# Smoked and/or dried mushrooms



## OFG (Oct 23, 2008)

Get your mushrooms together and ready to go. Mushrooms fresh from the field often require a good cleaning as you can see with this batch of chanterelles below.










Clean and slice. When cleaning its best to wipe away all the dirt rather than rinse them off, as excess water will cause the mushrooms to cook, If you do wash them be sure to dry them out as much as possible.










Place on removable racks in your smoker, and smoke until they seem nice and smoked, but not cooked, or burnt, they will steam, but try to keep your temperature fairly low. They will most likely need to be finished of in a dehydrator or in front of a fan.










Once smoked, finish the process with a fan on racks or in a dehydrator.










I often flip turn and rotate them as needed for complete drying, which should be fairly often. You can just dry mushrooms using this method, just omit the smoking portion.

I store mine in a glass jar, but they should be fine in a plastic bag as long as they are completely dry, if not they will mold, when dry they should be hard and sort of crispy.

Once dried they will last for quite a long while up to a few years, and can be reconstituted or ground into powder.

Enjoy

OFG


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## rainbowgardens (Oct 29, 2008)

OFG,
Thanks for your directions for smoking mushrooms.
I have a portabella kit that is on the brink of giving me loads of mushrooms. I would love to smoke some but I don't have a smoker, just a dehydrator.
We will be starting the fireplace up this week. I was wondering if I could get a good smoke affect by stringing them up and hanging them near the opening of the fireplace.
Anyone try this? I know I could build a fire outside and hang them over that, But I don't know how long I would need to let them smoke.
Thanks for any info.


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## OFG (Oct 23, 2008)

rainbowgardens said:


> OFG,
> Thanks for your directions for smoking mushrooms.
> I have a portabella kit that is on the brink of giving me loads of mushrooms. I would love to smoke some but I don't have a smoker, just a dehydrator.
> We will be starting the fireplace up this week. I was wondering if I could get a good smoke affect by stringing them up and hanging them near the opening of the fireplace.
> ...


Cool, I have yet to mess around with any of the grow your own kits.

A dehydrator will work fine for just drying your mushrooms. As far as hanging them near the opening to your fire place, probably won't get much smoke flavor unless you close the flue and smoke up your entire house. Not to mention good flavored smoking woods and what your firewood happens to be may not be the same.

I like to use hickory, but there are a number of woods that are good to smoke with, apple wood, cherry wood, alder, mesquite. etc Stay away from your softer woods and cedar.

You could certainly make a fire outside, In fact making an impromptu smoker would make a great thread. Old refrigerators make great ones. 55 gallon drums work well too, as long as it didn't have anything nasty in it.

Your better off slowing the smoke down in a container of some sort rather then just hanging your smokables above the fire. I typically use a very low heat fire that mostly just smokes.

Good Luck!


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