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How do grind down dried Oregano/Basil

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Integraoligist

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Was wondering what the best way is to grind down dried Oregano/Basil leaves to table salt size?
One of my spice blends includes Oregano, Salt, pepper, garlic and so on… that I have in a regular parmesan style shaker.

Problem is, all of the finer items (like the salt & pepper) fall through the shake first, leaving the larger items (like the dried oregano) still in the shaker. So I figure if there is a way to cut the size down, they should all fall the same and the blend wouldn’t be different every time you tasted it!

Thoughts?

O yes, one of my bright ideas was to put the oregano leaves into a blender so the blades would chop them up… didn’t work out to well lol :lol:
Thanks all!
 
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If I was doing it at home I’d just use a mortar and pestle, but that might be labor intensive if you need to do a lot of it.

Have you tried a small food processor? Same idea as the blender but the design is much more conducive to what you’re trying to do, and the blades are a h*ll of a lot sharper. Target has one online for 13 bucks.
 
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Just use the ‘pulse’ switch on the food processor, not continuous…small amounts…1/3 of the container - no more…
 
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Have you tried just buying it already ground? There are many companies that sell both. International Spice Company is where I get most of mine. I used to buy from Fuches but they require large orders and I was wasting so much spice that aged too long.
 
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Ground herbs mat be an option with several considerations:
  1. use weight/mass measures
  2. ground spices and herbs are stronger in flavor due to more surface area to taste
  3. use a salt shaler as the great big holes on cheese shaker will overwhelm the guests
Have you considered using the slotted shaker lids usually for pepper flakes (3 slots)? Instead of performated cheese shaker lids?

If doing it yourself, pulse in smaller batches is defintely the way to go. I would use my electric coffee grinder like they have in the grocery stores to grind 1# bags of beans. Not everyone has one, though. Putting the herbs into a regular table top pepper mill/grinder may also work for you to give to customers . . . I haven’t tried it, though . . . may be too lightweight to grind that way.
 
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Integraoligist:
O yes, one of my bright ideas was to put the oregano leaves into a blender so the blades would chop them up… didn’t work out to well lol :lol:
Thanks all!
Click to expand...
Hey, thats the first thing I thought of too when I read this post. What happened, are the blades of the blender to fat and unable to reduce the oregano down to a powder?
 
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thanks all for the responces… yes i tried a small food processor as well, just pulsed it for a good amount of time but it did’nt seem to actualy cut the dried leaves at all. Just pushed them around.

I did NOT know that you can get those already ground! I thought the dried leaves were the smallest Oregano and Basil came. I’ll contact my distributors about this asap, that will save a LOT of hassle.

I was thinking of useing a Blackpepper type table grinder… I will have to grab mine and test it out.

And yes, i did try the slotted red pepper style shakers… seemed to be a little bit better then the holed parm. shakers but pretty much did the same thing, just let most of the small spices flow through before the flakes.

As far as a coffee grinder, I never thought of it… nor do i have one i can test. First i’ll test the pepper grinder and it that actually works i’ll buy a coffee grinder, i assume it would do the same thing but at least it will be decent size batches.

Piper, are you reffering to a Muddler? I was thinking of that as well, but what a PITA that would be to do all the time 8)

Also, I was thinking of adding grated Romano to a spice blend, but when i test it, it seems to cake up. I have a decent amount of salt in the mix… but it dosent seem to have an effect. Other then putting a bit of white rice in there to pull out the moisture, what could I do? I dont want to grind this stuff down then have to put rice in there, w would’nt look to appealing, at least not to me.
 
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well the coffee grinder idea works! but i left it in there to long and made it into a fine powder. I just have to becarefull with my timing so that it comes out with a salt consistancy.

On the upside, i think it cut the parmasan more as well or everything else just “coated” the parm because there has not been any clumping issues.

Thanks all!
 
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