I used to live in Boston's North End, where I would walk home from work and see vendors making pasta from scratch. So I borrowed a few techniques from them. There are a couple of methods: flat versus nest. For flat drying (which works best for fettucine), I get a few clean dish towels (the flat kind, not the nubby terrycloth) and dust the surface completely with flour. As I crank out the pasta, I lay it flat on the towel until there is no more room. Then I dust the top of the pasta lightly with flour, lay a clean towel on top, and continue. The pasta can sit like this at room temperature for several hours. During this time it will harden, but it won't yet be dry enough to put in bags. Once it has hardened, it's easier to handle. At this point, I gently remove the pasta to perforated pizza pans, metal drying racks (the kind you put cookie sheets on when they come out of the oven), or any other vented surface available. In the summer, I move everything into the back of my station wagon and it's like a giant dehydrator. In the winter, I put it near our wood stove.
For nest drying, which works best for angel hair and thin spaghetti, I use the same drying process as above. But after laying the first batch out onto the floured towel, I lightly coil the pasta so that it takes on the shape of a bird's nest. It has to be handled lightly so that there is enough air in between the layers to help the pasta to dry; you don't want it packed down. You can fit several nests onto a dry towel. If you run out of room, start a new towel but don't place one on top of the other or you'll squash the nests.
My test for 100% dryness is to snap drop one or two of the noodles onto a kitchen counter. When it hits, you should hear a clicking sound as if the noodles were made of plastic. Break the noodle in half. You want to an audible snap. If you're still not sure, put a few noodles into a zip-lock bag and seal. if you see any condensation inside the bag after a couple of hours, it's not ready to be bagged.
