9/19/2020 – We bought a NESCO FD-75A, Snackmaster Pro Food Dehydrator this week and tried it out on the abundant red cayenne peppers from the garden. Picked all the red today and that filled three trays. Some picked the past 3-4 days have been lying out to dry along with some green ones and they filled the 4th tray. Notes from the second batch are also below.
Started the unit at 12:30 pm with the dial set at 135°F. Set it in the corner on the kitchen and within 30 minutes had to move it to the carport as the fumes were not going to be tolerable.
About 4:30 PM (4 hours later) checked it for the first time. The peppers are a bit wrinkled but have a long way to go. Recipes said 5 -20 hours.
At 6:00 AM–17.5 hours later during a high humidity time on the carport–there are a few that are a bit pliable but most are dry like thin leather and some are brittle. Took them inside as it drizzled rain all night and was drizzling still. The humidity outside is 95% and inside is 49% per our weather station.
At 8:00 AM put those that were not dry enough back in the dehydrator. Three hours later they were ready.
Separated the green ones and tried them first in the food processor. A lot of large pieces would not chop up. Put them into a jar and wiped out the processor bowl. Thought that maybe they had not been dry enough. But, that was not correct as the reds also had issues as cited below.
Tried rough chopping them for “red pepper flakes” with the Kitchenaid food processor but it left some large pieces–no consistency. Tried the Vitamix blender–it had worked well last year–and it did fine.
9/26/2020 – Dehydrated a second batch using all fresh peppers that had just been picked. They filled 4 trays without being too crowded. They took about 16 hours as they started out wet as they were dried after being washed. Only had about 8 that were still a little soft.
Packed them whole/broken into one quart jar planning to grind them when needed to maintain the maximum flavor.