit(if that is important).

The comparison I made was between Nesco 700 watt version and the Open Country 500 watt. Both are excellent brands and you wouldn't make a mistake by choosing one over the other, I just started adding up what came in a kit and to get the same items that the Open Country kit offers, I had to keep adding to the cost. Stay away from the cheap Salton brand, it has really bad reviews.

I found both Nesco and Open Country at Bass Pro Shops, Salton at Canadian Tire. If you have heavy volumes to process you look at the $200 plus units like Excalibur.
 
I use a regular food/jerky dehydrator, and a coffee grinder. Along with a 3m mask and gloves of course. I have also made more coarse type powders with a mortar and pestle I got in Guatemala (Smuggled is more like it. I had a fight with customs cause its volcanic rock.) And I have a marble mortar and pestle for fine powders. Much more time consuming, but has the slightest hint of more richness to me.
 
yep, that's a good price. I am not an ebay/amazon kind of guy and prefer to purchase from a local retailer where I can take the product back should it fail, plus I support local retailers that employ people and perform local community services but if you don't have that stigmatism, then that's the one to buy.
 
Well, I went ahead and ordered from Amazon. My other "local" choice would have been the Walmart. I don't really like dealing with Walmart, even when I go take care of the monthly household purchases.

I can't wait for it to get here next Tuesday. I have several bags of peppers in the freezer that need to be processed.
 
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