I had a good crop of various peppers from my garden this year, so I tried drying a bunch. I heard about 100 ways to do it, and I figured the easiest was to just lay them out on paper on a countertop. As the weather gets cooler, my house gets pretty dry, plus we have a wood stove running which makes it even drier.
Over a period of a month or so I just left the peppers on the counter. If any got mold on them of just looked or felt weird, I threw them away. I now have a pile of different peppers that look and feel like small shriveled rocks.
As I was experimenting with some of them, I noticed that a lot of them have grey fuzz inside. I would guess this is mold. These peppers are all solid and don't have any non-pepper smells or soft spots or anything, and externally they look like bright red dried peppers.
If a person was to buy these in a store and just toss the entire dried pepper into a recipe, you would never know that they looked kind of funky inside. Have any of you dried peppers before? Do they get moldy inside? Does it even matter? How do you dry your peppers (if you have)?
If the mold is going to be a big problem, next year I think I'll just freeze them. They look so cool though when they're dried. I told my wife I was going to decorate the Christmas tree with them. She wasn't too keen on that idea.
Over a period of a month or so I just left the peppers on the counter. If any got mold on them of just looked or felt weird, I threw them away. I now have a pile of different peppers that look and feel like small shriveled rocks.
As I was experimenting with some of them, I noticed that a lot of them have grey fuzz inside. I would guess this is mold. These peppers are all solid and don't have any non-pepper smells or soft spots or anything, and externally they look like bright red dried peppers.
If a person was to buy these in a store and just toss the entire dried pepper into a recipe, you would never know that they looked kind of funky inside. Have any of you dried peppers before? Do they get moldy inside? Does it even matter? How do you dry your peppers (if you have)?
If the mold is going to be a big problem, next year I think I'll just freeze them. They look so cool though when they're dried. I told my wife I was going to decorate the Christmas tree with them. She wasn't too keen on that idea.