Food dehydrator

[adamzworld]

I have read that you can use a food hydrator to dry hops out once picked. I was thinking about purchasing one of these as could justify it to SWMBO by explaining that we could also use it to dry fruit and other food items.

I've seen this one online, which is fairly cheap so just wondering whether it would be up for the job:

https://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/ed ... bFEALw_wcB

[gr_baker]

It's quite small. I'm not sure how much you could get in that in one go and how fast it can dry them.

When I had two hop plants down at the allotment, I used to get about a pillowcase full of wet hops even in a bad year. I used to find that they went off faster than I could dry them.

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[Nitro Jim]

I put mine in old mushroom trays which are fairly obtainable and stack them up in the airing cupboard. I do realise that not all houses have airing cupboards...

[adamzworld]

Thanks for the replies. I did wonder about the size and maybe I wouldn't get enough hops in to make it worth using.

Thanks for the tip about the mushroom trays and I do have an airing cupboard, so this might be the better option to let them dry naturally.

[k1100t]

I've got a nine tray Excalibur dehydrator, I've used it to dry hops in the past. I found that you really have to turn it down, as it dries out and crisps the edges quickly, but the centre is still damp. As the fan is also quite close to the hops, once they start drying out, they tend to get blowing into the door. It's not ideal, but did dry things out enough to then be packed into the freezer etc.

[Trefoyl]

I've got a nine tray Excalibur dehydrator, I've used it to dry hops in the past. I found that you really have to turn it down, as it dries out and crisps the edges quickly, but the centre is still damp. As the fan is also quite close to the hops, once they start drying out, they tend to get blowing into the door. It's not ideal, but did dry things out enough to then be packed into the freezer etc.

I have the same model but there was nothing to harvest last year so haven’t used it for hops yet. I didn’t know it was available in the UK because it’s made in California. I was hoping it would work better than you described

[adamzworld]

Those Excalibur dehydrators do look top-notch. A bit above my budget though so I may have to stick with the mushroom trays in the raising cupboard method!

[Meatymc]

Standard dehydrators are really too small although depends on how many hops you're trying to cope with obviously. I've built 4 trays that sit on top of each other - the trays then sat on house bricks. Then sit a cold air fan ('borrowed' from the office) underneath blowing through them.

By interchanging the trays every few hours I'm able to get around 1kg 'wet' hops down to below 20% moisture content in around 30 hours - simply a case of weighing the hops before you start and then every now and again but I don't usually bother for the first 24 hours.

You need a 'safe environment' obviously - I use the garage and have 2 breakers in the cabling in case of over-heating. Probably expensive and not the quickest but it works.

[guypettigrew]

Can hops just be frozen fresh? I don't grow my own, but I'm just wondering why they need to be dried.

Guy

[Meatymc]

Can hops just be frozen fresh? I don't grow my own, but I'm just wondering why they need to be dried.

Guy

I have looked into this but can't find anything definitive but reluctant to take the risk to be honest

[Hanglow]

I've frozen fresh hops in the past and they did actually work fine in a brew - no vegetal off flavours which I have seen mentioned before about that method. The problem is fresh hops take up about 4x as much space as dried hops due to the water content

I have a cheap andrew james, 6 level dehydrator that I ran pretty much continuously for 2 weeks last year to dry about 5.5kg of wet hops. I'd pick a large binbag full, then fill up the dehydrator and what I couldn't fit into it I'd put into a large BIAB bag and hang that up in the airing cupboard with a fan going to help dry the excess off a bit more, then in the morning I'd take out the dry hops from the dehydrator, vac pack and freeze, and then put the partially dried ones into it. Then go back to the bines and pick another load etc, which works as they don't all mature at quite the same rate. It's a bit of a pain in the tits and I think if you have space to make a much larger oast it would be worth the time and effort to do so, assuming you have enough hops to dry.

I do use the dehydrator for mushrooms and drying fruit as well, so it gets lots of use. I would say though that it can be a bit uneven, you have to move the trays about a bit during drying to get them even. So beware cheap ones.

[Phoenix]

Get a cabinet style one with temperature control and trays that can be swapped around.
The hops at each level wont dry equally so you can easily swap out a damper bottom tray to the top.
I dried mine at 42C to give better quality (commercially its done in the 50s C).
Each full batch dried out to 10oz and took 28 hours.
The last batch laid out on paper bags waiting for the dehydrator had already started to go mouldy after just 3 days.

The dehydrator has many other uses if you like doing home made stuff. Dried apple rings, fruit leathers, dried mushrooms, dehydrated vegetables, even drying your socks.

[Trefoyl]

That’s good to know. 40C is as low as mine will go. Now I need a decent harvest.

[Bad 'Ed]

I just spend mine out on some newspaper on the floor of the spare room, 1 hop deep. None have ever gone mouldy before.

I guess it would be quicker with a dehydrator, but it wouldn't be worth the cost to me.