Dehydrating Berries-Instructions

WinonaWinona Raw Newbie

I filled up my 9 try excalibur with farm fresh blueberries. Every tray is loaded with a layer of these beauties. But…

It’s taking a long time to dry them! It’s been 16 hours at 118 degrees. How long should it take?

I enjoyed the surprise on the farmer’s face when I bought $80 worth of blueberries. My friends had to help me carry two huge pails of berries. Next year, I should do pick your own berries, economically smart and fun.

I plan to use these berries in my almond milk – date – fruit cereal. I wonder what else I should dehydrate while it’s in season.. Peaches?

Comments

  • beanybeeganbeanybeegan Raw Newbie

    Blue berries has a skin around them that will keep the juice in. Commercial blue berries are punctured before dehydrating. I tried puncturing some just to see how long it would take to dry them. I had them in the dehydrator for 5 days then stopped. I guess I didn’t puncture them enough, as they were still juicy. Made them into leather.Leather can then be put in a blender with nut milk.

    A good berry to dehydrate is strawberries.- slice in half or fourths – depends on size of berry. Peaches have to be put in boiling water to get the fuzzy skin off. The alternative would be FREESTONE nectarines.- The skin can be left on. Apricots is also good. I like to use them in place of dates for pie crusts some times. Not so sweet and they wont over power what is in the pie. Raspberries don’t dry well whole, but they do make good leather. I don’t know about blackberries. I just freeze them. I love cantaloupe for dehydrating. Almost as yummy as dried mangoes. Pears, apples and bananas are always on the list.Tho I don’t bother with them.

    Hope this gives you a few ideas to work with.

  • WinonaWinona Raw Newbie

    hi beany, thanks for the reply! This morning, 1 quarter of the blueberries were shriveled. Excellent suggestion about puncturing. I’ll do that tonight. I tried looking online for instructions about drying fruit in a raw manner, and found nothing. Good thing for this forum!!

    Dried apricots sound delicious! Mangoes would be fabulous dried. Not a fan of dried apples and bananas… yet. Perhaps I should find a better way to dry them.

  • beanybeeganbeanybeegan Raw Newbie

    When You say shriveled, do you mean the blue berries dried? If so what did you do? How high was your heat? I am interested!!

    I don’t do apples any more, and bananas have to be real cheap, for me to bother with all those little slices. Drives me bananas!

  • WinonaWinona Raw Newbie

    Beany it worked!! I have LOVELY dried blueberries. Here’s what I did: Put blueberries on dehydrator trays. Turn the dehydrator to 140 degrees (per Dr. Howell Enzyme Nutrition, and Gabriel Cousen’s recommendation that it’s safe at that temp for the first 2-3 hrs). Left it on 140 degrees for about 2.5 hours. Turned it down to 118 degrees. Left it on for 48 hours.

    Took the trays out of the dehydrator at 48 hours. I took a teflex sheet, placed it over the blueberry dehydrator tray, and pressed down with my hands. I gently pressed down all over the teflex sheet so that the entire sheet of blueberries was squished fairly flat. This helped to release air, essentially i’d hear a popping sound from some berries. That way, they’re all punctured. Repeat this procedure with all the trays.

    Immediately put all the trays back in the dehydrator at 118 degrees for another 48 hours. That’s it! You now how dried blueberries which can be kept in a sealed container in the fridge until ready for use.

  • Hi Winona,

    I just signed up for goneraw. I have been peeking in for months to enjoy the great recipes. Today, I finally decided to join becuase I had a question. How to dehydrate blueberries. I have 12 pints of organic blueberries from the CSA that I belong to. 12 more pints are on the way next week. So I want to dehydrate my blueberries. Last year I froze some and that worked fine, but dried blueberries are better for snacking. Standard instructions for dehydrating blueberries include cutting them in half, blanching in boiling water for 1 to 2 minutes and then removing the skin. That sounded like to much work to me and it is not raw.

    Thank you for the information. I just finished making Bliss-full Blueberry Cheesecake from the Sunny Raw Kitchen. I think that my kids are going to love it.

    You can never have too many blueberries!

  • bittbitt Raw Newbie

    kittcarmen, thanks for the tip. i am going to make that cheesecake too! I just spent yesterday picking blue berries so it’s perfect.

    winona, glad your dehydrated berries worked out.

  • beanybeeganbeanybeegan Raw Newbie

    Thanks for the information. Am going to write it down in my do list book.This will be great when my blue berries are ripe.

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