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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Rosemary Herb, Grow, Dry, Crush

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how-to-dry-rosemary-herb


If you like the flavor of Rosemary herb (especially delicious on chicken and poultry), no matter what time of year, you can benefit from growing and processing (dry) your own Rosemary.
I have to say, home grown dry crushed Rosemary tastes SO much better then grocery store spice-in-a-jar Rosemary. You will never go back once you start growing your own.
If you live in regions where temperatures drop much below freezing during the winter, you can still grow your own Rosemary in a pot, inside. Pick one up at a nursery. During the winter the Rosemary plant will need at least 6 hours of sunlight each day to survive, so either a proper facing window or grow light will be required.

How to dry Rosemary herb leaves

The process to dry your own is very simple. Snip a few sprigs (branch sections). I will typically snip 3 or 4 tips of branches, each about 6 to 8 inches long. In the end, this will provide about a half ounce of dry Rosemary leaves.
Hold the sprigs and bunch up one end and tie them all together at the end with a string, so you can hang it. Then, hang it (I hang Rosemary indoors and out of direct sunlight). So long as the environment isn’t terribly humid, it will dry out just fine.
After about 2 weeks, or whenever the leaves easily come off the branch when handled, scrunch each branch with your hand so that the Rosemary leaves will fall into a bowl.
Then, pick up handfuls and crush the leaves until they are as small as you prefer. When the leaves are dry enough, they will split into smaller pieces easily when crushed . Otherwise you could use a mortar and pestle and crush them using the tool.
I store mine in a small jam sized canning jar to keep it fresh. After several months it will lose some potency, but that’s not a problem – just dry some more!
You can even order a Rosemary Plant online.


Here is a short video of the process
Click here to view the embedded video.



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1 comment:

  1. Its a nice Blog. Light intensity from LED growing lights is a big change also. The spectrum provided for the Hydroponics plants is, again, more like growing your plants outdoors in soil and sun.

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