Drying Herbs

It was a good year for our herbs this year and now that the season is winding down it's time to pot the winter crop and dry out herbs for use throughout the year.  This post focuses on the drying aspect.  There are a few ways to dry herbs, I thought it would be best to try a few methods to find out what would really work well and what's not worth trying again.

For my first experiment I dried some sage.  The methods I used where hanging and a drying rack.  I started drying my sage back on the 3rd of September, about 15 days later it was ready to be stored.  Consequently there was no difference in drying time between the hanging sage and the drying rack sage.  Building the drying rack was simple I used made a simple frame and legs out of wooden garden stakes and a piece of screen from an old window.

The sage is properly dried when the leaves have shriveled a little and don't feel moist anymore.  The leaves will also go from their bright green to a duller green.

To store the sage for future use, first remove the leaves from the stems.

Then chop the leaves till they are about a 1/4 inch.

Once all the sage is chopped up store in an air tight container or bag until you're ready to use.  It's a good time to label your container.

While both methods went well I was also advised that you can place your herbs on a rack in front of a dehumidifier to pull the moisture out of the herbs quicker.  I have experimented with this method with basil but so far have no found that it speeds up the process at all.

What is left to try is a solar dryer.  My neighbors have one of these and use it to dry veggies such as peppers and tomatoes, but it also works for herbs.  Solar dryers use the heat from the sun to dry out food quickly.  Solar dryers can be build out of wood or old cabinets, more on this as it's a project for this winter.