Drying fruit, step by step

1. Planning batches through the harvest

The dryer is the bottleneck: the orchard gives more than it can take in one batch.

1. Batch capacity — Batch capacity is the number of trays × kg per tray. A 50 × 100 cm tray takes 2–3 kg of fruit, so 10 trays take 20–30 kg.
2. Pick for the batch — Pick as much as goes into the next batch. The number of batches is the total fruit divided by the batch capacity.
3. Sort the fruit — Sort by ripeness and size. Anything that has fallen from the tree and lain on the ground goes into jam or fruit wine, not on the tray.
4. Waiting in the shade — Ripe fruit waits for the dryer 1–2 days at most, in the shade, in crates, not in sacks or buckets. Figs and cherries go the same day.

Why: An orchard of ten plum trees can give 200–300 kg, and a dryer with 10 trays dries roughly 25 kg per batch. That is ten batches, and each one takes a day or two. If you don't plan, the fruit waits and spoils.

• Apples, winter pears and quinces wait for weeks in a cellar or cool store. In August and September give the dryer to plums, apricots and summer pears first.
• When the harvest is big, don't dry it all. Turn the rest into jam, bottled fruit, chutney or fruit wine.

2. Loading the dryer

A good batch begins at the table, before the dryer.

1. One kind, one thickness — One batch holds one fruit, prepared the same way. Halved plums and whole plums don't go in together.
2. Large fruit lower down — Put large and small fruit on separate trays. The large go lower down, where it is warmer.
3. A single layer — Pieces don't touch: 4–6 kg per 1 m². Halves skin side down, and under the bottom tray baking paper or a shallow metal tray, so juice doesn't drip on the shield.
4. Thermometers and swapping — One thermometer on the bottom tray, one on the top. Every 2–4 hours move the bottom trays up and the top ones down, and turn them front to back.

Why: What is loaded wrongly, not even the best dryer can put right. In a dryer with vertical airflow the difference between the bottom and top trays can be 10–15 °C.

• Don't dry fruit in the same batch as onions, garlic, peppers or mushrooms. Quinces and citrus peel have a strong scent and are better on their own.
• When the bottom trays are done and the top ones aren't, take out the finished ones and move the rest down: you don't shut the dryer down for one tray.

3. Plums: from tree to tray · Locked

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4. Apples and pears · Locked

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5. Apricots, berries, quinces and peel · Locked

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6. Ending the batch and grading · Locked

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