North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Don Yellman <dyellman@earthlink.net>]

1.  Drying cherries is a bit more difficult than many other fruits
because they are small and so very juicy.  Also sticky as they begin to
dry.  It requires a first-class dryer, and about three days elapsed time
to turn out a finished batch.  I have a small aluminum cabinet dryer (a
Jack's dryer, made in Seattle) with a 300W element, to which I have
added a small boxer fan at the top.  It is fine for sliced apples, but
for cherries I borrow a large cabinet dryer called the "Nutri-Dry" from
a neighbor.  It has a rheostat (not a thermostat) control, and a large
fan at the rear.  I don't think the "Nutri-Dry" is available on the
market any more, although there are some other high-quality dryers I
found on the net.  They are quite expensive.  It might be possible to
build a dryer of this type, but you would have to have substantial
engineering and shop skills.
2.  I have experienced a number of problems when using dryers.  Too much
heat, and the fruit becomes cooked.  Too little, and it dries too
slowly.  The fruit closest to the heat source always dries faster than
the rest.  Without good air circulation provided by a fan, these
problems are magnified, and even with a good fan that circulation is
never perfect.  There was quite a little discussion about dryers on this
list a few weeks ago, and I wonder if anyone has actually tried to build
a dryer, or found one on the market that works really well --- at any
price.
3.  When drying cherries, you of course have to pit them first.  I use a
German "Glass" plunger type pitter (available from Mellinger's), which
we have used to pit hundreds of pounds, and is still working fine.  I
think there are some knockoffs of this design made in Taiwan that are
now on the market.
4.  We would not be doing this at all were it not for the dedication of
my wife, who really likes dried cherries.  She puts them on oatmeal and
other cereals for a burst of flavor.  And a burst it is.  They probably
have other uses as well, but they are quite precious, so are best used
in small amounts.  When dried, cherries are reduced in volume and weight
by 80-90%.  I can pit over 7 quarts, and it is transformed into one very
large quart bag of dried cherries.  So I pick and pit them, but it is my
wife who comes back repeatedly over a period of 3 days to switch the
drawers of the dryer around, jiggle the cherries, and remove those she
thinks are acceptably dry.  Last year we let them go too long, and they
became hard little nuggets, but now she removes them at the chewy-hard
stage.
5.  It might be possible to sun dry cherries in climates with very low
humidity, but that is a condition that we never meet in Northern
Virginia.  I also see that a number of solar dryers are now offered on
the market.  Some of these could be interesting, but I haven't tried any
of them.
6.  To sum it all up, drying cherries is a labor of love, and you would
never do it if you thought your time was extremely valuable, or if you
already consider yourself to be a very busy person.  That must be why
dried cherries cost 8-9 dollars a pound in health food stores.  I guess
we just do it for the pure heck of it, but we only make one very large
batch per season.

Rgds, Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA


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