Mezo`s "super hots" Glog including the 'big' solar dehydrator.

The is thread with the humungous solar dehydrator.

G-Day, im Mez or Mezo & im new to this part of Australia having come from Perth (Western Australia) where growing chili peppers is so easy (except the heat).

I live in the border ranges in northern New South Wales (bordering Queensland) and its a mixed bag of temperate & tropical conditions, the summers are very hot, wet & humid, the winters are dry & sunny.



Average daily temps.

And average monthly rainfall.

Aussies reading this will already know this, but people in other country's probably paint a picture of Australia as a hot dry/dusty land but this is far from the truth, up north its full blown tropics with a wet season & 100% humidity (yuck). Down south its freezing cold & snow during winter, out west its a dry heat like in the Mediterranean & in the middle of Australia is desert country.

So im now growing for the first time "Super hots" and for a very important reason, whilst working away in Perth i had a double heart attack wich has left me permanently disabled, sadly they are unable to operate on me (bypass/stent) as its to far gone, so having worked all my life (Electrician) im now at the age of 45 claiming a disability pension & i hate not being able to work.

Now i take shovel fulls of dam tablets to keep my heart pumping & id rather not be taking any but right now there no option i have to take them or ill drop dead on the spot. After much reading i found out that cayenne powder has all sort of benefits to your health & well being, especially to your cardio vascular system. I had read that cayenne powder can stop a heart attack in its track & i put this to the test (twice) and yes it does work where the medication (Nitrolingual) had no effect.

So anyone reading this who spots a friend having a heart attack just flick some chili powder in a glass of water as fast as you can & get them to drink in right down, fast. It works within 30 seconds of drinking it & it saved me from two more attacks already.

So there's my life story in a nutshell & some sound advice on how to save a heart attack victims life.
And this ladies & gentlymen is why im growing "Super Hots" to make high heat cayenne powder for cooking to improve my circulation/remove fats & as a "just in case of emergency"

OK on with the first of my "Hots" the Bhut Jolokia, the reason i chose this was simple i just Googled "whats the hottest chili" and up popped the result, however further reading on the interweb i found threads from this forum & names like the Butch T, the Douglah & Brain Strain.

So ive ordered them from pepperlover.com after so many people gave such great reviews, Bhut in the meantime lets look at my Jolokia`s.

Must admit i just love the shape & color of these babies.

More soon,

Mezo.

 

[Peakey]

My other non chilli Glog?? im sorry you lost me on that one (its not hard though).

You linked it somewhere earlier it's hosted on your internet providers website? Was pretty good to have a look at anyways. No worries on the slow thing today I'm couch bound due to too many ales last night and I'm really struggling in stringing sentences. And i know the struggling for cash I was on aus study while at uni til the start of this year, was not easy going. Now that I'm finished hopefully I can catch up with the world.

An idea was to have it so it follows the sun automatically (bit like them flashy solar arrays) and another idea i had was automating the opening & closing of the vents using something called a Raspberry Pi, off...

I know some guys that made one of these at uni (studied elec eng) although not sure how some small hobby servo motors would go moving that beast around.

 

[Mezo]

OK the moment ive been waiting for all week, sun dried Bhut Jolokia`s.

Tomorrow ill pop some of them super strong painkillers again & finish the dryer (now its empty) and the test is complete.

Mezo.

 

[Ringside]

They look great! I'm thinking of doing a similar thing on a smaller scale. Has anyone made a smaller dryer that worked well and has plans available? A great way to keep the peppers for the long term.

 

[S.S.Tupperware]

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Cooking/cooking.htm
Glad ya had success. I just need to scrounge up some more cedar, and I will get mine going, not as big so I can move it around easier. Did you use a collector under the glass, or just wood. How many deg over ambient are you gettin...?

 

[Mezo]

http://www.builditso...ing/cooking.htm
Glad ya had success. I just need to scrounge up some more cedar, and I will get mine going, not as big so I can move it around easier. Did you use a collector under the glass, or just wood. How many deg over ambient are you gettin...?

The collection chamber is made of thin steel & was already powder coated black, it was just what i had laying around,

I am getting 20°C (68°F) over the ambient temperature, slightly more on a good day., ive had it up to 49°C (120°F) and it could easily go much higher on a 30+ sunny day. but its been 27 here every day for the last week, besides i think they dry better at a lower temp wouldn't want to go to hot, 120°F from reading is the ideal temp.

And yes Ringside there are plans out there, but i just looked at a couple of pics & knocked it up with what i had available, Look in Google images and scroll down & there hundreds of pictures & plenty plans.

You can in the US buy a flat pack kit if you want but its cheaper to make it yourself, here is another style of dryer & a good read.

Here is the basic principle, air comes in the bottom, warms up in the collector & then rises (convection) through to your peppers in the drying chamber & exhausts out the top.

One of you guys should start a thread in grow tech, "The Solar Dehydrating Thread" be quite interesting to see everyone's contraptions coming together all in one place & it may inspire others to make one.

Just adding a tip here lads, the stuff for putting on the drying racks is called Plastic Canvas (used in embroidery) & the one you want is 7ct (seven count) meaning there are seven holes per inch & it comes in set sheet sizes so find the one that suits your needs & base you dryer on them dimensions, i cocked up on this part as mine is so large they don't make the canvas sheet big enough for my drying racks.

Mezo.

 

[PaulG]

This has been a great course on dryer fabrication, Meez!

 

[Mezo]

Cheers Paul,

Well i got the intake done & fitted the wheels today.

\

Mezo.

 

[Mezo]

OK, later yesterday evening i recovered the rack with flyscreen, again i guess this is a bit of an experiment to see if it works or not? Ideally you need something with bigger holes to allow the air to flow, this is all a can get cheap so ill see how it performs.

Here`s a shot with the chilli`s whole on the rack, you can see how big these racks are compared to the large chair its sitting on.

No chilli`s will be falling through those gaps, or any seeds.

And here they are (batch two) sliced & seeds removed ready to go in the dryer again.

I will take a comparison shot in a week on the same spot so you can see the shrinkage.

Mezo.

 

[Mezo]

Well batch two has been in for just over an hour now, just went & turned the dryer in to the sun & checked the temp.

So that's bang on where i want it to be, 48°C (120°F) on a 26°C (78°F) day with passing clouds, the humidity is reading a lovely 10% when in fact its actually 60% humidity outside, so the question asked what was i getting over & above normal daytime temps with this dryer well its 22°C or 42°F hotter in the box & its knocking a massive 50% humidity off as well.

Ive got the intake vent open just a touch (inch or so) and on a real stinking hot day that & the roof would be wide open.

Not sure how a smaller dryer would perform in comparison to mine? remember ive got a lot of surface area painted black which must be helping the drying action as well im guessing?

Mezo.

 

[S.S.Tupperware]

Lookin good... I am going to stop by the spa shop on the way hone and see if they have any old spas there going to pitch, there usually wrapped with nice cedar...

 

[CoreySteel]

Awesome build!

 

[Mezo]

Back to the growing, Bhuts are still in the dryer & ive not bothered to open it all week to check if there done.

So potted some more seedlings yesterday (running out of pots big time).

And a 'Butch T' coming on nice (naff color is the camera not the plant)

And a couple of Conor`s St Helena Island Yellows.

And Conor`s Piri Piri & Wiri Wiri going nuts.

And Judys 'freebies' most prolific Chancoense (blue cups)

And another of Judy`s 'freebies' below Amish Bush

And still a few hundred more on the potting bench, and not many pots left to put them all in.

These will mostly stay in the pots & go direct in to the garden in spring now.

I will post some more pics soon.

Mezo.

 

[Trippa]

Those are going to be well ready to be put in the ground by spring bro. Everything is looking very healthy nice work.
what brand of potting mix is that?? Looks nice and barky.

 

[PaulG]

Another great update, Meez. That dryer is money.
You certainly have a boat load of plants goin'!

 

[Mezo]

Cheers Paul, and yeah Trippa its Amgrow potting mix, Norco have a special on buy four & get two free.

So $33.00 gets you six 35ltr bags or a total of 210 litres ($5.50 per bag) and its good shit man

Anyhow, firecrackers on Jiffys.

Ermm, more firecrackers.

Conor`s Black Prince tomatoes below.

My Avo`s are going off as well, have a forest of them soon.

Binny & Tess (the pup) getting on so well together.

And Binny doing a Toyota advert impression (Aussies will get the joke)

Mezo.

 

[Mezo]

Not much to report this weekend, my dryer worked very well though as we had a lot more sunshine on batch two than the first week i tried this contraption out, they dried out fully 'crispy' in five days and the temp in the box was hovering around 50°C (122°F) most of the week.

This is a before & after shot so you can see the shrinkage.

So i added that lot to my bag from last week,

And i also cleaned out my two giant tomato planters in to the wheelbarrow, sorted through picking out grubs/weeds & old roots then rejuvenated it with some fresh mix & added so tomato booster in the mix.

Now these are Conor`s Black Prince tomatoes seeds he sent me (cheers buddy) and he sent me a picture of his plant which towered 11ft high & produced around a hundred tomatoes.

All but two seeds germinated & ive planted all them in to these two giant pots, we will almost certainly looses a few to greedy chickens or Tom the peacock but fingers crossed most will make it to full size.

Im going to set up some ropes fixed off the high side of the old barn & train this lot up, its the only way i can think of supporting the weight of these big tomatoes, it can get real windy down in the valley here & bamboo`s would simply snap or fall over.

More soon,

Mezo.

 

[nee]

Hi Mezo!
Great to see that the flyscreen appears to be working! Bonus
Also, i'm going to pick up some of that Amgro mix you're using....as i'm sure a lot of my plant woes are down to the stuff i'm using. Can't think of the name of it now, but it seems to want to compact more than i'd like it to. Oh, and my little hydrometer thing came today from Ebay....it's a score for $4 ain't it? Well nifty!

 

[Mezo]

I also had good results with Organix potting mix Nee, but its out of my price range now, yep that little temp sensor is very handy for checking inside things like my new redneck heatmat/propagator, did i tell you about it?

My Bhuts i put out the day after you did have barley sprouted on Jiffy`s (two so far) and the reason is i cannot keep them warm enough overnight (no electrickery) and the nighttime temps are forecast to drop even lower this week so i had to think up something to keep them germinating (overnight heat) and my mate Danny said, "why don't you use the heat from the gas fridge"

Of course, dumb idiot i am why didn't i think of that before??

So yesterday i cobbled up this tin ermm? heat catcher with custom wooden legs (no expense spared here guys) hardwood even.

On top is a kitty litter tray with my Bhut`s in the Jiffy`s & covered with some leftover perspex from the dryer window.

And no your not drunk, the barn really does lean over at that angle.

Fingers crossed this will work as well as my dryer does, and the cost to run it? squat. After all the heat was just being wasted going up in the air in "The Leaning Barn of Pisa" just hope it doesn't go over while im in there taking a shower, if i hears a creaking noise im running out of that butt naked & i don't care who see my little willy.

Mezo.

 

[nee]

Maaaaaan, that barn looks well maverick!!!!

Great idea with the heat mat!!! Genius as always

 

[Mezo]

Maaaaaan, that barn looks well maverick!!!!

Great idea with the heat mat!!! Genius as always

There are no props or nothing holding on the other side either, we should get around to doing that someday, Danny wants to tie it to the tractor & straighten it up, i think it will fall to bits trying, plus its got character.

The idea was Danny boy`s, i could not think for the life what stayed hot all night, even though i use the fridge every day the penny never dropped, its not cooking them either just nice & warm.

Mezo.