Condition the dried strawberries
Even after the strawberries are correctly dehydrated there may still be some residual moisture in the fruit that you can't feel.
Ads
Fresh Strawberries
Drying Oven
Freeze Dried Product
Dried Cranberries
Food Preservation
This shouldn't be enough to prevent the fruit from being safely preserved and mold-free. But you'll have a tastier, better product if you do what is called "conditioning" the dried fruit.
Put the dried, cooled strawberry pieces into glass jars, only filling the jars about 2/3 full. Cover the jars. Shake the jars a couple of times a day for one week. This redistributes the fruit pieces as well as any moisture they may still contain. If any condensation shows up on the sides of the jars, your fruit isn't dried well enough yet and it needs to go back into the oven at 200F for another 30 to 60 minutes.
Once your dried strawberries are conditioned, store them in airtight containers away from direct light or heat. I prefer to use non-plastic food storage containers. It's okay to fully fill the jars at this point: the 2/3 full was just for the conditioning phase when you needed to be able to shake the pieces around.