River,

If you are drying them at about 140 to 160 degrees, it can take from 5 to 10 hours, depending on: how "juicy" they were to begin with, whether you leaves the seeds/seed gel in or squeeze it out (I leave it in), how many there are (I usually do 3 full oven racks at one time), the size of the tomatoes (smaller ones dry faster, obviously), and how much oil is on them (the more oil, the more time required). It also varies, depending on how dry you want the finished product. I dry them until they are pretty darn dry--once dry and cool, mine are about the same texture as a raisin.

When I drizzle them with olive oil, it takes a LOT longer for them to dry than when I dry them plain.

If you place the cut side up, they dry a lot faster too.

If you cut them into quarters instead of halves (for anything larger than a currant tomato), they'll dry faster.

If you have a convection oven and turn on the fan, they dry faster.

I like to dry them all night long. When you wake up, the house smells incredibly delicious. I like to pack them into zip-lock bags and store them in the freezer. You don't have to do that--you can store them in any airtight container in the pantry, but in order to be sure they don't mold, you have to remove almost every single bit of moisture in order to store them at room temperature. I like leaving a little moisture in so that they are "chewy" and not real "crispy" or "crunchy", so I just store them in the freezer.

You also can pack them into jars of olive oil and store them in the oil. I've never tried that, but many sun-dried tomatoes are stored that way and I am sure you could find directions at the GardenWeb Harvest Forum if you want to store them in olive oil. (Or you may find recipes at Allrecipes.com or recipezaar.com.)

One day I put 5 or 6 cookie sheets packed with cherry, currant and grape tomatoes into the convection oven and dried them all day long, and all night long, and part of the next day. I think I had put too much oil on them as it took them a million hours to dry. When I had to leave the house, I just turned off the oven and left for several hours and left the cookie sheets of tomatoes in the oven. When I returned, I turned the oven back on and finished drying them.

You can dry them at higher temperatures, but a lot of people feels anything over 140 or 150 gives them an "off" flavor. Some people say they dry them in as little as 3 to 5 hours at 250 degrees, but I've never tried it myself.

I have dried several thousand cherry, grape and currant tomatoes this summer and am looking forward to eating them in the winter months. For me, the hardest part is getting them from the cookie sheets to the zip-lock bags without eating vast quantities of them. : )

By the way, if you feel like you overdid it with the olive oil (and one way to tell is that they will be taking days and days to dry), just use paper towels to blot up the excess oil off the tomatoes and cookie sheets.

If there is a lot of variance in the sizes of the tomatoes you're drying, some will be done earlier than others and you'll have to remove them when they are dry enough, and then return the others to the oven to dry for a while longer.

I always let mine cool completely before I pack them into ziplock freezer bags because I don't want for condensation to form inside the ziplock bag.

Good luck,

Dawn

thanks Dawn, I'm heading for the oven rite now to sop up some olive oil. I figure it will take at least a day and a half. I'm drying mine on low heat.

You're welcome.

Good luck.

When I first started drying tomatoes, it took me 2 or 3 batches to really "get the hang of it" and feel confident, but they've all turned out well in spite of all the worrying and watching and waiting and second-guessing.

Nowadays, I can do it without really thinking about it! LOL

Dawn