This technique requires green cleaning, so your gourd must fit the criteria of being one that can be green cleaned without shriveling. We do this with everything from mini gourds, (which will actually dry in 2-3 days) to our 2-3 pound Hyakunari’s, which will dry in 4-5 days. We also have a method by which you can knock a few days off the drying process for these larger Hyakunari’s.

Once you have scraped and lightly scrubbed the skin off the gourd, set your oven to 175 degrees, and place your gourd inside the oven. Check your gourd once or twice per day, depending on how large they are will be a big factor in how long it takes them to dry. The first sign of the drying process is the surface will get lighter in color, and will turn tan. Once the entire shell is a tan color, the shell has dried, but there can still be a lot of moisture on the inside of the gourd.

The next factor is the weight of the gourd, a gourd that starts off at 2-3 pounds, will weigh ounces when it is dry. Keep checking until the gourd feels like it is about as light as you expect it will get, and hold it firmly by the top and shake it to se if you can hear the seeds rattling around. If it seems light enough but you do not hear the seeds yet, try hitting it into the palm of your other hand to break the seeds loose, if they do not break loose so you can hear them rattle, then it is not yet dry. If you can hear the seeds rattle, it still may not be fully dry, but with some experience you will be able to tell the sound of dry seeds and wet seeds, as the wet insides give a muffled should, more like hitting a sponge or blanket, while dry seeds have a nice crisp sound.