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New Dehydrator Question

AjarnV

AjarnV

This is the dehydrator I bought; it's made in Germany;

1stBatchDrying.jpg


It's got 3 heat settings; #1 is approximately +20c above ambient temperature (250watts); #2 is approximately +40c above ambient temperature (500watts); and #3 is approximately +60c above ambient temperature (700watts).
I've been drying the Habs in the picture (#1 heat) for 48 hrs. and they're not yet dehydrated. After 24 hrs. I had cut slits in one side of all of them. That's helping, but not much. I'm trying to retain the color of the pods but this is just too long for drying.
Do I need to up the temperature? Here the #1 heat is about 50c (120f); #2 would be about 70c and #3 would be about 90c. Our daytime temperatures are now about 28-29c.
I have used my convection oven before and it worked fine but the lowest temp is 100c and the pods lost all natural orange color and they lost the Hab flavor.
 
I dont know celcius , But I dry mine at 95F,, If you want whole dried pods then run a knife thru them so they can dry.. they will still look whole.If you go at a higher temp it will darken the color and the seed prolly wont be viable. and dont worry about how long it takes. some of mine go several days, you cant overdry em but you can overheat em. just my 2 cents! :)
 
wayright said:
I dont know celcius , But I dry mine at 95F,, If you want whole dried pods then run a knife thru them so they can dry.. they will still look whole.If you go at a higher temp it will darken the color and the seed prolly wont be viable. and dont worry about how long it takes. some of mine go several days, you cant overdry em but you can overheat em. just my 2 cents! :)
Click to expand...

Interesting; and I agree, they can be over heated. I did finally slit them, but that was after 24 hrs. It's now been about 48 hours. Cheers.
 
I have had 2 dehydrators with 10 trays each, going nonstop since prolly July. I am constantly pulling, adding, rearranging..
So it wouldnt surprise me if I had peppers going for over a week!
 
I'm curious as to why you want them to be whole pods. Some decorative thing?

As others have said, to dry the chiles for grinding or preserving, cut in half or at least cut a slit to allow air flow. Whole pods will take FOREVER to dry at a low temp. But they will eventually get there if that is what you are looking for.

Re-read original post-
if color is your goal, my humble opinion is to cut the pods in half and dry at the lowest setting. I've been drying lots of different chiles and the best temp seems to be 105-110F, a little lower than your lowest setting. Check them every 6-8 hours and remove when they are dry

I had some in at 100F and they were taking a LOOONG time to dry. Upped the temp to 120F and they got baked and dark in a day. 105F-110F seemed to be the good zone for here.

Ambient humidity will play a big part in your drying process also.
 
salsalady said:
I'm curious as to why you want them to be whole pods. Some decorative thing?

As others have said, to dry the chiles for grinding or preserving, cut in half or at least cut a slit to allow air flow. Whole pods will take FOREVER to dry at a low temp. But they will eventually get there if that is what you are looking for.

Re-read original post-
if color is your goal, my humble opinion is to cut the pods in half and dry at the lowest setting. I've been drying lots of different chiles and the best temp seems to be 105-110F, a little lower than your lowest setting. Check them every 6-8 hours and remove when they are dry

I had some in at 100F and they were taking a LOOONG time to dry. Upped the temp to 120F and they got baked and dark in a day. 105F-110F seemed to be the good zone for here.

Ambient humidity will play a big part in your drying process also.
Click to expand...

Argh! Humidity, of course. Thanks SL, humidity we've got in spades and I didn't factor that in to drying. After I slit them there was a marked improvement. There's just something sexy about whole dried pods and I'd expect the market would like them as well. Cheers.
 
humidity is our problem out here. next to impossible to get rid of since we live in a tropical area. i have a chef friend that's been trying to dry age meat here and make dried sausages and all his efforts go to waste. he uses an industrial size dehumidifier to dry out a small closet space and still he can't get it right. the dehumidifier just can't cut it he says.
 
Well, I'm doing my second batch of pods now. I de-stemmed them and cut them in half and after 12 hrs. they're further ahead than the whole pods were in 2 days. So halves it is. Cheers.
 
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