Drying blueberries

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Help! It's been a soggy year here in upper Vermont, so I have blueberries coming out my ears. I want to dry them, but need a system for pricking large quantities for easier drying. Anybody got any ideas? I'm open for suggestions, and thanks in advance.

-- Julie (rjbk@together.net), September 01, 2000

Answers

I'll be looking forward to the responses for this. Glad you asked. The only way I've dried blueberries is to chop them first and to make fruit leather. Seal them well, the bugs sure enjoy them if you don't. They sure are expensive to buy dried.

-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), September 01, 2000.

Hi Julie! Well, after reading your entry, I got a visual of a couple of strange items...please, don't think I am off the rocker, but the ideas persist. The first thing was a florist's frog. No, not the type with slimy skin and webbed feet, but it looks like a round disk with heavy-duty pins sticking out, business side up. The other was a bed of nails...well, I was just letting my warped mind wander, and those items arrived ;-). Rolling the berries over the surface...

Read somewhere that dipping the berries in boiling water before dehydrating will assist in the drying process (not sure why - will it cause the blueberries to pop???). Don't know if this'll help, but brainstorming is an ongoing process - might jar someone else's memory. Judi in CT

-- Judi (ddecaro@snet.net), September 02, 2000.


I tried the boiling water thing and it failed miserably. Maybe I did something wrong, but the turned to mush and didn't dry at all! Good luck with yours!!

-- Misha (MishaaE@aol.com), September 02, 2000.

I tried boiling water too.Mine were alternately squishy and cruchy! Arrgh!~~~Tracy~~~

-- Tracy Jo Neff (tntneff@ifriendly.com), September 02, 2000.

Dried them whole last year. Took a LONG time. Was planning to try the blanching method next time.

-- Mike O (olsonmr@yahoo.com), September 03, 2000.


Julie, we have a blueberry u-pick, well actually we open for business next year, into our third year, anyway this year had too too many blueberries for the usual canning, freezing, jam making, syrup stuff, etc., So we tried drying. We have two dehydrators, excalibur and american harvest. First I did the boiling water. FAILURE ON BOTH. So we dehydrate whole without any picking, just washing and dumped onto the dehydrator. Very good Luck , I use the blueberries inplace of raisons and cranberries. We eat them like snack food. The excalibur took very little time compared the the american harvest plus you could put more into it. But the american harvest finish product was as good. Take into acount there is a huge price difference between the two dehydrators so...

-- Debbie Wolcott (bwolcott@cwis.net), September 03, 2000.

Here's the old fashioned method. Wash and dry berries. Add 1 TBSP salt to a quart mason jar. Fill but do not compact the blueberries in the jar. Seal the jar. Place in cool dark place. Comes from someonw who was there when both blueberries and salt were discovered. GL!

-- Brad (Homefixer@SacoRiver.net), September 07, 2000.

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