How to dry apricots at home

Dried apricots are considered to be the favorite delicacy of most people. Dried apricots retain useful properties even after heat treatment. Dried fruits are added to cereals, used as snacks for tea, they are decorated with desserts. Especially useful product is for diabetics and weight-lifting girls. Due to the large number of useful enzymes, delicacy normalizes glucose levels and improves digestion. To dry apricots, you must have basic knowledge.

Preparation of apricots for drying

1. Choose cultivated varieties of apricot. Wild subspecies (in common - “wilderness”) are not suitable for such manipulations. Pick sweet, not watery, ripe, dense fruit. Because in the process of boiling water, apricot will lose most of the liquid.Take care that the fruits are of late variety.
2. Before drying, sort out the apricots, get rid of rotten, damaged specimens. Remove the bones, chop the fruit in half, and do not forget to exclude wormy fruit. This is done to ensure that the larvae are not revived during the drying process. It is not recommended to wash the fruit cut in two.
3. To achieve a brighter shade during drying, you will need to send the fruit in a colander and hold the fruit over the steam for a quarter of an hour. You can do it another way by boiling 200 grams of syrup. sugar and 300 ml. water. Dip the lobules in the cooked mass for a few minutes. Take out, spread on a flat container, leave until full flow of the sweet paste.

Method number 1. Drying through household appliances

1. Electrodryer First read the instructions for the device, select a more suitable function. Then you should follow the basic rules of drying apricots. Spread the prepared fruit on trays, keeping a small distance, this move will prevent sticking. Next, set the temperature to 45 degrees and the duration of heat treatment for 2 hours.After this period, raise the temperature to 60 degrees, soak apricots for 5.5 hours. Then turn the power back down to 45 degrees again, after another 2 hours. The total duration of the procedure is about 10 hours.
2. Oven. In the absence of a special electric dryers, use a conventional oven. Consider that fruit needs constant supervision. Set the oven temperature to 65 degrees. Place the fruit on a baking sheet, send it to the oven. The process of languor will be about 9 hours. Do not forget to periodically open the door of the oven to drain excess moisture. Also, make sure that apricots do not overdry.
3. Dehydrator This method is the fastest and best. To begin, lay apricots cut to the grid. Next, set the temperature to 60 - 65 degrees, set the timer to 30 minutes. With this treatment, the fruits will be semi-rainy, semi-dry. The type of dried fruit depends on taste, if you prefer a more dried composition, extend the heat treatment to 45 minutes.

Method number 2. Sun drying

1. The method is considered more natural, since the fruits are dried in their natural environment under the rays of the sun.To do this, lay out the peeled fruit sliced ​​up.
2. Put cotton material on wooden pallets, send apricots to it in a free, unattached condition.
3. First, the apricots vyalyatsya in the shade about 4 hours. Next, they are laid out under the scorching ultraviolet rays to complete drying. After sunset, remove the fruit in the house, cover with gauze cloth. This is done so that insects do not damage the composition.
4. Have patience, because drying in this way takes about 10 days. When storing fruit between drying days, place the legs of the pallets in a cup of water, then the ants will not get to the apricots.
5. There is another way - the combined. Spread the prepared fruit in the sun, wait about 4 hours. Heat the oven to 65 degrees, then send the apricots to it for 1 hour. Remove the fruit, place it in the shade for final drying.

Determine the readiness of dried apricots

The degree of readiness of dried apricots is determined by several indicators.

1. Feel the dried fruit. Proper drying makes dried apricots wrinkled, but elastic.The composition should be slightly heavier than the dried samples, pleasant to the touch due to the content of a small amount of water.
2. If you put the cooked dried fruit in boiling water, it will swell. In such apricots saved maximum supply of vitamins and minerals.
3. When preparing this product without the use of chemicals, the color is pale yellow, brownish, moderately orange. An oversaturated hue indicates that the fruit is treated with an unnatural composition.

How to store dried apricots

1. Cotton bag. This method is more common than all the others. Place dried fruit in a bag, hang it on a carnation in a dark room with minimum air humidity.
2. Plastic bag. The method is more modern and practical. After drying, dried apricots are placed in polyethylene, put in a cool place, periodically open the bag and air the contents.
3. Cardboard container. The storage method thus helps unevenly dried fruit to be preserved. It is enough to cover the box with album sheets, then put apricots in it (one row).

It is easy to dry apricots at home, if you follow the practical recommendations. Consider popular methods using the oven, electric drier, dehydrator. Try to carry out the procedure, laying out the fruit in direct sunlight. Combine several technologies with each other, look for the best option. Store dried apricots in plastic bags, cardboard containers or cotton bags.

Video: how to make dried apricots at home