How to dry apricots for dried apricots at home

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Many people love apricots for their taste and amazing aroma. You can make different preparations from such fruits for the winter. Many housewives prefer to dry apricots for dried apricots. You can dry fruits at home, both outdoors and using electrical appliances..

How to dry apricots for dried apricots in an electric dryer

At home, you can dry apricots in an electric dryer both without a bone, and with it. If the fruit is dried in halves, then this is dried apricots, and if the fruit remains intact, and the nucleolus is taken out through the stalk, then this is already kaisa.

For dried apricots, choose fruits that have not yet become soft.

Watery fruits can also be dried, however, they will already be suitable only for compote sets.

1. We wash apricots well under running water, as dust particles stick to their velvety peel.
2. Divide the fruits into halves, remove the seeds. If the fruits are too tight, then carefully cut them with a knife. The seeds can not be thrown away, but washed well, dried in the sun for 5 hours, then broken to get the nucleolus and use them for making jam, baking or snacks.
3. Put the halves of the apricot in a mesh tray with the peel down and dry the fruit in an electric dryer for 36 hours.
4. If the halves are wrinkled, dark, and no longer stick to your fingers, then the drying process is complete.
5. We put dried apricots in glass jars and store in a dark place.

The color of homemade dried apricots will differ from that sold in stores. The thing is that during drying, manufacturers treat fruits with sulfur dioxide so that they do not darken. Therefore, even though homemade dried apricots do not look so attractive, they are much more useful.

Drying apricots in the oven

You can dry apricots for dried apricots at home, both in an electric dryer and in a conventional oven.

1. We wash the apricots, divide them into halves, remove the seeds and lay them on the wire rack, cut up. It is better to cover the grate with parchment so that the fruit does not burn.
2. We set the temperature to 50-60 ° С, and after an hour it can be raised to 70-80 ° С.
3. During drying, the oven door can be opened several times for 10-15 minutes, and the apricot halves themselves can be turned over, so that all the moisture from them calmly evaporates.
4. Drying time will take from 5 to 12 hours, it all depends on the apricots themselves.
5. Readiness can be determined by consistency. If the fruits become elastic, dry, and when pressed, they will not release juice, then the oven can be turned off.

When drying apricots in the oven, it is important to follow one rule - no high temperatures, otherwise the apricots will simply burn out.

In the sun

If the weather is sunny, then you can dry apricots for dried apricots at home directly in the sun. This method is considered to be more gentle and will allow you to preserve useful substances in apricots as much as possible.

1. We wash the fruits of the fruit under water, divide into halves, remove the nucleoli and put them on a tray, peel down.
2. For 3-4 hours we leave the tray with fruit in a well-ventilated place, and then transfer it to the place where the sun gets the most.
3. In the evening, it is better to bring the fruit indoors so that at night it will protect them from moisture in the form of precipitation or dew.
4. We also make sure that the fruits are not attacked by insects, so the drying place can be changed, so you can outwit the gluttonous ants and flies.
5. The procedure for drying apricots in the sun can take from 1 to 2 weeks, it all depends on the variety, the size of the fruit, but of course, on the weather itself.

Interesting! Pitted apricot jam for the winter: recipes with photos

Some housewives string the apricot halves on strings and hang them in the sun. This method can be used if the fruits are not too juicy.

In the microwave

Many are interested in whether it is possible to dry apricots for dried apricots in the microwave. You can dry it, but this is the worst and most harmful option, which takes most of the vitamins from the fruit.

But if there is no choice, then first of all we clean the microwave oven well, wash it with soap and wipe it with lemon juice, since it has already absorbed all the smells of the food heated in it.

1. Put the apricot halves on a microwave tray. We choose the most minimal mode and set the time to 5 minutes.
2. After we switch to the "Defrost" mode, the time is 20 minutes. During this time, it is advisable to check the fruit for readiness.
3. Then we take out the fruit and leave it for a couple of hours in a ventilated place, after which we repeat the drying process.

You can dry apricots for dried apricots in different ways, but not all housewives know how to properly store it at home. For storing dried apricots, it is better to take small glass jars and choose a place where the temperature will not fall below 10 ° C and rise above 20 ° C.

Attention should be paid to the level of humidity, if it is more than 70%, then dried apricots can become moldy.