Just Rec'd my dehydrator!

[70chevelle]

Pleasant Hill Grains got my L'equip 528 here in a couple days, which was nice. The funny thing is that when I looked the box over, I noticed that L'equip is located a couple hours from where I live. Anyway, I have a garden full of jalapenos that I plan on making into chipotles. I may fire up the Big Green Egg to smoke them tonite and then dehydrate tomorrow. I need to check out some recipes/times as the owners manual doesn't even give a range? Looks like a nice piece of equipment and I'm looking forward to using it. A few thoughts are to dry my wifes homemade pasta, jerky, herbs from my garden, and (sun)dried tomatoes. I'll post back my results.

[Chef Munky]

Congratulations, that's a very nice unit :)

Most of the booklets that come with the dehydrators are just estimates.
I've learned if the humidity is high add 30 minutes to the drying time. But ususlly keep it at the manufactures recommended temp.

This summer I finally had all the front yard borders and walkways filled with wild flowers that I started from seed in February. Some of the flowers are not lets say " California Born" Hard to find, rare. When the flowers were spent I dried them for the seeds for next year. The same went for saving some veggie and herb seeds.

I've also used my Ex to dry freshly made soaps. Cut down the dry/ cure time in half or more.

Amazon sells dehydrating books. Mary Bell has 2, I believe now. Another one I use often is "How to dehydrate foods." You might like them. It's nice knowing how to make your own spice blends.

Hope you enjoy your dehydrator for many years to come. Do let us know your results good and bad.

Munky.

[70chevelle]

OK - I only did a small batch of jalapeno, around 2 dozen. I cut off the tops/stems so they were open to help dry faster. I smoked them on my Big Green Egg for 2 hours over some hickory prior to putting them in the dehydrator. About 6 of the smaller ones have finished, anywhere from 12-36 hours. I'm hoping that all of them are done in 48. Does this sound right? I think the manual says 8-10 hours. I had the temp set at what I would call 140*. They did turn out good, nice and smokey. I'll turn some of them into chili powder and the others I'll store whole.

[Chef Munky]

Jalapeno's do take time. Must be that tough skin. Actually peppers have a lot of water content to them. Long drying times is to be expected.
The larger they are the more time it will take.

Poking a few holes into the whole Jalapeno's helps with the drying. If you don't want to slice them.

I didn't get all fancy with them like you have. I just cut the peppers into slices with a mandolin and loaded up the trays. Left it on low all night. They were done by the morning.

Munky.