Description
Easy and efficient homemade dried apricots.
Ingredients
Scale
- 5–15 pounds of apricots
- Optional: 1/4 -1/2 cup lemon juice
Instructions
- Wash all apricots with a light solution of dish detergent and cool water. Rinse thoroughly. This will remove any pesticide residue from commercially grown apricots. If your apricots are home grown and not sprayed, a water rinse can be sufficient.
- Any badly damaged area on the apricot should be cut off with a knife, same with mild mold spots. You can preserve the rest of the apricot.
- Slice the apricot along the seam and split in half with your fingers. If the apricots are ripe enough, you can do this with just your thumbs and no knife.
- Remove the pit, and set aside to wash for projects, or compost.
- Turn the apricot inside out by pressing on the skin-side center of the apricot. This makes sure the flesh does not seal, and ensures even drying. Turning the apricot inside out is vitally important if you are working with larger or jumbo sized apricots.
- Evenly space on dehydrator trays.
- Spritz with lemon juice to prevent browning. I do not find that apricots oxidize, and normally do not use a lemon spritz.
- Apricots can barely touch on their edges, but shouldn’t actually overlap. As they dry the edges that barely touch will shrink away from each other and not impact drying time or airflow.
- Dehydrate between 115F and 125F for 12 hours. Or, you can start them at 135F for 2 hours, and then lower the temperature to 125 for the remaining time.
- Check to see if the apricots are leathery, and make sure the flesh does not slide against itself when pinched between two fingers. If the flesh slides when pinched, they are not dry enough and should go back in for another few hours. Let cool completely and pack into glass jars, or plastic zippered bags, for storage.
