Alchemical Blog

Alright, my first solar food dehydration experiment has been completed.  I dehydrated some store-bought basil and parsley with the homemade solar  dehydrator I blogged about last week.  I detailed the process and outcome below, with photos.  Let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions, as I'm completely new to this.

In total, the herbs were outside in the dehydrator for roughly 11 hours, with a temperature range between 100 and 115.   All told, the process took 4 days.  From what I can gather from a little internet research, air drying basil, in comparison, could take a few weeks.  Sun drying basil could have it done in a comparable time, although some people argue that exposing herbs directly to the sun can cause a loss in nutrients and flavor. 

On Wednesday, June 10, at 3:00pm I put the herbs out in the dehydrator which was at a temperature of 110 degrees Fahrenheit.  I left it outside for about four hours, after which the temperature dropped below 100.  The herbs appeared to be beginning to dry, but had a long way to go.

 So, I left them in the dehydrator inside overnight, and unfortunately the next two days were cloudy with periodic rain.  I left the unit inside during that time, and on Saturday it was a little drier outside for a bit, so I left it out from about 11:30-2:30, during which the temperature reached 100.  After that, there was, again a risk of rain.

By Sunday the herbs were pretty dry, but not quite as brittle and crumbly as I thought they should be.  It seems that though during the humid, cool days inside they were getting drier, if not that fast.  The day was quite sunny, so I put them out to finish around 1:30.  The temperature was at 115 when I checked a couple hours later, and around 5:00 I determined the herbs were as done as they needed to be.

So, through this little experiment I learned that I should take a little better account of the weather forecast.  Next time, I'll try to maximize efficiency by starting the process when there are a couple days of sun forecast, and I'll start in the morning.  Another thing I'll mention is that it's possible that in this experiment the parsley got a little moldy - there are a few miniscule white-ish dots on some of the pieces.   I'm not too worried, but if someone knows how to identify mold on herbs, please let me know.

 Here are some photos of the finished products:

Here are the herbs on the dehydrator trays.  Notice that the herbs have shrunk quite a bit - when I put them on there was not nearly as much open space on the trays. 

Here's a basil close-up.  I was expecting the herbs to become a little more brown, but turns out the color was preserved pretty well. 

The basil crumbles quite easily. 

I'm storing the herbs whole to preserve the flavor.  When I'm ready to add them to my food, then I'll crumble them right in.