Drying mushroom experiments

Mar 30, 2018

We first started by thawing the mushroom.

As expected, there was a lot of water coming out.

So we decide to dry the frozen mushroom and skipped the thawing step.

Objective: We hoped that the ice will evaporate by the time it turned into liquid. And hence, the flavour will be kept in the mushroom instead of getting lost with the water.

Temperature: 60-65 Celsius degrees

Time: 2 hours

Equipment: Drying tray, thermometer, moisture meters measure, our drying machine.

Moisture achieved: 7.84%

During the drying process we see that the water from the mushroom came out and flowed to the rear of the tray and dried up.

So the experiment is not successful.

Mar 31, 2018

We first place the mushroom in a wok

The juice from the mushroom flow to the bottom, as expected. When the water was evaporated, there was little left at the bottom.

Afterwards, we transferred the mushroom to the flat tray to dry at 60-65 Celsius degree.

Hot air coming from the green blower.:

Heat support underneath:

Result:

Weight: 27g from 400 gr of raw materials (6.76%)

Moisture level: 8%

Drying time: 4 hours

Texture: sticky, chewy

Color: dark brown, black

April 5, 2018

Raw materials: 2000gr

Weight of dried products: 87g (4.35%)

Moisture level: 6.14%

Drying time: 12 hours

Texture: chewy

Flavour: umami, astringent

Color: black

09 April 2018

Making mushroom powder

We use pepper grinder to make mushroom powder, here is the result after 3 minutes of grinding:

The texture is somewhat like ground coffee and perhaps could be made finer using commercial machine.