11 hours in the dehydrator and habs are ready means you are living in the Mojave Desert with very low humidity and/or your dehydrator is way too hot. Or you cut in thin strips and have a high airflow unit.

Pack your dried pods in a glass jar and seal. Put upside down and look for condensation on the top inside jar after a day or so. If any condensation then not dried enough to be safe and should be further dehydrated or frozen for storage.

What kind of dehydrator do you have? Is the temp adjustable?

It usually takes me 3 days or more with my dehydrator set at 125° to get habs crisp enough to powder in my grinder.

I got a Nesco Snackmaster from Target. The link below has all the info. I cut the habs in half and gutted the middle. Now that I reread the instructions on the unit, drying hot peppers should take 3-20 hours at 135F. Yesterday I misread and saw the item above which is for regular peppers which is 5-12 hours. Certainly not 3 days nor does it mention anything about adjustments based upon location. The temperature is adjustable and goes from 95-155F. The dehydrator has a fan that blows down on a bunch of trays so maybe that's what makes it work faster.

I just want to make sure I'm doing this right because I'm paranoid about storing hot peppers. The problem with ranges in the instructions means that it's up to me to determine whether or not something has dried out enough.

I put the ones I bottled that were crispy upside down and so far no condensation -- they seem dry. That was a good suggestion you had. The very few not so crispy ones that I didn't bottle are still in the dehydrator. I think those will take 20 hours.

Right now I'm dehydrating a batch of tomatoes too and I have a whole 5 gallon bucket of eggplants ready to go after that and then more and more batches of habs. I think this dehydrator will be running non-stop between now and mid-October.

Here is a link that might be useful: Nesco Snackmaster

I used to use a dehydrator for everything. One evening I decided to start a new batch of something or other and plugged it in and went into the living room. I looked back and saw a hugh white plume of smoke coming out of it and it started MELTING into the cabinet. This happened in a matter of seconds. Since then I use the oven. Its good enough for me. I still think of what could have happened had I been at work or asleep.

with the monsoons we have had in chicagoland lately, its taken several days for my habs to dry. poking a hole in them helps. i use a nesco gardenmaster, and its been going non-stop for the last week to ten.

the bhut jolokia dry right away, strangely enough. they're a much thinner flesh than say a red savina or chocolate hab, however.

been drying aji rojo, aji colorado, lemon drop, thai hot ornamental (the tiny one), chimayo, guajillo, and various nu-mex varieties. along with the aforementioned habs.

I've burn out 4 Nesco American Harvestors since year 2000. Good luck with yours! They work great for several hundred hours and then suddenly overheat. Mine run for abt 35 days of the year or maybe a little more. Now running an Excalibur.

125-130° for pods gives great color and minimal capsaicin heat loss. I think most dehydrating books will say 125°F is the temp to dry fruit such as peppers.

Shelbyguy,

How is the heat of your Bhuts? The few of mine that are ripe so far have convinced me that they must be fully rather dark red ripe or are not all that hot.

River,

I've had a dehydrator get so hot as to warp the shelves. Who knows what would have happened if I had not noticed it in time? I suggest that anyone running a dehydrator do as I do and insert a thermometer probe into it and monitor faithfully.

jt

I don't know JT. I had one today maybe 75% ripe and I thought my tongue was going to melt. I love very hot stuff, but this wasn't a very pleasant experience!

Chris

I also have a Nesco American Harvest and man do thoes things get hot. From the stories above I will really have to watch mine and only run it while I am awake. I have not tried to dry any habs, but I have dried some Long Thin Cheyennes. This is my first year growing peppers and I don't know how thick habs are, but I know the cheyennes dry very fast based upon them being thin. I place my dehydrator at the highest temp. which I believe in 135 and it only takes the cheyennes around 4 hr and thats in humid Cincinnati. The peppers seem fine to crush up into a powder, but now I am worring if 4hr. is long enough.

I have also made 3 batches of beef jerky. I highly recommend making some, it has taken my brother and I 3 batches to get the right recipe, but now its awesome!!!

As the resident canner around here, needed to put in my two cents :-)
If you're worried about botulism when canning-you can pickle your peppers. the high acidity of the vinegar along with the salt make it pretty much impossible for bacteria to grow and there are some recipes that are wonderful.
As with any canning, make sure everything you use (jars, utensils,etc) are sterilized in boiling water and give the peppers a really good cleaning. If you pierce the peppers several times with a sterlized, large gauged sewing needle, it will allow the pickling liquid to penetrate and prevent them from floating in the jars. I've got a drawer with 250 blue ribbons from canning competitions-if you need a recipe, i'll be happy to pass one along.

Springrollz,

You've got an interested party down here! I'm always interested in canning recipes.

Please post one of your blue ribbon specials for jalapenos.

Thanks in advance,

bob

Thanks for all the info. I come here worrying about botulism and find out I have a bigger worry with the food dehydrator burning down my house while asleep. I think from now on I'm running that dehydrator outside. It does get warmer than I thought but I have it in an area that is well ventilated.

Springrollz, if you have a simple recipe for pickling habs I'd appreciate it. I also plan on doing some pickling as well as freezing. I like to diversify.

I wouldn't worry about botulism in your peppers. Proper canning methods, whether you pickle and use a BWB or use water and a pressure canner will practically eliminate your worries. The risk is miniscule at that point.
As far as dehydrating, we use an Exaclibur also and it can take days at 115-120 to dehydrate any chile pepper. We cut them in half before dehydrating, but the slower you go with a lower temp the better color retention you will have, plus you lose less capsaicin to the heat.

We pickle peppers in all white or cider vinegar to make into sauce later, or if we want to eat them as pepperoccinni (sort of) we use red wine vinegar, cider vinegar, or white wine vinegar and some herbs and add some pickle crisp to keep crunchy (once you BWB you lose crunch).
We don't add salt, it is irrelevant in the quantities used in todays approved canning recipes. It is for flavour only.

kendra

Now that I have several bottles of dried habeneros, today I tried one just to see what it tastes like. I crushed two dried halves and put them in a canned lasagna which I microwaved. The peppers weren't hot. Is there something that needs to be done to these to rehydrate them so that the heat comes back?

I'm getting worried because I have many bottles filled with dried habs and I hope they're not all ruined.

It all depends mea2214 i had some peppers that were hot and than the ones next to it were very mild. Some people will claim your either watering it too much, giving it too much food, or too little sunlight

I am surprised no one mentions drying in the good old outdoor sunshine. Has anyone tried outdoor sunshine

I've tried drying in the sun and all I got was moldy pods. Sun drying is fine if you live in an area that is low humidity.

mea2214,

Were the peppers hot before you dried them? Reconstituting them will not make the dried pods any hotter.

jt

Anyone tried to dry them in their car windows?

It's too humid and not hot enough to dry outside in the sunshine here in Zone 5 Chicago. That's why I bought a food dehydrator.

john, I've had very little variation in the heat of my habs when fresh. They're all pretty damn hot. I do cut a few up to try them on hot dogs or microwaved foods and the heat is unbearable to me. Never once did I ever get one that wasn't incredibly hot on the way in and on the way out.

There must be something special required to cook the dried peppers. When I cut a dried 1/2 pod up and put in on a hot dog I didn't even taste them. If they were not dried the heat would be overwhelming. Since I wrote that last post I took a small bite of a small dried pod and although my mouth didn't burn, some kind of intense chemical reactions were going on in my stomach. I'm glad I didn't put the entire 1/2 dried pod in my mouth.

Therefore, I think the heat is still in the peppers and that they may need to be cooked for awhile in order to hydrate them and extract the heat. I'm not sure since I'm not good at cooking. Over the winter I make a lot of hot chili and hope to use these dry pods. In the past I used frozen pods by cutting them up and throwing them into the mix. I'm a little unsure as to how to use the dry pods. Do I just throw the halves in and let the Capsaicin dissolve into the rest of the chili over the 8 hours it stews in the crock pot? Or do I have to chop them or grind them or what?

I was a little worried that all this work I've been doing drying them was for nothing but I think those crispy shriveled pieces do have heat but how to re-extract that heat may be a challenge for a cooking challenged person like me.

weird. when i dry mine, they get hotter.