Dehydrating limes

I'm dehydrating a few bags of small limes (cut into eight slices each; skins, seeds, and all), and some tomatoes, currently. I think they're key limes, but I could be wrong. I plan to see if I can powder them. I wanted to dehydrate the peels separately, but they're very difficult to separate from the fruit.

The limes are still dehydrating (on 167° F.) The tomatoes appear to have been dry, or nearly so, for a long time. The limes take longer than the tomatoes, apparently. Each unit of flesh has its own skin; so, I'm guessing that's why it takes longer. I didn't cut against the slices, for the most part; so, that will probably make them take longer, too (but they'll probably retain more lime matter from the juice that way, too, since less escaped while slicing them into eighths). Either way, I'm not in a hurry, and it's nice that it keeps the house quite warm (when it's cold).

Okay, the limes are done, and I ground them into a lot more powder than I might have anticipated. It filled the non-standard-sized jar that I had (which I believe is larger than a pint, but smaller than a quart). Strangely, the powder doesn't look as green as the limes did. I ground the fruit, peels, seeds, and all. It worked.

The taste is kind of bitter, but it grows on you after a few seconds.

I want to dehydrate a box of Christmas oranges (hopefully organic, or at least *California ones) and powder them. I want to do the peels and fruits separately. If they're not organic, or California oranges, I probably won't dehydrate the peels.

I want to dehydrate grapefruit and pomello, too. Grapefruit has such nice peels. Same for pomello.

I'm excited to use the lime powder in food.

Note: I only filled less than three trays with limes to dehydrate. I think I got just over a pint of tomato powder from about six trays; so, to get more than a pint of lime powder from less than three trays is amazing.

*I read somewhere that they don't dye California oranges.



We need to get more plastic smallmouth jar lids.