Posted by: Off the Grid Girls | June 10, 2008

Vegetable and Fruit Drying Guide

Vegetable Drying Guide


 All vegetables except onions and peppers,and mushrooms should be washed, sliced, and blanched. Dry vegetables in single layers on trays. Depending of drying conditions, drying times make take longer.

  • Beans, green:Stem and break beans into 1-inch pieces.Blanch. Dry 6-12 hours until brittle.
  • Beets: Cook and peel beets. Cut into 1/4-inch pieces. Dry 3-10 hours until leathery.
  • Broccoli: Cut and dry 4-10 hours.
  • Carrots: Peel, slice or shred. Dry 6-12 hours until almost brittle.
  • Cauliflower: Cut and dry 6-14 hours.
  • Corn:Cut corn off cob after blanching and dry 6-12 hours until brittle.
  • Mushrooms: Brush off, don’t wash. Dry at 90 degrees for 3 hours, and then 125 degrees for the remaining drying time. Dry 4-10 hours until brittle.
  • Onions: Slice 1/4-inch thick. Dry 6-12 hours until crisp.
  • Peas: Dry 5-14 hours until brittle.
  • Peppers, sweet: Remove seeds and chop. Dry 5-12 hours until leathery.
  • Potatoes: Slice 1/8-inch thick. Dry 6-12 hours until crisp.
  • Tomatoes: Dip in boiling water to loosen skins, peel,slice or quarter. Dry 6-12 hours until crisp.
  • Zucchini: Slice 1/8-inch thick and dry 5-10 hours until brittle.

Fruit Drying Guide

All fruit should be washed,pitted and sliced. Arrange in single layers on trays.

  • Apples:Peel, core and slice into 3/8-inch rings, or cut into 1/4-inch slices. Pretreat and dry 6-12 hours until pliable.
  • Apricots: Cut in half and turn inside out to dry. Pretreat and dry 8-20 hours until pliable.
  • Bananas: Peel, cut into 1/4-inch slices and pretreat. Dry 8-16 hours until plialbe or almost crisp.
  • Blueberries: Dry 10-20 hours until leathery.
  • Cherries: Cut in half and dry 18-26 hours until leathery and slightly sticky.
  • Peaches: Peel, halve or quarter. Pretreat and dry 6-20 hours until pliable.
  • Pears: Peel, cut into 1/4-inch slices, and pretreat. Dry 6-20 hours until leathery.
  • Pineapple: Core and slice 1/4-inch thick. Dry 6-16 hours until leathery and not sticky.
  • Strawberries: Halve or cut into 1/4-inch thick slices. Dry 6-16 hours until pliable and almost crisp.

Posted in Food Storage

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Responses

We are planing to start a Vegetable (Kales, Spinach, Cabbage, Carrots etc) drying plant. Kindly give us information on the processes abd equipment.

Rgds,

By: Charles Mwania on September 9, 2008
at 5:03 am

Hi Charles,
Here’s some info that I hope will be of use for you.

Pick your produce at its peak and work quickly to prevent spoilage and to help preserve the colour and taste.

Prepare your vegetables as if you were going to serve them. Wash well, trim, cut, chop or slice.

There are three methods used for dehydrating vegetables: Sun dried, electric dehydrator or oven.

Sun Dried Vegetables
Sun drying can be a bit of a gamble. Unless you live in a climate that is a consistent 90°F (32°C) with low humidity for a guaranteed 3 days in a row, you risk your produce growing moldy.

Once the drying starts, it cannot stop until finished. So don’t let your vegetables cool again until they’re done.

But if you do live in an area where you get several scorcher days in a row, use it to your advantage, save electricity and use the sun for dehydrating vegetables.

Electric Dehydrator for drying vegetables
Stand alone dehydrators are excellent, but only if you use them! Many people purchase and do a couple of loads, then forget about them. So think hard about it before you spend your hard earned money on one.

Oven dried vegetables
So we’re left with the oven. It’s almost certain that you have one, so nothing new to buy. It is time consuming and a little fiddly, but gives a great result.

A home oven will only dry small quantities at a time — up to 6lbs (2.72kg) pounds of produce, depending on the number of racks you have; so don’t be preparing bushels of veggies at a time!

Set the oven at the lowest temperature and preheat to 140°F (60°C). Drying vegetables at oven temperatures higher than 200°F (93.3°C) will cook them or possibly scorch them. If you are uncertain of the temperature, put a separate oven thermometer on a rack you can see, and check the temperature approximately every half hour.

Lay out your vegetables on stainless steel screen mesh or wooden frames covered in cheesecloth. Cookie sheets are the least preferred option, because the air should circulate around the food, but if do use cookie baking trays, then put down baking paper first, and turn your vegetables once or twice during the drying process.

Also, having the food sit next to metal sheets may transfer a metallic taste. Using other types of metal materials may react with the food, so please don’t.

Load up the veggies. Doing trays of items similar in size will keep the drying even.

For instance, pumpkin and potato might be a good mix. Try not to mix strong flavored items as the flavor may transfer from one vegetable to another.

Keep the oven door open about 3 inches or so during drying. It is vital that the temperature is maintained no lower than 140°F (60°C) and that the moist air can escape.

Most ovens don’t have even heat throughout, so move the trays around frequently to ensure even drying and stop any scorching.

When dehydrating vegetables, plan to allow drying time of between 4 and 12 hours. Some vegetables get brittle when dry, and some, like tomatoes, just go pliably hard. If you press a finger into the middle of a dried piece of vegetable it should not leave any residue on you.

When cool, store in a moisture-proof container. Dehydrated vegetables will keep indefinitely in the fridge.

To use, just add them to soups and sauces as they are, or reconstitute (cover them in a container with water 2:1 ratio) for approximately 2 hours before using.

Once your veggies are dehydrated, you can crush them up into powders or leave as is.
If you have a food processor, drop your veggies into it and pulse until the veggies reach the desired state.
If you don’t have a food processor, you can put your veggies in a ziploc bag and smack ‘em with a hammer a few times or use a rolling pin..rolling over them until they crumble up.
Another option is a mortar and pestle.

Hope that this helps. If you need anymore help, give us a holler!

Blessings,
Cordi

By: Off the Grid Girls on September 9, 2008
at 5:56 am

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