How to dry chokeberry at home

Drying chokeberry at home is no more difficult than any other fruit. But in order to sort out and prepare the berries for drying, you need to know the rules for collecting chokeberries and stock up on time and patience. The fruits of chokeberry are very small, they will take a long time to collect if plucked immediately without stalks. But in this case, the chokeberry will wrinkle and let the juice go even before drying, which should not be allowed. Therefore, when harvesting dried fruits, chokeberry is plucked along with the stalks.

Raw materials already collected for drying and storage must be cleaned of dry branches, stalks and leaves. Given the size of the chokeberry fruit, this is not an activity for the faint of heart.

What is black chokeberry

The real name of the chokeberry is chokeberry. The homeland of this plant is North America, and chokeberry has nothing to do with real mountain ash. Therefore, contrary to some recommendations, chokeberry is not harvested after frost, but when the berries are ripe. The average ripening time is September or mid-October.

Is it possible to dry chokeberry

Anything you want can be dried. It is only important to choose the right temperature for drying. If the temperature is too high, the raw material will burn out, and if it is too low, it can turn sour or dry out. Drying a chokeberry is no more difficult than any other berry of the same size.

Chokeberries can be dried naturally or with household appliances. The natural method is more suitable for owners of private houses or summer cottages, where there is a place to spread out / hang up the chokeberry for several days. In apartments, it is better to use household appliances to speed up the process.

How to prepare berries for drying

In autumn, fruits are cut from plants with scissors or a sharp knife directly in clusters, without separating the stalks. It is better to put the crop in a rigid container so as not to crush ripe fruits. At home, the chokeberry is dismantled, the fruit legs are removed and spoiled berries are removed.

Do I need to wash chokeberry before drying?

In the former USSR, people are accustomed to washing fruit before eating. But whether it is necessary to wash the chokeberry before drying it, everyone will choose according to their convictions. If the plant was not sprayed against pests shortly before harvest, and the garden is no closer than 200 m from a busy road, then there is no difference between washed and unwashed fruits. The only theoretical benefit: pest larvae can crawl out of the berries. But not all.

When drying in household appliances, the maximum temperature will be 50-60 ° C. Any pest larvae will die. When drying chokeberries in a natural way, pests will have time to lay their eggs again in the drying berries.

If the choice was made in favor of washing the chokeberry, then the berries are washed in running water. After the procedure, the chokeberry is placed on a towel to dry. Dried fruits can be prepared for drying.

Drying chokeberry at home

If in the industry there are special installations that allow you to set the time and temperature of drying, then at home you will have to do with improvised means:

• electric dryer;
• oven;
• aerogrill;
• harsh thread;
• thin twine.

With the help of household electrical appliances, you can quickly dry chokeberry. This will only take a few hours, if you do not count drying after washing. But if you make a mistake with the temperature, then the result will be either coals, or the chokeberry will burn on top and remain raw inside.

A change in color to brown or reddish indicates a violation of the regimen when drying the chokeberry. In this case, part of the vitamins is lost.

How to dry chokeberry in an electric dryer

An electric fruit dryer is a household appliance that has no other functions. Products for drying in it are located on several tiers. It will be necessary to dry the chokeberry in an electric dryer with a layer one berry thick, since the fruits must dry evenly, and it is impossible to stir them in an electric dryer.

How long does it take to dry chokeberry in an electric dryer

Drying chokeberry in an electric dryer is carried out at a temperature of 50 ° C for 3 hours. Then the chokeberry is brought to readiness at 45 ° C.

How to dry chokeberry in the oven

Drying chokeberry in the oven is somewhat more difficult than in an electric dryer. The oven is intended for other operations.

In the oven, chokeberry is also laid out in a thin layer, after which it is dried for half an hour at a temperature of 35-40 ° C. Therefore, the temperature is raised to 60 ° C and the product is brought to readiness.

To properly dry the chokeberry in the oven, you need to leave the cabinet door ajar. There is no normal air circulation in the oven. Because of this, it is difficult to regulate the temperature inside the cabinet. If you keep the door closed, the berries will burn.

Failure to comply with the temperature regime leads to a deterioration in the quality of the finished product. After drying, the chokeberry is allowed to cool to room temperature and only then is it removed for storage.

How to dry a chokeberry in an air grill

The principle of drying aronia in an air grill is the same as in an oven. The temperature regime is the same. The advantage of the air grill is that you do not need to stir up the fruits of chokeberry for uniform drying. Since the heat treatment occurs due to hot air circulating in a closed space, the fruits dry out evenly.

The downside is that for chokeberry you will have to specially select mesh pallets. Otherwise, the use of an air grill will become economically unprofitable. The included small mesh tray will allow you to dry only a small batch of chokeberry. At the same time, more than ¾ of the working space of the air grill will remain empty.

How to air dry

For drying, ripe berries with a dense intact skin are selected and laid out on a mesh tray. Initially, the temperature is set to 60 ° C and the chokeberry is dried for 30-60 minutes. The time depends on the number and size of chokeberry fruits. After drying, the berries are checked. If complete drying has not occurred, the chokeberry is again sent to the convection oven.

A skewer or other heat-resistant thin object can act as a “spacer” that will not allow the lid to lie tightly on the flask.

This is where artificial accelerated methods that can be applied in the household end. Drying fruit naturally has been practiced for hundreds of years and has proved its worth.

How to dry chokeberry in bunches

Aronia got the name “chokeberry” due to the fact that the berries grow in clusters similar to mountain ash. This property is used if you need to dry the chokeberry in clusters.

Preparation begins at harvest time. Clusters are carefully cut with scissors entirely. Cut berries are fastened into bunches of several clusters and hung in the shade under a canopy so that the bundles are blown by the breeze.

The second option is to stretch a thin string under a canopy and hang clusters on top of it. In this case, it is not necessary to fix them, but there is a risk that the stalks, for which the whole bunch is held, will fall off after drying. Yes, and it is difficult to achieve balance in this case.

The chokeberry is left under a canopy until it dries. After that, the chokeberry is separated from the stalks and placed in storage.

How to dry chokeberry in the shade

The easiest way is to scatter the chokeberry in a thin layer on a clean cloth under a canopy and periodically turn it over. After a few days, the chokeberry will dry out enough so that the crop can be stored.

The second way is more difficult. The chokeberry is strung on a thick thread and hung in the shade.

Otherwise, insufficiently dry places will remain at the points of contact. When stored, the chokeberry will begin to mold. Stringing a blackberry on a thread is easy. There are several small grains inside the fruit, the needle passes freely through the pulp.

Why you can not dry the berry in the sun

Strictly speaking, you can dry chokeberries in the sun. And such drying will be faster and more efficient than in the shade. But under the sun’s rays, many vitamins break down. Therefore, chokeberry is dried in the sun if the presence of vitamins in the product does not matter. Such drying can be carried out if they plan to make compote from the chokeberry further. Vitamins that break down during heat treatment, in most cases, coincide with those that disappear under the sun’s rays.

The use of dried chokeberry

In winter, dried chokeberry berries are used as a vitamin supplement. They are also used for diabetes and sclerosis.

Chokeberry has the ability to thicken the blood, so it is contraindicated in hypertensive patients. You can not use it for stomach ulcers, constipation and increased blood clotting.

Rules for storing dried chokeberry

Dried chokeberry harvested in a “natural” way can be stored for up to 8 months. Chokeberry cooked in home appliances can lie for a year. This difference is due to the fact that during artificial drying, moisture is better evaporated.

Store dried fruits of chokeberry in canvas bags. They cannot be stored in airtight containers, since tightness does not mean sterility. If there is a temperature difference in the room where dried fruits are stored, condensation will appear inside the sealed container. This will create excellent conditions for the growth of mold.

At the same time, when stored in fabric bags, bugs can start in the chokeberry. But with bugs, you will have to wage a full-fledged war within the same apartment. They eat not only dried berries.

Conclusion

Each owner chooses how to dry chokeberry himself, depending on whether he has household kitchen appliances or enough space in the house. Many people prefer not to dry the chokeberry at all, making jam from it or making liqueurs. The easiest way to preserve chokeberry is freezing.