Discussion Board

I have two bumper crops of red currents, the black ones never make it - I eat them right off of the bush! I'd be using an oven. I keep reading about "pre-treating" with pectin. Has anyone actually done this? If so, how did you do it?

isn't pectin the thickener, used in jelly?

I think the whole darn berry is pectin , it "cleans" me out like nothing else I've ever eaten. I was wondering about the "pre-treating", is it for color? Is it even really necessary? I freeze my plums by just washing and removing the pits, the beeries I just wash and then freeze -but I've never dried anything before.

there is some stuff we get for keeping the color. I never used it to dry. I have a drying book that I purchased, since I'm new at dehydrating. I never have tried fruits though. Well, I did dry tomatoes last year (fruit or vegetable hehe)

Worfie, I don't know if this is too late to help, but we got out our dehydrator to do some herbs last night. Fresh currants isn't a fruit that is widely available in the US, they are not listed in my instruction manual. For the category "berries" is says "Preparation: Leave whole. For wax-skinned berries pre-treat by crazing. Test: leathery. Time: 10-15 hours." I didn't know what crazing meant, I found it under "Blanching". "Blanching, as a means of pre-treatment, can be done either in boiling water or by steaming the foods. This pre-treatment is sometimes referred to as "checking" or "crazing'. You can use this method most effectively on tough-skinned fruits (sometimes having natural protective wax coating) such as grapes, plums, cranberries, etc. By boiling fruits in water for 1 to 2 minutes, the skin "cracks" and allows the moisture to more readily escape, thus the drying time is faster." It them goes on to describe methods of blanching. There is also a section on dipping in sulfites to preserve colors.

Dehydrating time is the 10-15 hours.

For hard berries like cranberries you have to do a pre boil to get them to crack open.. but the rest just give them a dip in lemon juice and then put on the dehydrater and yep 10-15 hours to dry them.

I have done strawberry slices ... AWESOME flavor texture etc.

and cranberries... and blueberries.

I have not tried to do black berries or raspberries except as leathers and when you do them as leathers you may want to mix them with apple sauce.

Strawberries are wonderful dried. I just cut them and dry with no treatment.

I grow and dry lots and lots of blueberries. I've read about tried different techniques but what works best is no treatment at all. Just put the whole ripe berries onto dehydrator trays, put it at a lowish temperature (I prefer about 105 -110) and let them dry. Higher temps change the texture and taste of the fruits too much. Drying them this way takes days not hours. But with lots of berries coming off the bushes, that doesn't matter that much since partially dry berries are moved closer together, and fresh berries are put on other trays. You can do it faster, but IMO it ruins the end product.