Yes, I knew Brad was selling dried tomatoes. And yes, the 20 to 1 ratio is about right but of course, it depends on variety. Non-paste types have so much moisture it can take up to 35 lbs of fresh to get a pound of dry. I have chefs that want the black varieties and most of those are not paste types so it takes many more to get a pound and I charge more for them. Since I mainly grow types with few seeds, I find the seeds in dried, non-paste types to be much too prolific and I try to clean out as many as I can (thus making the whole process more labor intensive and more costly!) The seed cavities in non-paste types are much larger so there is a lot of "vacant" space per slice. I have started just cutting non-paste types in half to dry, unless they are very large, like Tula which I cut into 1" slices. You can see why I want one of the "Tomato Wizards" here to perfect a thick, meaty, few seeded black with a twang to the taste. Would make my life much less complicated and streamline my drying process for black varieities. I wanted to add that my recipe for drying includes soaking the sliced tomatoes in red wine for 24 hours. The non-paste types degenerate in the wine unless the slices are really thick (and I am sure Carolyn can explain why...must have something to do with acidity or amino acids...)
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