Do you dry your own fresh herbs?

ElizabethB said:
I know you have been disappointing in the time necessary to dry your herbs. Do you have a fan that you could aim at your hanging herbs to provide air circulation? The herbs that I hung from the ceiling fan light fixtures are nearly dry after only a week +/-.
Who cares what it looks like. No guest at this time. It is actually kind of cool looking. Kind of an Earth Mother feel.
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I do have a fan. I'll try setting that up tomorrow.
 
This is really fun. Experimenting with different techniques. I am really amazed ar how quickly the sage and rosemary is drying from the fan light fixtures. The dill and thyme on the flat fan fold foil drying rack are drying but not as quickly as the sage and rosemary. HMMM kind of weird since the dill and thyme have much smaller foliage. I have the ceiling fan on in the spare bedroom but obviously less air circulation than the bunches hanging from the fan.
 
Yorky said:
I still think you'll be better drying it in the halogen.
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Will try that too. Here are results.
Before:
41284


After:
41283


They kept a good colour and are totally brittle.
 
I set a fan up for mine. Pics to follow.

One thing I have noticed, sage starts to wilt almost immediately, whereas oregano holds its shape and looks pretty much the same for several days.
 
I could have sworn I posted pics. I wanted to see when I hung the herbs. I don't think it has been a full two weeks. I have cayenne peppers starting to turn red. I want to dry them. I think I will use the fan folded foil for the peppers. I thought about drying them in a basket but I think they will get better air circulation on the fan folded foil.
I only have one oregano plant. I tried planting seeds with no luck. Those seeds are so tiny I need a magnifying glass to see them. A mustard seed looks like a boulder next to an oregano seed. I need to call some of the local nurseries to see if they have oregano plants.
 
I have herbs hanging in the garage, I must bring them in and process and store for later. I've only started using parsley in the last 5 years, now I use it a lot. My favourite shop (gorgeous foods) have sausage rolls to die for. I go there about 4 times a year for these. I asked them about 5 years ago what the secret of the beautiful sausage meat filling. The owner looked at me and said, one thing, fresh parsley. Since then I've been using it, a lot.

Russ
 
My wife came home with 200 gms of curly leaf parsley yesterday from Makro. That is a lot of bloody parsley! Only the equivalent of £0.70 though.

I cut off some for parsley sauce this evening and dried the rest. Three batches in the halogen, 10 minutes each at 150°C after removing the heavier stalks.

drying parsley s.jpg

drying parsley s.jpg

  • Media owner Yorky
  • Date added
 
Yorky said:
My wife came home with 200 gms of curly leaf parsley yesterday from Makro. That is a lot of bloody parsley! Only the equivalent of £0.70 though.

I cut off some for parsley sauce this evening and dried the rest. Three batches in the halogen, 10 minutes each at 150°C after removing the heavier stalks.

drying parsley s.jpg

drying parsley s.jpg

  • Media owner Yorky
  • Date added
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That's kept its colour quite well.
 
Morning Glory said:
That's kept its colour quite well.
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There were a few brownish areas but they were not significant. The fresh batch on the right (about ⅓ of the pack) reduced sufficiently when dried to be crushed into the jar with the other ⅔. The bowl in the middle is fresh for later.
 
Yorky said:
There were a few brownish areas but they were not significant. The fresh batch on the right (about ⅓ of the pack) reduced sufficiently when dried to be crushed into the jar with the other ⅔. The bowl in the middle is fresh for later.
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Do you not grow your own? I have two types growing here all year round.

Russ
 
This is what I trimmed back today; oregano, sage, and thyme:


Herbs

Herbs


This is from two plants each, and I've placed a standard .5oz spice jar in there for scale.

It's destined to be dried, but I fear I'm just displacing my overabundance of fresh herbs with an overabundance of dried herbs.
 
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