Food dehydrator

[sako2]

Those that are wet tumbling how long does it take for a food dehydrator to dry the brass?

[Marco Califo]

I find that my FARTed brass tends to dry in the strainer before I get the pins completely separated. I use several brass sifters. The pins are more bothersome than the water. I have dehydrator available, but dont use it. You absolutely need the magnet gizmo for collecting the pins.
I think I should invest in a pin separator.
You really want to use RO water in your wet tumbler.
I dont see any point in drying brass that still has pins.

[brasscollector]

Not sure how long it would take at a minimum but after an hour mine has completely dried the brass, regardless of how much I have to dry.

[jpx2rk]

I use a WM food dehydrator, has a variable temp so it really depends on how high I turn the thing up. On the highest temp, after about 30 minutes, the brass is hot enough to where I don't want to hold very long at all. I usually run it at least an hour or longer just to make sure it's dry. During the summer months, I leave the brass on the driveway for several hours.

I use a FA wet/dry media separator that does a good job IMO of separating the brass and pins while rinsing the brass in one of the tubs.

[BJung]

I don't wet tumble but why don't you just put the brass in a toaster oven or your oven? The brass is clean.

[sako2]

I don't wet tumble but why don't you just put the brass in a toaster oven or your oven? The brass is clean. The wife would kill me.

[big al hunter]

The wife would kill me.

Fair enough....but she doesn't mind that you use the food dehydrator?

I got an old used toaster oven. Set at the lowest temp with the door slightly open it gets dry within an hour. I know it is about as hot as my food dehydrator. But my wife would take a rolling pin to me if I used it on brass...

[CommandoX]

Like a couple others have said, 1 hour seems to usually be enough. If I have all the trays (5) really loaded I'll run it for 2 hours.

[Unclenick]

Be careful about the toaster oven. It is totally capable of getting hot enough to anneal the case heads. I did that once as a test with some 45 Auto brass, and while they did not blow out with the mild target load I was shooting, the headstamp lettering quickly peened over and filled in, so the brass was pretty soft and not to be trusted with full pressure loads.

How hot you can safely heat the brass depends on the exposure time. For two hours you should be plenty safe if you stay below 450°F. You don't actually need anything above the boiling point of water, so I would set the oven for 250°F and know that if the thermostat accuracy or hysteresis is high enough to take it up an extra 100°F (and I've seen that happen with toaster ovens) I still have a generous safety margin. But I would have an independent thermometer in there, at least the first time I tried it.

With standard rinsing or if you don't clean or rinse well enough to remove every last trace of lead, putting it on the same tray you use for food is not a good idea. That tray may well have baked-on oil residue anyway, so I would line it with foil to be sure you don't get contamination in either direction.

[hounddawg]

You can make a case dryer with a box and a incandescent light bulb for a heat source. Punch or drill a few holes for air flow. Cheap and no chance of food contamination or annealing the cases.

[Kram]

I do a final rinse in RO/DI water and then lay em out on an old towel with a small fan blowing at em.
The purified water rinse really leaves the cases free of any water deposits..

[markr6754]

I have a 5 level food dehydrator that I commandeered for brass drying. If my brass was decapped prior to wet tumbling then I normally set it in the medium setting for 45 minutes. That has always been sufficient to dry the brass, even with all 5 racks filled.

I pre-cleaned a lot of 300 Blackout and 9mm brass in Ultrasonic cleaner. I didn't decap before hand as I prefer to re-size at the same time. I set these cases into the dehydrator for 1 1/2 hours, and despite this, I still had some wetness when I popped the primers. I'm guessing another 30 minutes, 2 hours total, would have take care of it.

Thus, it depends on whether you wet tumbled your cases with or without primers.

My only issue with using a food dehydrator for drying brass is the gaps in the trays is perfectly sized for 380ACP and .223 Rem or 300 Blackout to fall through. I've considered buying a screen window repair kit to line the trays, but it hasn't been a big enough pain (yet) to go through with the expense.

The nice thing about the food dehydrator is after blowing hot air over the brass, 5 or 10 minutes on air only setting cools them right down for immediate handling.

[sako2]

The dehydrator would only be used for drying brass.

[big al hunter]

Be careful about the toaster oven. It is totally capable of getting hot enough to anneal the case heads.

Yes definitely. I tested the first load with small handful of garbage brass. After an hour on the lowest setting I could still hold the brass in my bare hand.... probably around 120 to 130 degrees.

With standard rinsing or if you don't clean or rinse well enough to remove every last trace of lead, putting it on the same tray you use for food is not a good idea. That tray may well have baked-on oil residue anyway, so I would line it with foil to be sure you don't get contamination in either direction

As I use the same oven for powder coating it has been retired from use with food. The trays are either covered with a silicone baking sheet or were built for the oven with new sheet metal. And they are dedicated to the reloading process. I am also very conscious of cross contamination. Especially with powder coating. The residue inside the oven can transfer to food cooked in the oven after powder coating. If an oven is used for powder coating it should never have food prepared in it again. Powder coating can be toxic if ingested.

[T. O'Heir]

It takes 15 minutes in your regular oven set at the lowest temperature. That'll be 'warm' or about 170 to 200 F.
Most food dehydrators don't go anywhere near 170F. Food dehydrates at about 130F.
Toaster ovens are basically small regular ovens. They'll go to about 450F to 500F. Kind of small for drying cases.
Brass starts annealing at a bit under 500F(usually the highest temperature a regular oven goes to). It takes longer at 500 than 600F. 600F for a hour anneals brass.

[Grey_Lion]

Being in Texas - I've only ever air dried the brass after doing a manual sort of SS pins from the brass on a towel..... Between the heat and the AC, I have no need to do anything else. I don't put it in a tupper for a couple days. When it does go into a tupper, it goes in w/ a dryer packet.

[JKP]

After patting dry a few seconds in a towel I put mine in an old toaster oven for 20 minutes at 150 degrees. I made 3 trays out of 1/4" wire cloth and can dry 350 9mm.

[hounddawg]

Just tried something. Washed appx. .260 Rem 100 cases and put them in a small oven proof bowl, popped them in a convection toaster oven set at 225. After ten minutes I opened the oven and the cases were at 207 according to my infrared thermometer. Took them out and let them cool and not a drop of H2O to be found. It is fast and effective method if you are ever in a hurry to get some cleaned and dry. As long as you keep the temps below 350 there is little chance of annealing

The grain structure of the brass begins to change - indicating the start of annealing - at just under 500 degrees Fahrenheit. At 600 degrees F, brass will anneal in one hour. At 800 degrees F, brass will take only a few seconds to anneal.

http://www.massreloading.com/anneali...0be%20annealed.

and after an hour of wet cleaning I doubt there could be enough chem contamination from the convection to alarm even a EPA bureaucrat