Food dehydrators and hop drying

Title says it all. Anybody use a food dehydrator to dry your harvest? Putting them in the attic sucks, PITA, won't try that again....
Found a cheap little dehydrator on e-bay for less than 20 bucks shipped. I don't know how adjustable it is, but what does everyone else do?

Get some 25"x30" cheap pleated furnace filters. Lay one down and fill the vee's with hop cones. When full, lay another on top of it and repeat. Repeat up to 5 filters (none on the top one). Tape them together with blue painters tape then bungie cord it to a box fan and turn it on.

Hmmm, where the hell do you put that contraption? How long till done? I guess temp and humidity would play a part... I have only used pellets before, what are good signs that they are done- being dry 'bout it?

I was planning on using one to dry my hops when the time comes. Are they not unrecommended?

Problem with dehydrators is that they heat as well as dry. Most run hot enough to drive off some of the volatile aromatic properties that we all love in our beer. I'd thought about maybe running one in the refrigerator, but I don't know how that would work with condensation.

quickerNu said:

Hmmm, where the hell do you put that contraption? How long till done? I guess temp and humidity would play a part... I have only used pellets before, what are good signs that they are done- being dry 'bout it?

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Your garage will be fine. Make sure it is horizontal with the fan blowing up through the hops. One day should be fine and you are done.

I just garage mine, but dehydrators work fine if you can keep the temperature under 120F.

The lower the drying temp the better. EdWorts post is about the best and easiest there is, no heat and positive filtered airflow. They would dry quickly. If I could grow hops here I had another idea to lower the temp even more. use a vacuum pump on a sealed container in a freezer. a vacuum lowers the boiling point of liquids. I have seen water boil at 40*F under a vacuum. my only question about that process(and I am looking for the answer) is what has a lower sea level boil point water or hop oil. I would hate to boil off the hop oil before the hops dried.

EdWort said:

Get some 25"x30" cheap pleated furnace filters. Lay one down and fill the vee's with hop cones. When full, lay another on top of it and repeat. Repeat up to 5 filters (none on the top one). Tape them together with blue painters tape then bungie cord it to a box fan and turn it on.

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Did you get that from "Good Eats"?

SprawlMart carries an adjustable jabbie for around $40 clams. It goes down to 95°F, I use it for Mushrooms all the time.

I second it as well my goes down to 95f as well works good for me.

I used to have a Ron Popeil food dehydrator. It was the basic kind, just an electric heater with vented slats and no fan, and it worked great.

If you want an industrial sized drying rack, I have some rough plans in my gallery.

I saw the Alton Brown episode wher ehe built that, and I think it's a great cheap wya to get it done without any heat. Should be pretty fast too.

This is an old post but given the time of year I feel a reply is appropriate.

As far as food dehydrators go - commercial hop farms dry their hops with
140*F air. No significant lupilin degradation has been found at temps <180*. The biggest problem associated with home dehydrators is the difference in temp from top to bottom. Thus if using one, it is reccomended that you rotate the racks every hour or so. You'll also find inconsistencies, based on design, from side to side on each rack. Typically, you'll find that the cones nearest the center will dry much more rapidly. Therefore, ideally you would want to reorganize the cones on each tray. I, however, do not reccomend this as once the cones begin to dry the lupilin loss becomes exponential upon aggitation. What I reccomend at this point is that you ignore the individual tray inconsistencies and once you reach a nice median dryness place the cones in a sealed bag and place in the refrig for an hour. This allows the cones to exchange moisture content and you have reached a median. Experiment with this and you'll soon become an expert dryer!

Remember also that the in which you pick the cones is vital. Cones are ripe with the bracts have opened and feel papery to the touch, as oppossed to the wet feeling of a green cone. Also, some browning of the lower bracts is a good sign. The oldest cones will be ready sooner so you can either - A. Pick the cones when you've reached a median ripeness across the bine. or B. Pick individual cones on a daily basis based on ripeness. Commercial growers dont have this luxury that we have as homegrowers; they obviously have to use method A.

I hope this was coherent enough to help!

BrewMeister

theBrewMeister said:

As far as food dehydrators go - commercial hop farms dry their hops with 140*F air. No significant lupilin degradation has been found at temps <180*...

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I almost agree with this. Lupulin degradation won't be significant if you're drying for 8 hours or less. If you go much longer it can be. What you loose at those temperatures is the oils and aromas that give you many of the flavors. If you want hop flavors, especially for dry hopping, dry them at temperatures less than 100F.

theBrewMeister said:

I, however, do not reccomend this as once the cones begin to dry the lupilin loss becomes exponential upon aggitation. What I reccomend at this point is that you ignore the individual tray inconsistencies and once you reach a nice median dryness place the cones in a sealed bag and place in the refrig for an hour. This allows the cones to exchange moisture content and you have reached a median.

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Yep...The big guys call it conditioning, but you may not want to do it in the refrigerator. There's the chance of getting condensation. Instead, to reduce the agitation, leave them on the drying rack and cover them with a tarp or saran wrap...anything that is water proof enough to keep in humidity. A couple hours later they will be ready.

With the ~95F food dehydrator method, about how long does it take to dry them?

Rhizome said:

With the ~95F food dehydrator method, about how long does it take to dry them?

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Mine only took a few hours in my dehydrator last year. This year I have no flowers. I think it was way to rainy up here

I have a dehydrator from Gander Mtn and you can turn the heat on or off and it is adjustable and a switch for the fan. I put my hops in a couple of large hop bags and spread it out on the racks and ran the fan over night without heat. They came out perfect.

Does anyone blanch their hops first? Maybe remove any critters, blight, etc.?

Liquorbox, the answer is pretty much no. The critters will crawl out on their own once you start drying, which is something important to remember when you pick a place to dry.

As far as blanching, are you talking to improve the looks? Don't bother. No one will see them but you. In the very olden days, they would do it but that was before pelletization and the realization that most blanching methods degrade the flavor of the hops.

Just pick them and use them in a wet hop or dry them and store for later. IF you have an overwhelming desire to wash them, do so on the bine the day before you pick.

As an aside, feel free to make this a new thread and you will probably receive more responses.

Thanks guys. I thought about that more, after some reading AFTER I'd posted- so, I apologize. I'm in the habit of storing up my veg from my garden, and you want to kill microbes. BUT, blanching hops will take their flavor away... no can do...
Thx.