How will I dry herbs - Part IV
The weather has been mostly sunny and warm since my last post. That is a big part of the reason I'm starting this post 11 days later. Before I left for vacation I had mostly finished enclosing the herb drying rack I previously posted about in reflectix bubble-foil insulation. At that point, it was still lacking any "active environmental control and monitoring," let's say. In fact, it is needed even more now that moisture could not leave herbs and be carried away by the surrounding air. Since the surrounding air is nearly never dry enough, this was needed anyway.
I had a relatively small dehumidifier that I could put to this task which offered a solid humidistat drying down to 30% relative humidity -- nice and dry. I added another set of tray supports to move the bottom shelf up a little, added a wood floor to the rack, and placed the dehumidifier inside the rack on the "floor." Then I added an external temperature and humidity controller with a display so I can see what's going on at a glance without opening the cabinet.
Could I leave it there? No. I also have a precision temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure sensor that I attached to a solar powered Raspberry Pi that logs those critical measurements (temperature and humidity -- pressure is just an entertainment). Not as "high tech" as it might sound, but a very useful tool to understand and document the drying process. This allows me to view the progress of the drying process so I know if any unhealthy conditions (cool and/or moist) occurred during the processing of a batch of herbs. Oh why solar powered?
- my goal is to eventually use renewable energy every possible after minimizing the amount I need
- it is really helpful to know how those critical parameters are affected if the electric service is lost during the batch.
Here are some highlights of completing that in a photo gallery:
