drying and harvesting fresh amaranth?

[kaybee]

anyone had any experience with this? i grew some amaranth in my greenhouse, its the end of the season now plus i need the space for winter greens, so i pulled it all up. i broke off the tops with the seed heads on them, but theyre not dry enough for the seeds to come off yet...thinking of hanging them on a rope in my trailer? but then how do i separate seed from flower petals/pieces? for drying, i have thought of using my dehydrator but the amaranth tops are huge, i think it would take forever with as little as i could put in at once

also, some of the seed tops are dried but appear to have a dried-mould appearance on some of the outer flowers... will washing the seeds after they have been separated out make the amaranth safe to use? its not the grains that are visibly mouldy when they come out, just some of the flowers. not wet mould either, just sort of oldish dried looking, potentially mouldy. i had alot of problems with mould in the greenhouse this summer because of inadequate ventilation due to keeping it closed up becuase of the rabbits. i hate to trash all of this stuff as i allowed it to take up significant valuable space all summer....

thanks

kaybee

[spicyfull]

I would cut the Flowers off and leave them on paper to dry, outside would be nice, if not possible, in an open area. Once they are really dry, crumble the seeds out and store. If you are getting mold, they are not getting enough air circulating around them.