Drying and Storing Chillies: Threading, Dehydrators and Knowing When Dry

Pick and sort before you dry anything

Only fully colored pods dry well. A green or half colored pod has more water and less sugar in it, takes far longer, and is the one that goes moldy in the middle of a string and spoils the pods either side of it.

Cut pods with a short piece of stem left on rather than pulling them. The stem is what you thread or clip, and a pod pulled off leaves an open wound at the shoulder that lets mold straight in.

Wear gloves once you are handling more than a handful, and never rub your eyes. The oil transfers to everything you touch afterwards and washing with plain water does not remove it.

Air drying and threading a string

Thin walled chillies dry perfectly well in open air, and a threaded string is the traditional way because it keeps every pod separated and hanging in moving air. It takes three to six weeks depending on how dry and warm your air is.

Air drying only works below about 60 percent humidity. In a damp climate, or for any thick walled pod, go straight to a dehydrator or an oven rather than watching a string go moldy over a month.

1. Thread through the stem Push a needle and strong thread through the stem just above the shoulder of the pod, never through the pod itself. Piercing the flesh lets mold in at the hole.
2. Keep them apart Tie a knot between pods, or twist the thread once, so that no two pods touch. Touching pods stay damp where they meet and that is where it starts.
3. Hang it well Somewhere warm, dry, shaded and with air moving past. Direct sun bleaches the color and destroys the flavor, and a still corner is as bad as damp air.
4. Check twice a week Take out anything going soft, dark or fuzzy immediately, and cut away the thread either side of it if the neighbors are marked.

Dehydrator and oven

A dehydrator is the reliable method, and the only sensible one for thick walled pods. Low and slow keeps the color and the flavor; too hot and you get a scorched, flat tasting result and, with big batches, a room full of pepper fumes that will have you coughing.

Halve or slit thick walled pods before drying. Whole, they trap moisture at the shoulder and go moldy inside while feeling dry from the outside.

How to tell when they are dry enough

This is the step people get wrong, and it is the reason jars of home dried chilli go moldy. Dry means brittle, not leathery. A properly dried thin walled pod snaps cleanly in half with a crack and the pieces shatter rather than bend.

Test a pod that has cooled to room temperature, because a warm pod always feels drier than it is. Cut one open and look at the thickest part of the shoulder and the flesh around the stem: any softness, any flexibility, any darker damp looking area means it goes back in.

1. The snap test Bend a cooled pod. It should snap with an audible crack. If it bends, folds or feels like leather, it is not dry and will spoil in a jar.
2. The seed test Shake it. Loose seeds rattling clearly inside is a good secondary sign that the interior has dried through.
3. The jar test Put the batch in a sealed jar for two or three days and look at the glass. Any condensation, any clouding, and the whole batch goes back to the dehydrator.
4. Conditioning Shake the jar daily for the first week. It evens out any small differences in moisture between pods and shows up a wet one before it can spoil the rest.

Whole or ground

Store whole and grind as you need it. A whole dried pod keeps its aroma for two to three years in a sealed jar in the dark, whereas ground chilli loses most of what makes it interesting within six months and fades in color as it goes.

Grind only what you will use in a month or two. Let the pods cool completely first, pull the stems off, and shake out most of the seeds if you want the flavor without the coarser heat. Grind in a short burst, let the dust settle before you open the grinder, and do it somewhere ventilated.

Glass with a tight lid, kept in a cupboard rather than on a sunny shelf. Light fades the color faster than anything else and takes the flavor with it.

Label the jar properly

Put the type, the year and the drying method on every jar. Dried pods of different types look far more alike than you expect, and heat varies enormously between them, so an unlabelled jar is a genuine hazard at the stove.

Note in your growing records how much you actually dried and how long it lasted. After a season or two you will know exactly how many plants to grow, which is usually fewer than you think.