Pet & Animal: How to Dry Mushrooms

Thursday, 16 April 2015

How to Dry Mushrooms

Dried mushrooms are a big deal--they are packed with flavor, fantastic in tons of dishes, and can be stored for essentially an eternity. You can rehydrate them and use them in soups, risottos, pasta dishes...pretty much every delicious recipe you can think of. Follow the steps listed in this article to make your own dried mushrooms.

Steps

Drying Mushrooms In The Oven

Clean the mushrooms you are going to dry. If possible, use a brush or dry paper towel to wipe any dirt off of the mushrooms. You want to avoid getting the mushrooms wet while cleaning them because the water could cause other competing fungi or mold to grow on the mushroom while they are drying or after they have been stored. This extra fungi or mold could, in turn, make you ill if you eat it.^[1]
- If there are renegade spots of dirt that won’t allow themselves to be brushed away, you can use a damp cloth or paper towel to scrub them off. Just make sure to wipe that same spot with a dry cloth or paper towel to absorb any moisture left behind.

Cut the mushrooms. The thicker the mushrooms, the longer it takes for them to dry out. To speed up the drying process, cut the mushrooms into slices approximately 1/8 inch (0.3 cm) thick. They will still have enough flavor packed into the slices that they will be an excellent addition to any dish, but they will dry in a much shorter amount of time than whole mushrooms.

Place the mushrooms on a baking sheet. Make sure that the mushrooms lay flat and side by side. None of the mushrooms should overlap, as this could cause them to fuse together while drying. Lay them out in one layer.
- Do not oil the sheets, as the mushrooms will absorb the oil, changing their flavor and causing them to take longer to dry.

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Fahrenheit (65 Celsius). Once the oven has reached the designated temperature, place the baking sheet with the mushrooms into the oven. Leave the mushrooms in for one hour.^[2]

Take the mushrooms out of the oven after an hour. When you take them out, flip them over so that they dry evenly. At this time, blot any moisture that way have risen on their surfaces during the drying process. Use a paper towel or dry cloth to remove any of the moisture.

Place the mushrooms back in the oven. Bake the mushrooms for one more hour or until they are completely dried.
- When you pull the mushrooms out, check to make sure they they do not have any remaining moisture on their surface. If they do, turn them over and dab away any moisture with a paper towel, then return them to the oven.

Continue to check the mushrooms until they are fully dry. Repeat the baking and removing moisture process until the mushrooms are totally dry. A properly dehydrated mushroom should snap apart like a cracker.^[3]

Allow the mushrooms to cool. Once you have taken them out of the oven, allow the mushrooms to cool on the baking sheet.Do not place them in tupperware with a closed lid while they are still hot as the heat might cause condensation in the tupperware, thus ruining all of your efforts.

Store the dried mushrooms in air-tight canisters. Once they have cooled completely, place the mushrooms in canisters with working seals. Keep the canisters in a dark, cool location until you are ready to use your mushrooms in soup, a baked pasta dish, or a yummy risotto.^[4]

Drying Mushrooms Naturally

Clean and slice the mushrooms. As listed above, you should only clean mushrooms with a brush or a dry towel. Don’t use water, as water logging the mushrooms may cause outside mold or fungi to grow. Cut the mushrooms into slices 1/2 inch (1.25 cm) thick.

Check the weather. Try this method for preserving mushrooms only on sunny days with very low humidity. If there is too much humidity in the air, it will take much longer for the mushrooms to dry and mold may begin to grow.

Find a good location for drying. Possibilities include sunny rooms, windowsills, or flat rooftops that have air circulation. Pick a spot where birds, animals, bugs, and moisture can't touch the mushrooms.^[5]

Arrange the mushrooms for drying. There are two options for this. You can either lay the mushrooms on a drying rack, or you can string them up with cooking string.^[6]
- On a drying rack: Lay the mushrooms flat in one layer. Make sure that none of them are overlapping as they might get stuck together while drying, or may warp into weird shapes. Cover the mushrooms and drying rack in a ‘net tent’ which you can get at most kitchen supply stores. The net tent will keep the bugs away. If you don’t have a net tent, you can simply use a piece of mesh fabric draped over and under the dry rack and mushrooms.^[7]
- With cooking string: Lace the cooking string through the mushrooms. You can use a sterilized needle to do this. Simply run the needle through a flame to sterilize it. Then string the mushrooms along the string as if you were making a bead necklace.

Place the mushrooms in the site you selected for the drying area. If you are using the cooking string method, hang them somewhere dry and in the sun. Allow the mushrooms to dry in the sun for one or two days. Check their progress several times each day.
- Consider finishing the mushrooms in the oven if they aren't totally dry after approximately two days in the sun. Read Method One of this article to learn how to do this.

Freeze-Drying Mushrooms

Lay a paper towel on a flat surface. Place cleaned and sliced mushrooms on the paper towel. They should only be in one layer, with none of the mushrooms overlapping. If they overlap, the mushrooms may fuse together. It is very important that the mushrooms be absolutely dry. If they have even a little bit of water on them, that water could turn to ice and spoil the mushroom.

Lay another paper towel down on top of the mushrooms. Continue to lay mushrooms down in single layers, and then placing paper towels over those layers, until you have used up all of the mushrooms you want to dry.

Slide these paper towel-mushroom layers into a paper bag. It should go without saying that you should use a large-ish paper bag that can fit all of the paper towels and mushrooms. The paper bag will allow water vapors to pass through it as the mushrooms dry.

Place the paper bag in the freezer. Overtime, your mushrooms will begin to dry in the freezer. This is a much slower process than the other two methods listed above, but is effective--particularly if you are not planning on using your mushrooms immediately.^[8]