I freeze runner beans. Not brilliant, but best way to preserve them. When I was a child my mother salted them, and even after soaking and rinsing they were too salty. An old method but a bad one by my reckoning, but only way before home freezers.
gz
Joined: 23 Jan 2009 Posts: 9456 Location: Ayrshire, Scotland
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 25 6:44 am Post subject:
My next challenge is how to dehydrate fruit so that it turns out like the dried fruit that you buy...
I always feel that if it is not dry enough it won't keep so maybe take things too far
fruit is fairly easy, cut it quite thin, dust with a little sugar and far less salt, rest, then dry at 70c for a couple of hours then cooler until dry enough
there are meters etc, you can work out dry enough by weight loss or just decide it seems dry and chewy enough to store well
i have fruit leather older than it should be, that was done by eye ,poke and nibble
gz
Joined: 23 Jan 2009 Posts: 9456 Location: Ayrshire, Scotland
Posted: Sat Sep 06, 25 6:13 pm Post subject:
I suppose commercial dryers that manage to deal with half pears are a little different!!
there are technical methods
between a third of what size it was and instinct works for me
wet stuff down to 15%
figs maybe take half the wt off them they lots of seeds and sugar and wasp stuff
to try for 15% might make them sling ammo rather than snack
observation is your friend, same rig , similar ingredient can be very different every time
observe the batch when processing it, adjust time and temps based on what you see
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