Drying fruit is the best way to preserve and eat fruit when we do not have the opportunity to eat it fresh.
A dried fruit essentially remains with the same composition of nutrients and active ingredients as the fresh fruit, only it has been dehydrated and the water present has been eliminated with the drying method.
Drying methods: manual and by dryer
The manual drying procedure requires optimal climatic conditions to avoid the risk of mold and deterioration .
This method is commonly used in the south of Italy for example for the drying of tomatoes that are transformed into the famous natural dried tomatoes or preserved in oil.
This natural technique has been known since ancient times in the lands of the south and takes place in the open air on racks and frames where the halved tomatoes are placed and in the duration of a day exposure to the strong summer sun allows the complete drying of the fruit. Surely if we tried this method in different conditions with high humidity and in different seasons from the summer we will not get proper drying.
Manual drying is therefore limited to those places that have little humidity, complete exposure to the sun for the whole day and only for some types of fruit .
Drying using electric dryers is more professional even if there are small domestic dryers that give excellent results.
In this case, the dryer is a container of variable dimensions in a horizontal or vertical position in which drawers are prepared with washable grids on which the pieces of fruit to be dried are placed and in which it is possible to adjust the temperature and the drying time.
Usually the fruit needs at least 50 degrees and depending on the size requires different times. Moreover some dryers have fans that help drying with the movement of air.
At home it is possible to try the common home-made oven if it has a minimum temperature of 50 ° C, making sure that the fruit is dried and not cooked at a higher temperature.
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Size of fruit pieces
Each millimeter of fruit thickness takes 2 or 3 hours to be dried properly, so drying times will go from a minimum of one day to several days, depending on how the fruit pieces will be cut .
Large fruit such as bananas, pineapples and papayas are all to be cut into uniformly sized slices to ensure a homogeneous result and proper drying in all its parts.
For medium-sized fruit, on the other hand, like tomatoes, prunes and apricots, it is sufficient to cut in half to obtain two pieces that will dry a little longer.
Small fruits such as cherries, sour cherries, strawberries and all berries can be dried in their entirety, but require a previous blanching in boiling water for a few seconds to lower the bacterial load and maintain better conservation.
Advice for proper drying and storage
These drying methods must comply with the procedure and guarantee an optimal drying to avoid alterations, rotting, mold and other problems of poor storage.
Proper drying requires the elimination of 90% of water from the fruit and the consistency of the finished product is dry and almost crisp to the touch.
The preservation of dried fruit should be done in closed containers, away from light and better if made of glass or ceramic because the metallic materials react more easily with organic substances.
Contact with the air must be avoided because there may be humidity which would lead to hydrate the dried fruit, compromising the product with the risk of alterations and mold.
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Advantages of dried fruit
From the healthy point of view, dried fruit has almost the same benefits as fresh fruit, although much more concentrated precisely because there is no water. Usually the dried fruit is immersed in water for a few hours so that the fruit pieces rehydrate and return to a composition almost identical to fresh fruit. Let's think about the dry raisins we use for desserts that sometimes rehydrate to soften it or we taste it so naturally dried.
The fruit contains an average of 80 to 95% of water and consequently a fruit once dried will weigh much less, with a yield of 20 to 5% in the finished product. The percentage of calories and nutritional substances will thus be much more concentrated and therefore the amount of dried fruit will have to be much lower .
The reduction in volume in dried fruit is just one of the advantages due to the strong concentration of nutritional substances (proteins, starches, vegetable fats, mineral salts and vitamins) in low weight and with excellent shelf life over time if kept in optimal conditions.
On the contrary, fresh fruit needs to be bought very often because it deteriorates quickly, needs to be stored in suitable places and requires space.
The dried fruit, on the other hand, once dehydrated is easy to preserve, to take with you during the day and maintains its properties for a long time.
In conclusion we try to dry the fruit especially when it happens to have bought too much, or in the moments of the year when there is surplus of fresh products.
The drying method allows us to bring all the advantages of eating summer fruit or other seasons throughout the year and the body will benefit from it due to the wealth of nutrients.
