Before drying porcini mushrooms, you need to familiarize yourself with all available methods. You can choose the appropriate method for harvesting mushrooms by comparing the available options and the recommendations of the drying method. This page tells you how to dry porcini mushrooms at home using a special dryer or on a baking sheet in the oven. Methods are presented on how to prepare mushrooms for this harvesting method: wash, cut, decompose. Pay attention to the description of how to dry porcini mushrooms in a dryer, how to prepare raw materials and how to adjust the temperature. The proposed recipes and expert advice will help you do everything right and get excellent quality dried mushrooms. In the meantime, look at how to dry porcini mushrooms in the photo, which shows options for cutting raw materials and its layout.
Fresh mushrooms are not subject to long-term storage due to the large percentage of water they contain. A few days after harvest, mushrooms wither, lose their freshness and juiciness, and become unfit for consumption. Therefore, mushrooms should only be used for consumption after a suitable heat treatment or processing into stable food products, i.e. canning, only a few hours after harvest. Harvesting porcini mushrooms for the winter by drying is used if a mushroom picker has a large number of mushrooms at his disposal.
At home, mushrooms are harvested for future use by drying, pickling, salting and canning in hermetically sealed glass jars.
When drying mushrooms, up to 76% of their water is removed from them.
The remaining moisture for the development of microorganisms is not enough, which leads to their death.
Drying is the easiest way to harvest mushrooms for future use. Properly dried mushrooms are preserved for a long time without losing their taste and aroma. And in terms of nutritional value, they are inferior to salted and pickled. Before drying, mushrooms must be well cleaned of debris. They cannot be washed or moistened with water - this will reduce the quality of the mushrooms, they will lose their aroma and will not dry well. During cleaning, slimy, old and wormy mushrooms should be thrown away. Many housewives think that during drying, the worms will leave the mushrooms, but this is not so. It is best to dry mushrooms on special devices - sieves, sieves, nets.
The main condition for drying mushrooms is that air must flow from all sides, then moisture from the mushrooms will come out evenly. It is very important to correctly determine when the mushroom is dried. A properly dried mushroom does not crumble, bends slightly, and breaks with effort. An under-dried mushroom easily bends, it seems wet to the touch, over-dried - easily crumbles.
Well-dried mushrooms are similar in taste and aroma to fresh ones. After drying, about 10% of the wet weight remains in the mushrooms. Dried mushrooms should be stored at a temperature of plus 7-10 ° C and low humidity, otherwise they may become moldy. It should be borne in mind that they absorb foreign odors very easily, so they should not be stored near odorous substances.
If you have a house in the village, and you have kept the Russian stove, then this is the best option for harvesting dried mushrooms. But you can dry mushrooms in a gas oven and on top, if you have a special drying net. If you dry mushrooms in a Russian stove, or in an oven, follow the following rules: mushrooms prepared for drying are laid out with their hats down on the grates, or strung on knitting needles like shish kebabs. The knitting needles should be placed on stands so that the mushrooms do not come into contact with the oven surface or with the oven bottom.
They should be put to dry when the temperature reaches 60–70 °C. It is not recommended to start drying at a higher temperature, as the mushrooms may become too fried and turn black.
At temperatures below 50 ° C, they dry very slowly, turn sour and deteriorate. During drying, it is very important to ensure that the moisture evaporating from the mushrooms is removed.
To do this, when closing the oven, the damper should be left ajar, preferably in the upper part, so that moist air has a free exit. The chimney at the beginning of drying should be ajar by two-thirds of the valve, as the mushrooms dry out, it should be covered a little, and closed tightly by the end of drying. In a gas oven, the door should also be left ajar. It is better to dry small mushrooms with large ones separately, as they dry unevenly. But if you happened to dry them together, turn over more often and separate the already dried mushrooms. Dried mushrooms can be made into a powder. For the manufacture of mushroom powder, you can use the same mushrooms as for drying. The powder can be used to prepare sauces, soups, caviar, sprinkle meat and fish dishes during cooking to improve the taste and aroma.
Before use, mushroom powder is mixed with a small amount of warm water and left for 20–30 minutes to swell, then added to food and boiled for 10–15 minutes. The best powder is obtained from the caps, but if you have dried the mushrooms completely, you can sift the powder through a sieve. The remaining coarse powder can be dried and ground again. The finer the powder, the better it is. Mushroom powder absorbs moisture very easily and deteriorates quickly. It should be stored in a closed glass container in a dark, dry, cool place. Before drying, the mushrooms are cut into plates, dried, then dried.
Methods for drying porcini mushrooms
Further, he proposes to consider in detail all the ways of drying porcini mushrooms at home. To do this, you can use a special dryer, electric or gas oven and much more.
How to cut porcini mushrooms for drying
So that when drying in a Russian oven, the mushrooms do not burn and do not get dirty, after heating it, they clean it from coals and ash with a wet washcloth. After some time, a thin layer of rye straw is laid on the floor and mushrooms are placed on it with their hats down. You can use for drying and iron baking sheets (sheets). They are also covered with a layer of straw, on top of which the mushrooms are placed with their hats down so that they do not touch. It is very important to know how to cut porcini mushrooms for drying in a conventional Russian oven. Usually they are cut along the stem and hat in half.
Without straw bedding, mushrooms burn and acquire an unpleasant aftertaste. Devices are also used for drying mushrooms in the oven. For example, mushrooms are strung through the middle of the cap on thin wire tinned or stainless steel knitting needles (ramrods) stuck in wooden planks, which are then placed on edge in the oven, in the form of gable roofs. Mushrooms on knitting needles are dried without touching the hearth. The oven temperature must be maintained between 40 and 60 °C. The heat covers the mushrooms on the spokes from all sides evenly. On the first day, the mushrooms are only dried, on the second (at the same temperature) they are dried.
At the same time, they do not burn, do not become dirty, do not dry out, they only slightly lose their smell. There is another way. Thin wooden knitting needles are made from 20 to 30 cm long. Large mushrooms are strung on long knitting needles, small ones on short ones. The lower ends of the needles are stuck into a box with dry sand and put in the oven. Small mushrooms dry faster, large ones slower; accordingly, the first ones are taken out of the oven earlier, the second ones - later. At the same time, the mushrooms remain clean and dry evenly.
How to dry porcini mushrooms on a thread
At home, you can also dry mushrooms over a hot stove, at the hot wall of a Russian or Dutch oven, strung on threads or twine. Before you properly dry the porcini mushrooms on a thread, you need to clean them of dirt, cut and string.
Mushrooms are poured onto galvanized nets, which are placed in a drying chamber and rotated on a carousel. First, the mushrooms are dried at a temperature of 37 to 50 ° C, then it is raised to 60–80 ° C and finally dried. The duration of drying in special dryers is 4–6 hours.
Recipes for drying porcini mushrooms for the winter in the sun
On hot, cloudless days, mushrooms can be dried in the sun. To do this, piercing the mushrooms with a needle through the middle of the legs and caps, string them (first large, then smaller ones) in 50 or more pieces on strong threads, after which they hang them on stands in the sun at some distance from each other and stand until completely dried.
According to the recipe for drying porcini mushrooms for the winter in the sun, you can also use specially made coasters with metal rods (ramrods), stringing mushrooms on them. After placing the mushrooms in a sunny place, they are covered with gauze to protect them from dust and flies. Sufficiently sun-dried mushrooms are cleaned in a dry room. The same is done with the onset of cloudy weather, an increase in air humidity.
Drying porcini mushrooms on a baking sheet in an electric oven
Drying porcini mushrooms in the oven on a baking sheet can be combined with pre-treatment in the sun or over a hot stove. After that, the mushrooms are dried in a Russian oven, oven or over a hot stove. The best dried mushrooms are obtained when they are cooked through two stages. First, prepared mushrooms are exposed to a relatively low temperature - within 30-50 ° C - for 1-3 hours.
At the same time, they are dried due to the evaporation of a significant part of the surface moisture. Then the drying of porcini mushrooms in an electric oven is continued at a higher temperature - 70–80 ° C, which should not be exceeded, since the quality of the product deteriorates, and porcini mushrooms, in addition, turn black. Mushrooms are usually dried at a temperature of 50–60 ° C, that is, in a light heat. During drying, a constant supply of fresh air to the mushrooms and the removal of the moisture they release must be ensured, for which the pipe and damper of the Russian stove, the oven door are kept ajar. The use of various devices in this case (sieves, boards or a box of sand with vertically standing knitting needles, etc.) allows not only to avoid pollution, but also to improve the conditions for drying mushrooms, since heated air flows around them from all sides.
How to dry porcini mushrooms in a gas oven
Before drying porcini mushrooms in a gas oven, they must be cleaned, laid out on baking sheets, sheets or strung on knitting needles. In this case, the mushrooms should not be in contact with each other. The study of various drying modes showed that it is better not to use natural drying because of its duration, large loss of nutrients. Before properly drying porcini mushrooms in the oven, they must first be placed in an oven preheated to 45 ° C.
After the surface of the mushrooms dries, increase the temperature to 75-80 ° C. The duration of pre-drying and drying of mushrooms cannot be determined exactly. If the caps and plates of mushrooms are the same size, they dry out at the same time. Dry mushrooms should be removed, and the rest should be dried, turning them over from time to time.
How to dry porcini mushrooms in an electric dryer
Mushrooms can also be dried in vegetable dryers. Before properly drying porcini mushrooms in an electric dryer, they are laid out on sieves or a tape mesh (made of stainless steel) with a layer of 3–4 cm, dried for 2.5–3 hours at a temperature of 40–45 ° C, and then dried at a temperature of 60 -70 °С (morels and lines - at a temperature of 50–55 °С). The dried product should have no more than 17% moisture. The yield of dried mushrooms is 10–12% by weight of fresh ones.
How to prepare porcini mushrooms for drying
Before you prepare porcini mushrooms for drying, you need to select the caps of young boletus mushrooms and chop them into birch splinter. Immerse the lower ends of the splinters into the jars, where a third of a glass of milk is poured. Place krynki with mushrooms in a preheated Russian oven. Evaporating, milk gives porcini mushrooms a unique delicate taste and a beautiful golden color. City dwellers can dry mushrooms this way in a gas oven over low heat. 
Watch how to dry porcini mushrooms in the oven in the video, which shows the basic technology for preparing for this harvesting process.
Drying mushrooms is the best way to preserve the best that mushrooms give us. If you want to enjoy this wonderful product all year round, then drying is ideal for this purpose.
Mushrooms are a valuable source of protein, iodine, iron, potassium, phosphorus, zinc and vitamins D, C, PP.
It is important to note that only tubular mushrooms and some lamellar mushrooms can be dried (russula and dung beetles, for example, are not suitable for drying). Mushrooms with milky juice are not dried, as they have a very sharp and bitter taste.
For drying, they usually take champignons, mushrooms, boletus, autumn mushrooms, boletus, mossiness mushrooms, boletus and chanterelles.
Mushrooms for drying are harvested in sunny, dry weather.
Before drying, you need to clean the mushrooms from debris and earth. It is not recommended to wash them: most of the valuable substances and aroma will go away with water, the mushrooms will darken and may become sour. You can wash already dried mushrooms.
Large mushrooms must be cut into quarters or in half. Large legs are cut into strips of 1 cm. For small and medium mushrooms, the cap should be separated from the legs and dried whole. Very small mushrooms do not need to be cut and divided - they are dried whole. You can also cut all the mushrooms into strips (in case there are a lot of mushrooms and you don’t want to mess with them for a long time) - in this case, the drying process will proceed much faster. Mushrooms are best cut lengthwise.
You can also separate the mushrooms by type or size to make it easier to dry.
To dry mushrooms in the oven, you need to prepare a baking sheet. Arrange the already peeled and cut mushrooms on a baking sheet, lightly brushing it with oil. Also put baking paper on a baking sheet, then oil is not needed. You can lay out the mushrooms not on a baking sheet, but on a wire rack. In this case, you will need baking paper to place on the wire rack and arrange the mushrooms.
Mushrooms need to be laid out so that the caps look up, and there is a little space between the mushrooms (1 mm).
Another way to dry mushrooms in the oven is drying on knitting needles. If you decide to dry mushrooms with knitting needles, you will need wooden knitting needles that are as long as the width of the oven. The ends of the knitting needles need to be pointed and mushrooms strung on them. When the needles are completely filled, they must be placed in the oven so that the ends lie on the horizontal ribs of the side walls of the oven.
If the oven does not have special ventilation holes, you need to leave the door ajar. If there is a fan, turn it on.
At the beginning of drying, a low temperature is set - approximately 50 ° C. The initial stage of mushroom drying should take place at a low temperature, because if the temperature is immediately high, white droplets will appear on the mushrooms - protein substances, the mushrooms will darken. As soon as you notice droplets, the temperature must be lowered, and the mushrooms removed from the oven.
After about 1.5 - 2 hours, the temperature is increased to 70-80 ° C. At this temperature, the mushrooms should be dried for about 2 hours, after which the temperature in the oven is lowered again to 55 ° C and the mushrooms are dried for another 2 hours.
During the drying process, do not forget to occasionally stir the mushrooms.
Dry mushrooms must be selected, the rest dried.
It is difficult to say how long it takes to dry the mushrooms in the oven, since the drying time for each mushroom is different.
When dried, approximately 76% of water is evaporated from mushrooms.
If the mushrooms have not dried completely in the oven, they can be dried in the air or indoors.
Whether the mushroom has dried up is easy to check - you need to break the hat. If the inside of the mushroom is wet, it has not dried yet and drying must be continued.
Dried mushrooms are convenient and easy to store. They are stored for a long time and do not lose their taste and aroma.
You can store dried mushrooms at any temperature, in a dark place. It is good to store mushrooms in glass jars, clay pots, tin, wooden and plastic food storage boxes. It is not necessary to close the container with dried mushrooms hermetically. You can just wrap it in foil. Dried mushrooms are also stored in bags, but moths can start there.
Every experienced mushroom picker has his own secrets. It’s not enough just to collect, you need to know which ones are worth drying, and which ones are suitable only for salting or are cooked fresh. There are general rules for drying mushrooms, and they will be discussed. I hope that the newly-made mushroom picker will be able to learn a lot of new things, and the experienced one, perhaps, will also learn something interesting for himself.
Having collected a whole basket of mushrooms, do not rush to immediately get down to business, as not all of them are suitable for drying. Many contain bitterness, which only intensifies during the drying process.
What mushrooms are better to take for drying?
Mushrooms are divided into tubular, lamellar, chanterelle, marsupial and tinder. Let's talk about the best for home drying in each category.tubular mushrooms
This family includes mushrooms, under the cap of which the spores are in a layer consisting of small tubules, which looks like a sponge.Almost all edible tubular mushrooms are suitable for drying, but the best are:
- (all types)
- polish mushroom
- Mokhoviki
- goats
- Duboviki
agaric mushrooms
In agaric mushrooms under the cap are radial strips of densely arranged plates with spores. Most lamellar contains milky juice, which gives bitterness to dried mushrooms.The following varieties are suitable for drying:
- summer, winter and autumn
- Mushroom-umbrella motley
- deer mushrooms
- Associates
- Scales are fleecy
chanterelle mushrooms
Chanterelle mushrooms look like lamellar mushrooms at first glance, but in fact they are not plates, but folds of pulp. After long disputes in the scientific classification, they were taken out into a separate family.I set the temperature a little more than in the instructions for my device, but for a shorter time, until there were no incidents.
In season, you have the opportunity to collect a large amount, however, this product is stored very little fresh, so you need it either or. Today we will discuss the second option, as well as talk about the main drying options and how to store dried mushrooms.
Which mushrooms are suitable for drying
Before understanding all the intricacies of drying, it is worth initially talking about which ones can be dried.
It is tubular mushrooms that should be dried, since, unlike lamellar ones, they do not acquire bitterness during the drying process.
The best types for drying:
- boletus;
In case you are not afraid of bitterness or know how to deal with it, then you can dry it, and pods. The list of suitable species does not include very small ones, such as mouse mushrooms. The thing is that during the drying process, the raw material loses up to 90% of its mass. And if the raw material already weighs less than 20-30 g, then practically nothing will remain of it - it is better to preserve such species.
mushroom preparation
Before being taken for drying, the collected must be prepared.
Let's make a small digression and talk about the required quality of raw materials. The fact is that if you have collected oldish or rotten mushrooms, then it is best to cut them off and immediately put them into cooking, and not try to dry them. Only young mushrooms are suitable for drying, which are of good quality and are not damaged in any way. 
We return to preparation: immediately after collection, the raw materials must be cleaned of debris and earth, but in no case should they be washed. If moisture gets on the product, then it will dry many times longer, and the taste will deteriorate significantly.
Immediately after cleaning, the mushrooms are sorted out, removing the rotten ones and cutting off the damaged ones.
Important! To prevent the cuts on the products from darkening, pruning should be done with a stainless steel knife.
Drying methods
Outdoors
The easiest drying option that does not require the use of any technique.
It should be understood that it is worth carrying out in the summer or in late spring - early autumn, so that you can dry the products in a fairly short time. 
- Before drying, all mushrooms are cut into plates. You can separate the leg to dry faster.
- The plates are strung on a fishing line so that they do not touch each other, otherwise the raw materials will not dry out well at the points of contact and will not be stored. You can also use wooden trays or paper, but in this case you will need a large enough area for laying out the raw materials.
- All prepared mushrooms are placed in a place where dust and rain will not fall on them. At the same time, the place should be well warmed up by the sun and well ventilated so that drying takes place faster.
- After laying out or hanging the products, cover everything with a mesh with small cells so that flies do not land.
Did you know? Since the mushroom is considered something between animals and plants, we can say that this living organism is the largest creature on earth. This proves that it was found in Oregon. Its area was 900 hectares.
In the oven
Drying mushrooms in the oven differs in that in this case it depends on you more than when drying in the fresh air, so you should understand that improvisation in this case can ruin a large amount of raw materials.
An oven is best suited for drying, in which there is an additional airflow function, since without it you will have to open the door so that there is at least some air circulation. In the absence of airflow, the drying process will slow down significantly.
- We need to take the iron grates that are usually used for grilling, spread the mushrooms on them in one layer and put them in the oven.
- Set the temperature in the region of 60-70 ° C and, if necessary, slightly open the oven door.
- Every 15-20 minutes, the grates need to be swapped so that all the mushrooms dry equally well.
You need to dry until the moment until they decrease several times. At the same time, they should not be oily to the touch, but dry.
Important! Do not raise the temperature, otherwise you will bake the mushrooms, and not dry.
In an electric dryer
Perhaps the highest quality product you get if you dry it in. Of course, the technique will not replace all the delights of natural drying, but you certainly cannot spoil the products.
- The raw material is cleaned and cut into thin plates. Choose the thickness yourself, but take into account the fact that if the product is small, then cutting it into too thin slices does not make sense.
- Everything is laid out in one layer on each tier of the dryer, the temperature is set to 55 ° C.
- We wait from 2 to 6 hours until our mushrooms are completely dry.
As a rule, absolutely all mushrooms can be dried in this way - both tubular () and lamellar, especially in such home conditions that do not make it possible to dry products in the open air.
in the microwave
Consider also the option of how to dry mushrooms in the microwave.
This is not to say that this is the optimal technique for drying, but in the absence of other options, it can also be used for our purposes.
- We clean and cut the raw material.
- We take a plate or a baking sheet that is suitable for a microwave oven. Ideally, of course, you need to use a wire rack, but in the absence of one, you can take any non-metal utensils.
- We lay out everything in a thin layer, set 100-180 W, and “dry” for about 20 minutes.
- After the specified time, the microwave must be opened for 15 minutes so that all the moisture comes out. Then close and repeat again.
- The optimal number of repetitions is 2-3 times, however, if the mushrooms are cut into thick plates, then it can be increased up to 4-5 times.
How to determine readiness
It is very difficult to determine readiness, therefore, in this case, only practice and experience are important.
Dried mushrooms have a high nutritional value, rich aroma and taste, perfectly retain their beneficial properties. With the help of an electric dryer, you can make a good supply of mushrooms for the winter, spending very little time on it.
To get a quality product, you need to know which mushrooms are suitable for drying, how to properly prepare, dry them, and, of course, how to store them properly.
Almost all edible mushrooms can be dried, but it is still better to use tubular types for this:
- white;
- boletus;
- boletus;
- boletus;
- flywheels.
In dried form, these mushrooms have a very pronounced taste, which cannot be said about lamellar species. Mushrooms or russula, mushrooms and chanterelles, after drying, acquire a slight bitterness, which is quite difficult to get rid of. Dried marsupials such as white truffles and morels have a very good taste. It should be borne in mind that during drying, mushrooms significantly lose weight, so the output is no more than 10% of the original volume.
Proper preparation
Mushrooms for drying must be freshly picked, without wormholes and rot. Old, with a dried hat or shriveled mushrooms should not be collected, and even more so dried. It is also not recommended to wash them before drying - this will prolong the drying time and worsen the taste of the finished product. It is enough to remove the leaves, the remnants of the earth and other debris from the mushrooms, and cut off the damaged areas with a knife. So that the surface does not darken when cut, the knife must be made of stainless steel.
Whole mushrooms are dried only in the air, but for the oven or electric dryer they must be cut into small flat pieces. At the boletus, the leg is not suitable for drying, so it is cut off to the very cap; in boletus and porcini mushrooms, only the bottom of the leg is removed, everything else is dried. Small mushrooms can be left whole or cut in half, and large ones can be divided lengthwise into four or five parts, the thickness of which should not exceed 10 millimeters.
Drying process
An electric dryer is the best option for harvesting forest gifts. Thanks to a well-thought-out design, drying mushrooms takes little time, does not require constant presence and control. Having set the required temperature and time, you can go about your business while the equipment is working. So, each tier of the electric dryer is filled with chopped mushrooms in one layer, the pieces are straightened and leveled. Set the temperature to 55 ° C, time - from 2 to 6 hours.
The thinner the plates are cut, the less time it takes to dry the mushrooms in an electric dryer. To speed up the process, you can periodically swap pallets. It should be borne in mind that a small amount of cutting dries much faster, so if you put two or three pallets in the electric dryer, and not all five or six, you need to check the readiness after two hours, otherwise you can overdry the contents.
It is not difficult to determine the degree of readiness of forest gifts: if the pieces are slightly springy when bent, do not break, look completely dry, the electric dryer can be turned off. If the plates bend very easily and look a little damp, they need to be dried further. Too overexposed mushrooms become very hard, darken, and can crumble into pieces. They are not suitable for cooking, but they are suitable for preparing mushroom powder: grind overdried pieces in a coffee grinder, add 10% of ordinary salt and mix thoroughly. The resulting mixture is poured into a glass dish and tightly closed.
Storage rules
It is known that mushrooms easily absorb foreign odors, improper storage can completely ruin this product. So, after drying, the mushrooms need to be cooled to room temperature and put in glass jars or cardboard boxes. The room where they are stored must be dry and well ventilated. Permissible air humidity - 70%, in more humid rooms, the workpieces will mold.
Instead of cardboard boxes, gauze bags can also be used for storage, hanging them from racks or hooks on the wall. Periodically, dried mushrooms need to be sorted out, throwing out rotten or moldy pieces. As a rule, they are stored for no more than a year, then the taste quality decreases, the aroma disappears.