I have never dealt with those quantities before but others here have recommended using a blender for grinding a larger amount than is practical with a little spice grinder. With some (most??) you can even replace the pitcher with a mason jar (same threads to screw on the pitcher or jar). That should save some time.

Since you are using commercial dryers, i'm assuming the chiles are pretty 'crispy' when they are done drying. It has to happen right when they come out.. but what if you just throw them in a really big bag, and crush by hand. You won't get a fine powder, but it doesn't take much work after the chopping/drying.
hope this helps, -E

Jalapenos are too thick fleshed to dry well. Smoking is a good way to preserve them. Cayennes and ghost peppers and any others with thin skin will dry better and grind to a powder with less energy output.

Hire Gallagher?

Is your goal to market and sell powdered pepper mixes? That will require commercial-grade equipment.

I dried and ground some Jalepenos. The end result was slightly oily and caked a little, so I used that powder within a few months. The thin-skinned peppers as mentioned above I also ground and still have bottles in the freezer dated from the late 1990's. They do not cake at all, and I tap into them every few months for my own mixtures.

Just a thought, you might use something like a Vita Mix. They have 2 containers for grinding, and one of those is for dry items, like grain to make flour. Bigger than a spice grinder, and still cheaper than a commercial machine. I have made up to 2 cups of powder at once in them, but your product has got to be real dry. Be real careful if you do Hab's or super-hots, as I have driven my wife and I out of the kitchen a few times when opening the lid.

Yes, you almost have to take the operation out of the house. I have to wear a t-shirt over my mouth & nose just to use my tiny Krups grinder.

My advice is to dry the heck out of them, till there is no doubt they are all brittle. Keep the dried pieces as large as you can in a jar or freezer bag and store them in a a dark place. Grind them for a month's worth of powder at a time. This keeps the flavor of the pepper much longer than grinding everything at once.

Here is a link that might be useful: Peppermeister's 2012 Chile Seed Giveaway!

as for grinding outside and opening the lid to the grinder.....if you set up a fan with a low setting and blowing away from you, this can help....just don't blow the whole mix away, or you will be sad
Bob

This post was edited by t-bob on Fri, Nov 30, 12 at 12:18

I make powder too. I made quite a bit from only 3 large cayenne plants. I would like to try jalapeno as well. You would need a longer while on the jalapeno. The cayenne I slice up and set them on wood in the sun. A few days they are dry. Then I use a coffee grinder to turn them to powder. I do plan to only make powder next year as that is what i used most. I will only use the coffee grinder and MAYBE get like a 20 dollar dehydrator from walmart or something. I would never consider buying anything that coss thousands unless I grew acres of peppers and sold them. Otherwise, you will end up with powder that costs 100 dollars a pound. Not like the average price of 15 dollars you can get right in the store. Dont go and spend more money on growing and drying peppers then the powder is really worth. :)

Wow is this thread froozen in time?

This post was edited by TheMasterGardener1 on Wed, Dec 5, 12 at 11:19

Something occurred to me that made me remember this thread.

My grandmother has one of those cheap metal storage buildings that you buy in a kit box and assembled yourself (I still have the scars from putting it together...). Even with the light tan paintjob it came with it easily gets incredibly hot inside during the summer.

If you painted one of those black, put it out in full sun in the summer, filled it with metal shelving, and put so much as a box fan in there I'd wager it would make a pretty darned good dehydrator that could handle hundreds of pounds of pods at a time.

i have tried using a commercial coffee bean grinder (i'm in the espresso business) and it works great. Put the dial to turkish grind and it comes out like powder. You can get used ones for like 400.00 us dollars.

@ Miranda ,
I have 2 regular coffee grinders ( under $20). I use one for grinding spices and peppers. Works fine for small quantity. The key is that the pods should be bone dry.

Seysonn

Wow, that's a lot of peppers for drying and grinding!

Like other folks, I just use a dehydrator, and a small home coffee grinder.

But for the huge amounts of peppers you are talking about... Maybe instead of slicing up those peppers, try using an immersion blender and a 5 gallon bucket to prep the peppers- super chop those things up before they go in to dry. Then like Miranda suggested, get a used commercial coffee grinder for less expensive than a new one, and go big scale with the grinding.

Like peppermeister, I cut the
peppers into chunks, sometimes smoking them and sometimes not, before
dehydrating and then only grind about a small jars worth at a time using
a small coffee grinder. The rest of the dried pieces are kept whole (and kept this way they can be reconstituted if needed).

Rodney

Yes, TFO,
Whole stuff keep more of the aroma, flavor and taste, unless I make sauce, I keep them whole in jars.

Seysonn

Since this thread is back....

How do you guys keep/store your powder?

I made habanero powder by dehydrating them, then grinding them in a coffee grinder and my girlfriend stored them in a glass jar that had a cork top and the powder was a solid brick within 10 days... I assume it was because of that damn cork lid, but I would like to do it again with this years crop...

I tend to store my peppers whole chunk in mason jars- or ground into powder in mason jars... But I always use my foodsaver and vacuum seal the jars. For pantry use, I use a much smaller spice jars.

We keep the dried or dried/smoked peppers whole until we need powder, then grind a bit in a spice grinder.

Because the oils in the skins cause clumping.