Drying is the easiest and inexpensive way of conservation of fruit and vegetables. In such look they well remain, without demanding special storage conditions, and take a little place.
Preparation of vegetables and fruit for drying
To receive quality dried vegetables and fruit, use good raw materials. For drying it is impossible to take immature and overripe fruits. Before drying vegetables and fruit need to be prepared. For this purpose it is necessary to make sorting and a partition. You will throw out the vegetables and fruit beginning to decay. Carefully wash other fruits in flowing water. If they were grown up with use of toxic chemicals, part 5-6 g of soda or 1 tablespoon of vinegar in 1 liter of water and wash fruits this solution, then rinse in flowing water.
Remove inedible parts. Clean a thin skin at root crops, remove at onions of cabbage and external leaves, at berries remove the remains of flowers and a fruit stem. At a dogrose the fruit stem and a receptacle aren't removed, and dry berries together with them. Cut fruits: circles, strips or columns, so they will quicker dry.
That vegetables and fruit didn't darken in the course of drying, blanch them in solution of citric acid (10 g on 1 l of water).
How to dry vegetables and fruit
Put the prepared vegetables and fruit on baking sheets or metal sieve cloths, spread out them a thin layer to provide good access of air. Place them in well aired solar room. You dry greens, having suspended its bunches in the place protected from the sun and wind. It is possible to cut small it, to spread out to sheets of paper, and to cover from above with a gauze. Hot red pepper is strung by means of a needle on thread. Threads need to be hung up in the dry warm place, pepper it is desirable to dry a baking plate direct sunshine. You carry out drying of vegetables and fruit continuously within several weeks. Artificial drying can be carried out in the special dryer, the furnace or in an oven. For drying in the oven place baking sheets inside in 1-1.5 hours after a fire chamber. In house conditions the drying of vegetables and fruit is carried out with use of a usual oven. Heat an oven to 60-70os, put in it baking sheets, the door of an oven needs to be slightly opened. Duration of artificial drying can be from 5 to 12 hours.
Different grades of vegetables and fruit dry separately from each other.
Ready dried vegetables contain 10-14% of moisture, in fruit - 18-22%. Qualitatively dried up apples have light-cream color, elastic, however if to bend them, they don't emit juice. Dried pears - soft, when squeezing they don't emit liquid. Ready prunes have to be black color with a bluish shade, pulp has to be elastic, when twisting in a hand of dried plum the stone separates from pulp. Cherry berries at compression don't emit juice and don't stick together. Dried carrots keep color and a smell fresh, and cabbage becomes dark green with a yellow shade.
Storage of dried vegetables and fruit
Remove only well dried up products on storage, the undried fruit will become the mold center. See vegetables and fruit before packing and remove damp pieces. You will pour out the identical products which are dried up in different days in the general capacity and leave for 1-2 days that the humidity was leveled. You store the packed fruits in a sealed package or in fabric sacks, cardboard boxes, having placed them in the dry cool place. Dried fruit and vegetables easily absorb various aromas therefore near them it is impossible to hold the products having a strong smell.