What berries can be dried, preparation, natural drying, forced drying, how to properly store and use dried berries. Mushrooms and Berries Blog

Home-dried wild strawberries are used to make cakes, desserts, and drinks. By adding a few berries to tea, you can enjoy not only the wonderful taste, but also the aroma of a forest glade.

In folk medicine, an infusion of dried berries and leaves is used internally for diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, urinary system and as a general tonic, as well as externally for the treatment of wounds, ulcers, acne.

In order for the berries to be preserved for a long time, it is very important to properly prepare them.

Strawberries are not washed before drying, they are simply cleaned of debris.

How to dry strawberries in the oven

If you have opted for an oven, the cooking process will proceed as follows.

The oven is heated to 35°C. The fruits are evenly spread in one layer on a baking sheet, placed in the oven. Within an hour, the berries will dry out.

After that, the temperature in the oven can be increased to 60°C and the strawberries can continue to dry in the oven. This will usually take a couple more hours.

This is the most affordable way to dry these berries for the winter at home.

How to air dry strawberries

The process of drying strawberries in the fresh air will take a little longer and require some effort.

The fruits must be laid out in one layer, but loosely, on some natural fabric.

Strawberries should be outside all daylight hours. As soon as dusk sets in, the berry should be brought home.

The duration of drying the berries in the fresh air will be 2-3 weeks.

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Small field berries can be dried with twigs, gathered together with leaves in bouquets. They need to be washed in cool water, tied in bunches and hung with the berries down in a ventilated shaded place. When the strawberry bouquets are dry, you can break them up and put them in jars for storage.

How to dry strawberries in an air grill

In the air grill, drying takes place in a special mode at a temperature of 45-60 degrees and an average blowing speed.

When using an air grill, it is not you who is responsible for the process, but the device. Grab your groceries and go about your business.

The drying time in an air grill is several times shorter than in an oven, since air circulation is extremely active. However, the air grill is not designed to drain moisture, so leave the lid ajar in any way convenient for you, for example, by inserting a toothpick or skewer.

The minus of the air grill is the size of the container, which is significantly inferior to the size of the oven. It will take several passes to dry. About 0.8-1.2 kg of berries are placed in the air grill, although after drying the finished product, 0.3-0.5 kg comes out.

The undoubted plus of the air grill is the speed of operation (3-4 times higher than that of the oven) and the absence of heat in the kitchen.

How to dry strawberries properly? They are placed in a 2-3 cm layer on a sieve and begin processing at 40-45 degrees, at the end of drying at about 60 degrees.

How to dry strawberries in an electric dryer

The range of electric dryers is quite wide, and therefore their principle of operation is different. It is worth reading the instructions carefully, since the drying time of strawberries can vary from 6 to 12 hours.

We spread the berries on clean pallets in one layer, preferably without touching each other.

Turn on the operating mode of the electric dryer, set the temperature within 50-55 degrees. Periodically check, if necessary, rearrange the pallets.

Properly dried berries do not stick together, easily crumble and separate from each other, do not secrete juice and do not stain hands.

Dried strawberries have a dark red color, its grains become shiny.

You can store ready-made berries in bags made of natural fabric. But it is best in tightly sealed dark glass containers. It is this container that will best prevent damage to raw materials by codling moth and other pests.

The shelf life of berries is no more than two years. At the same time, if the raw material begins to dampen, it is recommended to re-dry it.

Fresh berries and fruits contain up to 90% water, so they quickly wither, rot and deteriorate. If you reduce the water content in them to 18 percent, then they become resistant to microorganisms, stop spoiling, and can be stored for a long time. Studies show that dried fruits and berries retain all their beneficial properties for a long time. That is why people do not stop from year to year to dry berries and fruits at home. And how exactly, I will consider in my article.

Apples.

Consider first how to dry at home. Intolerant sweet and sour fruits that do not have watery pulp, light yellow and white, are best suited for drying. These can be varieties "Cinnamon", "Antonovka ordinary", "Pepin saffron", "Papirovka" and others). Sweet apples are not suitable for drying, as they are tasteless when dried, and besides, they do not boil well afterwards.

Before drying, all apples should first be sorted by size, then washed, discarded, removed the core and rot. Small apples are cut into halves, quarters or left whole, but large and medium ones are necessarily cut into 5 cm thick circles or slices.

Before drying, you can remove the peel from the apples. To prevent browning, slices and pieces must be kept for three minutes in an aqueous solution of table salt (100 grams of salt per 10 liters of water), and then dried in the sun. Dry the apples in the oven, oven, dryer.

At the same time, they need to be dried from 4 to 6 hours at 80 ° C. When 2/3 of the moisture has evaporated from the apples, the temperature is reduced to 50 ° C, in order to avoid burning the slices. Ready dried fruits are cooled on baking sheets.

Plums.

Before drying at home, its fruits must be blanched for 30 seconds in a boiling soda solution (100 grams of baking soda per 10 liters of water), and then dipped in cold water. Next, you should dry the plum in the oven for up to two days, at 45 ° C, and after 3 - 4 hours (after drying) - turn up the heat to 60 ° C, and then to 75 - 80 ° C.

In order for the plum to become dark and shiny, it must be held for several minutes at a temperature of more than 100 ° C until drying is completed. In this case, the sugar from the pulp will come to the surface and caramelize.

Berries.

Berries are best dried in a mixed way: first in the sun, and then dried in the oven. To dry for the winter, it must first be selected. After all, only dry, unripe raspberries are suitable for drying, while mature ones become sour. Sorted raspberries immediately after harvesting are laid out in a thin layer for drying in the sun. Then you need to dry the raspberries in the oven on a baking sheet for several hours in a non-hot oven. After drying, the blackened berries are discarded.

Before drying, small berries from dark-colored varieties should first be sorted out, washed, and folded into a 3 cm layer on a baking sheet. Gooseberries should be dried in the sun until dried, then they are dried in the oven, gradually raising the temperature from 45 to 60 degrees Celsius.

In order to prevent the fruits from steaming, it is better to keep the oven door ajar at first and close gradually during drying. Properly dried fruits (after 2-3 hours) do not secrete juice and do not stain hands.

How to dry berries currants?
How to dry berries?
How to dry fruits?
How to dry fruits strawberries?

Yes, in fact, just like drying berries in the oven, in the way described above. The only exception is . Her berries must be dried immediately in the oven.

How to dry rose hips.

To do this, they are harvested in late autumn, selecting large, hard red berries. Dry them in the shade in the open air or in a dry, warm, ventilated room, periodically turning over. Artificial drying is not desirable for them. For drying, it is better to cut the berries in half, remove the seeds and hairs. In this case, the shells of the berries or the berries themselves are laid out in one layer on paper or cloth.

How to dry hawthorn fruits.

For therapeutic purposes, the fruits of prickly hawthorn and are dried. The fruits are stored at maturity and until frost. Berries are dried in the sun or at 60°C in dryers. For this, 1 sq. m. scatter up to 5 kg of fruit and mix occasionally. Properly dried berries may have a whitish coating.

How to dry mulberries at home.

To do this, the berries are laid out in the sun on a fine grid. Every day, after sunset, the berries are brought into a dry room with ventilation and covered with a film. The next day, and so for 2 weeks, again dried in the sun.

To speed up their drying, they are dried for two days in the sun, as described above, and then dried in the oven at 25 degrees. Dried berries are stored in hermetically sealed glass jars.

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Which berries can be dried, how and at what temperature the berries are dried, where it is better to dry: in the oven, electric dryer or air grill - these are the most common questions that people who want to dry the berries at home have. In fact, you can dry almost any berries that only grow in Russia in the wild. Drying raspberries, blackberries, mountain ash, hawthorn, wild rose or lingonberries is not a big problem. You just need to know that drying each type of berry has its own special nuances from temperature to pre-treatment.

Preparing berries for drying

Before you start drying the berries, you need to carefully sort it out. Select damaged and spoiled berries. If these are halfberry, raspberry or blackberry berries, then we remove the stalks and sepals from them. Some berries can be dried with or without pits (for example, wild cherries or plums). If you want to dry without stones, then you need to take them out accordingly. Berries with seeds taken out will have abundant juice secretion, which must be disposed of. Berries that can be washed (currants, cherries, lingonberries, etc.) - washed under running water in a sieve. We spread the washed berries in one layer on a clean cloth in order to get rid of excess water as much as possible. Raspberries, blackberries, wild strawberries, etc. it is not worth washing, as they can soften and all the useful substances will come out with the juice of the berries.

Drying berries in the oven

If you have a gas stove with a good functional oven, then we won’t need such cool things as infrared electric dryers for vegetables and fruits or heaped food dehydrators that take up half a kitchen and eat up electricity. In this case, it is better to look for 1-2 additional oven trays. Berries are best dried a little in the sun. Spread the berries in a thin layer (in one berry). The oven door must be kept slightly ajar at all times. Begin drying the berries in the oven at a temperature of 40-45 degrees. When the berries are withered and stop releasing juice, the temperature is increased to 70-80 degrees. If your oven temperature gradation starts from 100-140 degrees, then regulation must be done using the door. Open the oven door more - the temperature will decrease, reduce the gap - the temperature will rise. In the process of drying the berries in the oven, it is necessary to ensure that the berries do not stick together, do not burn, do not dry out. A berry is considered ideally dried if it does not secrete juice, does not stain hands when squeezing berries, and does not turn into dust when pressed. Berries with such properties can be used for several years, and the taste of the berries will not be lost over time (with proper storage, of course).

Air drying berries

The sun is out, a light breeze is blowing, you live in a private house on the edge of a forest next to a beautiful lake. There are a lot of delicious juicy berries in the clearings and along the shores of the lake ... In this case, you don’t have to worry about how to dry the berries at all. Of course, in a natural way, with the help of the sun and the breeze. To do this, we prepare sheets of plywood, in which we make small holes for ventilation or special gratings and pallets. We choose a place, in partial shade or under a canopy, well-ventilated and lay out sheets with berries there. Shurudim the berries periodically so that the berries dry evenly. Naturally, we protect from rain and other troubles. How long it takes to dry the berries in this way depends, of course, on the weather, on what you dry, but that’s for sure at least five days. Under the berries of raspberries, blackberries and strawberries, it is best to put newspapers or paper. With a lot of wetting from the juice of berries, the paper must be replaced. Some berries (for example, wild rose or hawthorn) can be dried by stringing a needle on a thread. The berry beads obtained in this way are hung in suitable places. Drying time may be slightly longer.

Drying berries in electric dryers and dehydrators

Drying berries using modern methods is quite effective and the least labor-intensive. My personal opinion on these devices is expressed above. How to dry, it is written in detail in the instructions for the device. It depends on the capacity, the number of pallets, how much and what was loaded into the dryer.

How to store dried berries

Now in stores there are so many jars and boxes for storage that the question of how to store berries is irrelevant. Nevertheless, for storage we choose hermetically sealed containers (bottles, jars, tin boxes and whatever your heart desires). Store in a dark, dry and cool place. You can also choose a super-economical option for storing dried berries: plastic bags. Packages with berries should not be stored with strongly odorous or toxic substances. such as acetone, gasoline, naphthalene (what if?).

Every modern housewife should know how to dry fruits. These wonderful blanks will allow you to cook tasty and healthy compotes in winter, cook jam, bake pies and sculpt dumplings. today we offer you to learn how to dry berries, including stone fruits, various fruits and cutting them using a conventional household oven. those. for harvesting products, you do not need to buy a special electric dryer. Although this household appliance is very inexpensive, so if possible, be sure to purchase it. It pays off quickly.

Properly prepare fruits and berries for the drying procedure is the key to success. Well, no less attention should be paid to such a process as storage. Exposure in the oven, of course, ensures the safety of the product. But you also need to know the rules of storage.

Two ways to dry fruits

There are two drying methods: solar-air and fire. The first one is perhaps the easiest. Before drying the fruits, vegetables and berries are cut, strung on threads or laid out on plywood sheets or paper and placed in a sunny place: on the roof, balcony, veranda. As a rule, products dried in this way are of good quality.

However, this drying method requires a long time: 3-15 days. During drying, you need to make sure that rain, hail do not damage the workpieces.

Many gardeners and gardeners use a special device- solar dryer. It transmits the sun's rays well and at the same time protects products from dust and insects.

Fire drying is very reliable, although it requires a lot of attention and time. Vegetables, berries and fruits are dried under the influence of hot air, which is formed in ovens and special drying cabinets. The products are lined on sieves, baking sheets and dried in several stages at high temperature.

How to dry fruits and berries in the oven

Dried berries and fruits are an excellent substitute for fresh ones in winter. They make no less tasty compotes and desserts than fresh ones. Let's figure out how to dry berries correctly, retaining all the nutrients and vitamins.

Before drying fruits in the oven, you need to carefully sort out, discard overripe and unripe ones, remove tails, leaves and stalks. Then the fruits and berries are washed several times, put in a sieve or colander, dried on a towel, and only then they begin to dry.

Dried berries and fruits are kept for 2-3 weeks in wooden boxes to equalize the moisture in the berries. If mold appears during storage, this means that the product is not dry. Berries and fruits touched by mold should be washed well and dried again.

Store dried fruits and berries in wooden boxes, cardboard boxes, cloth bags or glass jars in a cool, dry place. To protect them from mold and the appearance of insects, they are dried 2-3 times a month at a temperature of 50 ° C for 1 hour.

How to dry fruits at home

We will analyze the secrets of how to properly dry fruits in detail using the most common apples, pears and plums as an example. The following describes how to dry fruits at home and what preparations should be taken.

Dried apples.

For drying, apples of sweet varieties with dense white pulp, mostly in autumn, are most suitable.

They need to be prepared: wash thoroughly or wipe with a dry cloth, remove the core. The skin can be cut off or left on.

Then cut them into thin slices, put them on plywood sheets, cover with gauze and dry in a sunny, well-ventilated place for 5 days. From time to time, apples need to be turned over. You can dry apples in the oven at a temperature of 70-80 ° C for about 6-10 hours, turning often.

Dried apples should be light yellow or reddish in color, elastic, should not break when bent or, conversely, release juice.

Dried pears.

For drying, only ripe, sweet fruits are used. Autumn and winter varieties of pears are not dried, as they turn out to be tasteless.

Pears are prepared in the same way as apples. Small-fruited pears can be dried whole, large ones - cut into thin slices or into four parts, remove the core.

Dry in the oven at a temperature of 80 ° C, then reduce it to 50 ° C, keeping chopped pears for 12-16 hours and whole pears for 20 hours. When drying, the fruits should be turned over from time to time.

Dried melons.

Before drying, stand melons for about 3 days in the sun. Then each is cut into two halves, removing the seeds with a wooden spoon and cut into slices 2-3 cm thick. Peel the sliced ​​slices, cut off the green parts, lay them out on plywood sheets and dry in a sunny place under clean gauze.

When the melon slices turn an amber or light brown color and become translucent, they are ready.

Stored in clean wooden boxes, the bottom of which is lined with parchment paper.

Dried apricots.

Whole apricots with a stone are called apricots, and halves are called dried apricots. Apricots can be dried in the sun and in ovens. Before drying, they need to be washed, laid out on a plywood sheet, covered with clean gauze and dried in a sunny, well-ventilated place for about 5 days. Dry the apricots in the shade.

When drying in the oven, put the fruits on sieves or baking sheets cut up and dry for 10-12 hours at a temperature of 70 ° C.

You can check the quality of dried apricots by squeezing them in your hand. Properly dried fruit after compression takes its original shape.

Dried plums.

Dried plums are called prunes. Delicious and sweet prunes are obtained from the Kirke, Montfort, Arton and President varieties.

To speed up the drying process, the plums are cut in half (and the pit is removed). Blanch whole plums before drying in a boiling soda solution for 1 minute and immediately dip in cold water to cool. Properly blanched fruits should have a barely noticeable mesh on the skin. Then spread the plums in one layer, halves - cut up.

First dry at a temperature of 50-60 °C, after 3-4 hours increase the temperature to 65-75 °C. During drying, plums should be periodically shifted.

Dried plums are especially tasty if you take them out of the oven every hour and cool them in the air. Well-dried prunes should be soft and elastic, no juice should be released when pressed.

How to dry berries at home

Before drying the berries at home, rinse them and dry them thoroughly in the open air.

Dried cherries.

Cherries are best dried in the oven. Before drying, it should be thoroughly washed in cold water, the bone can not be removed. Blanch in a soda solution, cool quickly under running cold water, spread out on sieves or baking sheets. First set the temperature to 40 °C, then increase it to 70 °C.

Dried cherries should be elastic, black-brown in color, juice should not stand out when squeezed.

Dried wild berries (strawberries, blackberries, raspberries).

Wash the berries in cold water, remove the tails, put on a sieve with a layer of 2-3 cm, place in the oven at a temperature of 40 ° C to dry for 2-3 hours. An hour before the end of drying, increase the temperature to 60 ° C.

If, after drying, the berries stick together and get your hands dirty, this indicates that they are not dried enough. In this case, drying should be resumed after airing the berries in the air.

How to dry fruits and berries is of interest to many people. After all, dried fruits are very pleasant to the taste, and almost all healthy substances are preserved in them.

There are two ways to dry fruits and berries: in the sun and at home using special devices.

How to dry fruits and berries in the sun

Of course, the method of drying in the sun is the most favorable, since the heat of the sun allows you to save vitamins and nutrients in the greatest amount.

All the berries and fruits that need to be dried are laid out in a thin layer on a sieve or a large stainless steel metal tray, you can still use sheets of plywood or tin for this, but they must have holes. This is necessary so that warm air can circulate freely and does not remain in the form of moisture under the fruits.

It is necessary to dry fruits and berries in this way for about 3-4 days, until they decrease in size and become dry. At this time, they must be periodically stirred and turned over, and at night they must be transferred to the room.

How to dry fruits and berries at home

You can dry berries and fruits at home in the oven, in the Russian oven, as well as in the electric dryer and air grill.

The most delicious way to dry fruit is oven drying

Dried fruits and berries in a Russian oven are very tasty. Despite the fact that the time of stoves has passed, nevertheless, they remained in many country houses.

The oven needs to be heated well, and after 1-1.5 hours, prepare for drying: remove coal and ash, check the temperature inside. This is done in this way - you need to tear a newspaper into small pieces or pour a handful of flour. If they quickly turn brown, it means that the oven is still very hot, and you should wait. In addition, you need to remember that you can’t put the bottom sieve or baking sheet directly into a hot oven, you must definitely put some slats 2-3 cm thick under them. When everything is ready (and you need to put the baking sheets quickly), the oven is tightly closed and opened damper in the pipe so that there is an outlet for moist air.

Well, for those who do not have a Russian stove, you can buy a worthy replacement for it - an electric dryer.

The modern way to dry fruit - in a dryer

In the dryer, you can dry not only the fruits of berries and fruits, but also mushrooms and medicinal plants. This method of drying allows you to save all the useful properties of the products, as well as preserve their natural color, taste and aroma.

Electric dryers are different, both in design and in their functionality. Some of them look a little like a multicooker.

The electric dryer is a device that has a plastic case, several baking sheets, a built-in thermostat and a fan. Dimensions vary by model and its main and optional features.

Drying berries and fruits in an electric dryer is quite simple. You just need to wash them, cut them into pieces and lay them out in an even layer on baking sheets and set the necessary parameters.

How to dry fruits and berries in the oven

An oven can also be used for the same purpose. It is necessary to dry the fruits in it at 70 degrees and for quite a long time - 10-12 hours. At the same time, it is necessary to periodically open the oven door so that moisture and condensate evaporate, if there is no special mode for drying berries. It should be noted that when drying some products, the temperature in the oven must be adjusted.

How to dry fruit in an air fryer

You can also use the air grill for drying fruits and berries. Only one rule should always be observed here. In order to prevent moist air from accumulating inside the device, you need to insert a skewer between the air grill cover and the body itself.

It is very good to dry apples in this way. For them, you need to choose a temperature of 50-65 degrees and high speed. The drying time depends on the number of apple pieces and their variety (juicy fruits take longer to dry).

As for the speed modes of the air grill, then at medium speed, hard vegetables should be dried, and at low speed, greens. And in order for the products to retain their natural color, you should not set the temperature above 120 degrees.

In addition, apples, mushrooms, vegetables can be laid out directly on the grates, and berries are best dried on a steamer.

And now let's briefly recall how to dry the fruits and berries that we most often use.

• Before any method of drying, the fruits should be carefully sorted out, spoiled, overripe or unripe should be removed.
• Apples need to be washed, cut into slices, cut out the core, but the skin can either be left or cut off.
• Pears for drying should be chosen juicy and sweet. Small fruits are dried whole, and large ones are cut into pieces.
• Berries are best dried in the sun, but this can also be done at home.
• Strawberries, blackberries and raspberries are not washed before drying, and raspberries are taken unripe so that they do not fall apart in the process.
• The fruits of any berries are placed in a 2-3 cm layer on a sieve and begin to dry at 40-45 degrees, at the end of drying at about 60 degrees, while raspberries are dried at 60-65 degrees for 2-3 hours.
• If the dried berries do not release juice when squeezed and do not get your hands dirty, then they are ready for storage.

It is advisable to store dried fruits in linen or paper bags so that air enters them. It is also necessary to sort and watch them from time to time so that various harmful insects do not start up.