How to dry wild pear at home. Drying pears at home. options for drying pears and proper preparation of fruit

When making winter stocks from the abundant fruit harvest of summer and autumn, you should give preference to a method that will allow you to preserve as much as possible the set of vitamins and beneficial microelements - drying. You can dry any fruit, including pears. It is worth drying the pears yourself, because when purchasing dried fruits in a store, you cannot be sure of the quality of the raw materials and storage conditions.

The benefits of dried pears

Dried, they retain all the benefits of fresh fruits. A rich set of vitamins, macro- and microelements allows you to use dried pear for medicinal purposes:

It copes well with old coughs and is used as a disinfectant and antipyretic.
Decoctions of dried fruits help in the treatment of sore throats and seasonal colds due to the antibacterial properties of the pear.
Potassium preserved in dried fruits is a good helper for the proper functioning of the heart and maintaining blood vessels in good shape.
A small amount of sugar makes dried pear fruits useful for people watching their weight.
Iron, which dried pears are rich in, helps with tachycardia and dizziness.

Selection of pears for drying

When choosing pears for drying, you need to know that the more intense and brighter the aroma of fresh fruits, the more beneficial they are when dried.
The best fruits for harvesting are thin-skinned pears with dense and elastic flesh. The varieties recognized as leaders for processing and drying are Forest Beauty, Bergamot, Zaporozhskaya and Limonka.
Choose low-juiciness fruits for drying that have hard inclusions. Pears with an astringent taste are not suitable for harvesting.
Fruits with a small seed chamber are more suitable for drying.
During the drying process, it is allowed to add sugar if unsweetened fruits are used for processing.

Fruit preparation

Before drying, fruits are sorted by degree of ripeness. It is better to dry slightly unripe pears.
Pears damaged by rot or disease should be discarded. They are not suitable for drying.
Green fruits are left to ripen indoors for several days. The main thing is that they should not overripe and lose their elasticity.
You should not choose watery varieties of pears - they are not suitable for drying.
Ripe pears must be washed, peeled and seeds removed.
To speed up the drying process, the fruits are kept in boiling water for several minutes until soft.
For unsweetened varieties, you can dissolve sugar in hot water.
After soaking in hot water, you need to wait until the fruits have cooled completely and only then cut them into slices and place them in a container to dry.
To prevent pear pieces from darkening, they can be soaked in a 1% citric acid solution.
You only need to cut the fruit lengthwise into strips no more than 1 cm thick.

Features of drying large fruits and wild pears

If you choose wild pear fruits for drying, they are not removed from the tree until they are fully ripe. Only padans go to drying. After harvesting, they are kept until the skin and pulp of the fruit darken and only then are dried, only as a whole. This preliminary aging of wild pear fruits will remove the bitter taste and astringency of the fruit. At the same time, the wild pear will become a little sweet and gain flavor.

Large fruits of the cultivated plant are cut into small slices. The thickness should not be more than a centimeter. This way they will dry out faster. The peel should only be removed from hard-skinned fruits. You can also save the seed capsule. Dried slices of such unpeeled fruits have a more pleasant taste.

Drying methods

You can prepare pears in the form of dried fruits for the winter by drying them in the sun or using an oven, electric dryer or microwave.

Natural air drying

The container with laid out pear slices should be placed in a sunny place, away from roads, road dust and drafts.
You can choose the sloping roof of a house or barn for this. This will ensure that the fruit stays in the sun for as long as possible. Pear slices should be turned over periodically to speed up the process.
It will take a couple of days to dry. At night, pallets with pears must be brought indoors.
Then the pears can be strung on a thread and dried in the sun in a suspended state.

Drying pears in the oven

If bad weather prevents you from drying pears in the sun, you can successfully do this in the oven. Here's how to do it correctly:

You will need to place the pears on a special drying tray in one layer and carry out the first drying at an oven temperature of no higher than 60 degrees. This way there will be no cracks in the fruit slices and the peel will not peel off.
After a couple of hours, the temperature should be raised to 80 degrees.
As soon as you notice that the fruit has begun to decrease in volume, the temperature should be lowered again to 60 degrees and drying should continue.

It may take a day to dry whole fruits, while slices will dry in half the time.

Drying pears in an electric dryer

Having an electric dryer in your arsenal of kitchen appliances makes preparing pears surprisingly easy.

Following the instructions for the device, place the pear slices, prepared according to all the rules, on the racks of the electric dryer and turn on the device. Trays with pieces of fruit are evenly blown by jets of warm air, and there is no need to turn the fruit over.
The finished product usually takes 8 hours to prepare at an oven temperature of about 70 degrees.
For more uniform drying, it is recommended to swap the racks.
If, after the specified time, pieces of pears stick to your fingers when pressed, then the drying process should be extended for a couple of hours.

Drying pears in the microwave

The method is perhaps the fastest, but requires tireless attention so as not to end up with overdried pear slices or just embers.

In terms of time, one bookmark of pears requires several minutes:

Line a plate for drying with linen cloth and lay out the prepared fruit slices (without the core).
The optimal cooking time at 200 W is 3 minutes. If necessary, you can dry the fruit for another half a minute - a minute.

Well-dried pear pieces are elastic, do not break when bent and spring slightly when pressed.

Storage rules until new harvest

You can store home-dried pears in tightly closed glass jars or use wooden barrels with a tightly sealed lid.
An excellent place for jars of pears would be in a dark closet or a shelf in the pantry. The main thing is to remove dried fruits away from sunlight.
When stored in a warm and dry room, dried fruits can be placed in linen bags.
Workpieces must be inspected regularly to prevent them from becoming infected with bugs or fruit moth larvae.
If the room is humid, you can simply dry the pears a little in the oven.
If the preparations have hardened, then before preparing compote or other delicacies, you can keep the pears in a steam bath. Once saturated with hot moisture, they will become soft and elastic again.

You can choose any option for preparing pears for winter storage that is convenient for you. You can even grind the dry preparations in a coffee grinder and use the pear powder for filling pies or making dough. Winter supplies of sweet dried pears and properly prepared drinks from them will delight both children and adults - they are very tasty and healthy!

The desire to feel warmth on winter days and feel the aroma of summer again is not alien to everyone. Modern methods of preparing fruits and vegetables for the winter period are limited by housewives to the preparation of jams, compotes, pickles, and “freezes.” Such an old harvesting method as drying is extremely rarely used, but in vain. A large number of useful microelements are better preserved in dried fruits. We suggest you remember today how to properly dry pears at home for the winter.

Selection and preparation of pears for drying

The decision to provide yourself with dried fruits for the winter requires some knowledge. For harvesting, choose ripe, slightly tough fruits with thick skin. The permissible number of seeds in a pear is moderate. Careful carrying out of all stages of processing and drying, as well as choosing the appropriate variety, will allow you to obtain a high-quality product. When drying, some housewives add sugar. In this case, the result will be sweet dried fruits that can be used as a dessert.

The following varieties are considered suitable for dry harvesting:

Victoria;
Limonka;
Forest beauty;
Clapp's favorite;
Zaporozhye;
Ilyinka;
Bergamot;
Fragrant.

Important! The use of frozen, worm-eaten, rotten or damaged fruits is prohibited. Discard such fruits immediately.

After cutting out unsightly places, use them for food (cook compote, make fruit puree).

Selected fruits are washed well with water and wiped dry.

Small fruits can be dried whole. Cut the largest ones into slices no larger than 1 centimeter, removing the seeds.

There is a method when, before drying, the processed fruits are immersed in boiling water for 15 minutes, cooled, then cut and dried.

Forest wild pear. Nuances of preparation

Forest pears, commonly known as wild pears, are somewhat different in taste from garden varieties. The fruits have a small appearance and may be slightly bitter. The processing of wild pears is similar to the processing of garden pears. They are often dried whole. To preserve its presentation during drying, it is treated with a solution of tartaric or citric acid. Blanch the pear in boiling water for about five minutes. The drying process is the same, the only difference is in the harvesting process.

The forest pear is harvested when it begins to fall from the trees. The fruits are placed in containers and wait until they turn brown. When stored, pears of this color lose their astringency and bitter taste and become aromatic and sweet. The dried fruits of their forest pears have a more interesting taste and strong aroma.

Drying pears at home for the winter

Dried fruits from garden or wild pears are a storehouse of easily digestible carbohydrates, vitamins and microelements. Their peel contains a lot of useful substances necessary to maintain immunity in winter and spring. You just have to stock up on the gifts of nature, and then no diseases will be scary. The thing is that, compared to fresh ones, these dried fruits have a long shelf life and “survive” until spring without problems. The pear fruit is rich in glucose, sucrose, fiber, acids, and pectin. A large amount of vitamins B1, C, P, PP, carotene make the fruit unique. Proper drying of the pear does not allow it to lose its beneficial properties.

How to dry pears at home

Several options are used:

naturally - in the fresh air;
in an electric dryer;
in the microwave;
in the oven.

The natural drying method is less expensive and preferable. There is no energy consumption, no need to waste time monitoring the temperature. All your labor costs come down to moving the pallet of chopped fruit indoors in the evening, and outside in the morning. Therefore, if you have the opportunity to take advantage of natural sources of heat and ventilation, use this method.

Tip: to prevent chopped fruits from losing color during drying, you can sprinkle them with lemon juice.

Drying pears in the fresh air

Place the prepared fruit in a thin layer on a baking sheet or spread out. Place the container in a place where the sun's rays fall. In the evening, bring the pear indoors, since the humidity of the street air increases significantly at night. Cover the fruit container with plastic wrap. Perform this manipulation for two days. Then move the pear to the shade. The place should be well ventilated. The pear is kept in the shade for four days.

Some owners use a modified natural drying method. The pear slices, dried until half cooked, are pressed into a thin layer using two boards, then strung on a thread with a distance of 1 millimeter. The thread is suspended, and the pear is dried in this form.

Oven drying

When choosing this drying method, expect that the minimum operating time for the oven will be about fourteen hours. The principle of laying out sliced fruits on a baking sheet remains the same as in the first case. It is necessary to select the correct operating mode for the oven - drying. The maximum temperature should be set to 60 degrees. At this temperature, the fruit is in the oven for about 2 hours. After this time, the temperature can be increased by 10-20 degrees and drying can continue. As the fruit begins to shrink in volume, the temperature should be reduced to 50 degrees. At this temperature, dried fruits are brought to full readiness. The time spent on drying is affected by the type of pear and size. Drying whole fruits will take about a day, slices – about eighteen hours.

Drying pears in an electric dryer

Immerse the pears prepared for drying in boiling water for a few seconds, remove the pear with a slotted spoon and quickly cool it in cold water. Such a shock bath is necessary for the fruit to prevent darkening. After the excess liquid has drained, the pear is placed on a tray and sent to an electric dryer. The temperature in the dryer is set to about 70 degrees. The pieces should be turned over to the reverse side from time to time. The drying process takes from fifteen hours to the meshes. Dried fruits can be considered ready when they acquire a golden color. When bent, they should not break; when pressed, the structure will be soft and elastic.

Drying pears in the microwave

Drying pears in the microwave is considered one of the fastest cooking methods. The whole process takes no more than 4 minutes per serving. It is important for this method to ensure that the pears cut into slices or cubes do not dry out.

So, place the prepared fruits on a plate previously covered with linen or cotton cloth. Select oven program for 2 minutes and 200 W. After the time has passed, turn the fruit over and repeat drying at the same parameters. Repeat the process until the product is completely ready. When dried, the moisture in the fruit evaporates and it acquires a beautiful golden hue.

Dried fruits from the store in most cases undergo chemical processing. This gives them a beautiful presentation or speeds up the drying process. Pears are no exception. At first glance, you cannot determine whether the product has been subject to additional manipulations. Therefore, it is better not to take risks and prepare dried fruits at home yourself. And on their basis you can prepare delicious compotes or other sweets all year round.

5 options for drying pears and proper preparation of fruit

Despite the many options for drying pears at home, the pre-treatment of the fruit is the same. Fruits chosen are not fully ripe and firm with thick skin.

Medium-sized pears are cut in half, larger ones - into slices (1 cm wide), small ones can be dried whole. If desired, remove the core. If the fruit has small bruises, it is better to cut them out. After careful selection, the raw materials are washed and dried.
Under no circumstances should you take spoiled, wormy, frozen or rotting fruit.
To preserve maximum vitamins, blanching is used. Prepared pears are immersed in boiling water for 2 minutes and sliced when cooled.
There is another processing option. Syrup is made from a liter of water, 400 g of sugar and 10 g of citric acid. And after boiling, pears are poured into it. Cover the pan with a lid and turn off the gas. When the product has cooled completely, place it in a colander and allow the syrup to drain.

On open air

The raw materials are placed on a sieve, tray or baking sheet and placed (at an angle) in a sunny, dust-free and windless place. A balcony is good for this. In the private sector, you can dry fruits on the roof of buildings under the rays of the sun, and in the evening cover them with film and bring them into the house.

After 2 days, the workpiece is laid out in a shaded place and continued to dry for another 2-3 days, turning it over periodically. And also in the middle of the drying process, you can flatten the slices between the boards, tie them with thread and dry them in a vertical position.

Oven

It is important to constantly monitor the temperature, lower and increase it in time.

The raw materials are laid out in an even layer on a baking sheet and drying begins at 50 degrees. Thanks to slight heating, the pear halves and their peels will not crack. After 2 hours, the slices will dry out a little and you can increase the temperature to 80 degrees.

After the fruit begins to decrease in size, the degrees are again lowered to 50. This heating is maintained until the very end of drying in the oven. Drying time depends on the size of the pears. Small slices dry within 12-14 hours, large ones - 24-26 hours.

Microwave

This is the fastest way to dry the product. But it has disadvantages - radiation harmful to health and the risk of drying out the raw materials (if there is a large amount of it). The surface is covered with cotton cloth. Place pears on it. Place in the microwave. Dry for 2.5 minutes at 200 W. They check. If the fruit is not ready, repeat the procedure.

Air fryer

Place pear slices in a single row on each tray. Set the heat to 65 degrees and turn on the fan to maximum. The process is performed in 2-3 sessions for half an hour. Between drying stages, the workpiece is cooled completely. And periodically turn the fruits over for uniform convection. In total, you need to perform the action 6 times in 3 passes. After 28-30 hours, the dried fruits will be ready.

Electric dryer

The electric dryer is great for large volumes of fruit. The temperature is set to 70 degrees. The cooking time will be 15-30 hours, depending on the size and quantity of the product.

To better dry the fruits, they are turned over periodically. Readiness is checked by color; it will turn brown. Meanwhile, the pear will remain elastic and will bend easily without breaking.

How to store dried fruits?

It is important to store the workpiece correctly, otherwise it will harden or become moldy.

1. The shelf life is maximum 1 year. If there is anything left, they throw it away and prepare a new portion.
2. The place should be dry and dark.
3. Cotton bags or jars with airtight lids can serve as containers.
4. It is prohibited to place dried fruits near the heating system, electric or gas stove and oven. Otherwise, condensation may form, which will lead to product spoilage.
5. It is necessary to check the preparations from time to time for the absence of insect larvae, mold, fruit moths and bugs.

Gradually the pears darken and become tough. Therefore, you should not stretch out the use of the preparation for 12 months; it is better to eat everything over the winter. But if hardening has occurred, you can heat the product in the oven on a baking sheet, under which you place a bowl of water to steam.

With the advent of experience in preparing pears, there will be a use for a product that is too hard - you can make a scrub from it for the face or body. Dried fruits are ground in a coffee grinder (blender) and mixed with thick sour cream.

If a housewife is seriously thinking about stocking dried fruits for her family, she should take a responsible approach to their selection and preparation. It is worth choosing a convenient processing option based on the instruments at hand and the time that can be spent on the workpiece.

There are never enough supplies for the winter, as every housewife will say. Therefore, you need to think in advance about preparing drying ingredients in order to cook delicious compotes in winter. Step-by-step recipe with photos of drying whole pears at home. Video recipe.

Delicious dried pears in the cold winter season will remind you of the bygone warm summer. But in order for the drying to be tasty, you should follow some simple rules.

Small fruits are best suited for whole harvesting; they are dried together with the stalks. Larger fruits are cut into halves, quarters or smaller pieces.
Summer varieties are usually used for drying. Those with an astringent taste and coarse pulp are not suitable, i.e. will not ensure good quality of dried fruits. Ideal varieties are Bergamot, Talgar Beauty, Forest Beauty, Fragrant, etc.
Select pears that are not quite ripe, with firm flesh and a small seed chamber. At the same time, they should already begin to turn yellow. Do not take overripe fruits for drying.
Pears are dried in the oven, in the sun, in the oven, and even in the microwave. With the right approach, pears dried by any method will be good.
There is no need to peel or core the fruit. Only fruits with rough and hard skin are peeled. And hard pears are first boiled and sometimes sugared.
You can make pear powder from ready-made dried pears. To do this, the dried fruits are ground with a special mill or coffee grinder, 10-20% sugar and a pinch of cinnamon are added. Powder is used to sprinkle porridge, used for filling...
When stored for a long time, pears become hard and dry. Before using them, they need to be dried in the oven so that they steam, become soft and tasty.

Calorie content per 100 g - 249 kcal.
Number of servings - any quantity
Cooking time - 10 minutes of active work, plus 5-6 hours for drying

Ingredients:

Pears - any quantity

Step-by-step preparation of dried whole pears for the winter for compote, recipe with photo:

1. Place whole small pears in a sieve and wash under running water.

2. Place the pears on a clean cotton towel and leave to dry completely.

3. Place the pears on a baking sheet and place them in a preheated oven to dry at 60 degrees. This temperature will prevent the fruit from cracking and bubbles forming under the skin. Dry them for 5-10 hours with the door slightly open. Drying time depends on the size of the fruit. Turn them over periodically so that the fruits dry evenly. Whole winter dried pears for compote are considered ready when they do not stick to your hands, are dry, and at the same time elastic.

Note: If desired, you can dry the pears in the sun. Place the baking tray with them in the sun, where they should remain for about 2-4 days, depending on the size of the fruit. Bring fruit indoors at night. Choose a sunny time for drying, without rain. Finish drying in the shade with good ventilation.

Watch also the video recipe on how to prepare dried pears at home.

Summer and autumn are the time to prepare supplies for the winter. During this period, various crops ripen in gardens and vegetable gardens. When making supplies, many people prefer to freeze or can food, but there is another simple way to help preserve beneficial vitamins and microelements in fruits - drying.

In this article we will tell you how apples and pears are dried so that they remain healthy and tasty for several years.

Which varieties to choose?

Many people love dried fruit compote. To prepare it, you can use various fruits harvested in summer or autumn. Most often these are apples and pears. You can buy dried ones from them in the store or prepare them yourself. It's easy to do, especially if you know how.

First, you need to decide which varieties are suitable for drying and which are not. Some people prefer to harvest summer apples, such as white filling and papi, in this way. Others prefer autumn varieties - Antonovka, Cinnamon or Winter pepin saffron.

Of course, this is a personal matter for everyone, but the following apples are most suitable:

Impatient fruits;
Having a sweet and sour taste;
With medium-density pulp, juicy but not watery;
The color of the peel does not matter, but the inside should be white or light yellow.

We figured out which apples to dry, and now let's talk about pears. Here, too, it is better to choose varieties with dense pulp and stony cells. The seed chamber should take up as little space as possible. Sweet juicy pears without a tart taste, such as Forest Beauty, Limonka, Victoria or Klappa's Favorite, are suitable.

Well-ripened, juicy fruits are taken for drying.

How to prepare fruit?

How to dry apples for the winter? To begin with, the fruits must undergo preliminary preparation. It is worth noting that fruits picked from trees and those that have fallen to the ground are also suitable for this type of canning.

At the first stage, they are washed and visible damage is removed. There is no need to wipe them, it is better to place them on a dry towel and wait until they dry on their own. After this they are calibrated.

At the second stage, the fruits are cut into slices. Experts recommend removing the core and peel. There are special devices for this, but you can do without them.

At the last stage of preparation, pears and apples are cut into pieces. Small fruits are simply cut in half or left whole; large or medium fruits are cut into slices and circles. Their thickness can be from 5 to 10 mm, but these are only recommendations, the dimensions can be arbitrary.

One more tip. Apples and most pears contain a lot of iron, so once cut they quickly rust. To avoid this and get white slices of dried fruit, it is recommended to soak the fruits in a saline solution.

To prepare it, dilute a teaspoon of salt in a liter of water. The fruits, cut into slices, are dipped into the resulting liquid and then laid out in the sun or in a warm, dry room to drain off excess moisture. After this they are dried.

How to dry?

There are several ways to prepare dried fruits. The simplest and most common is drying in the fresh air in direct sunlight. This method is suitable for those who live in their own home or have a country house. The fruits, cut into slices, are laid out on a mesh or baking sheet in one, maximum 2 layers.

To prevent flies and other insects from crawling on the fruit, they are covered with gauze. Having exposed the container to the sun, all that remains is to ensure that the sun constantly hits the drying surface and periodically turn it from one side to the other.

If there is no sun or it is not possible to put the fruit outside, you can use another method. To do this, you need to learn how to dry apples on threads. It's simple. The processed fruits are strung on a regular thread, like beads.

The main thing is not to press them too tightly against each other, so that there is space between the slices. The resulting garlands can be hung in the attic or in the kitchen. The room should be warm and dry. Move the apples every few days to prevent them from sticking to the thread and each other.

These 2 methods are very long. To receive a quality product, it should take at least 7–10 days. If you need to process a lot of fruits in a short period, then you should choose a microwave or convection oven.

In the first case, apples and pears are laid out on a plate in small portions. Power no more than 300 kW, time - 2 minutes, if this is not enough, you can add another 30 s. After this period, the slices are immediately removed from the oven and placed on a towel to cool. In an air fryer you can process a significantly larger number of fruits at a time.

The slices are laid out on special grids, which can be placed in a unit on several floors. Dry at a temperature of 100–120 degrees with low blowing speed. Periodically, the grids are swapped and the slices are turned over. Cooking time 1 hour.

Another way to dry apples for compote? If you have time, it is better to use the oven. Fruits dried in this way are very tasty and can be stored for a long time. The baking sheets are pre-lined with foil or baking paper to prevent the slices from sticking. After this, lay out the pears and apples in an even layer.

Drying occurs in 3 stages:

Withering;
Evaporation of moisture;
Sterilization.

At the first stage, the oven should not be very hot, 50–60 degrees is enough. At this temperature, the fruits simmer for at least an hour. Periodically, the stove door is opened to allow steam to escape.

At the second stage, experts recommend opening the door slightly. At what temperature are apples dried? For the evaporation period, 75 degrees will be enough; the fruits will begin to lose water, which will come out in the form of steam, so do not close the oven door.

To prevent the slices from burning, the fruit is turned over regularly. Evaporation time depends on the variety and size. For apples, 4–6 hours are enough, for pears – about 10 hours.

At the sterilization stage, the fruits are finally dried. Apples will need about 30 minutes, pears are better left longer. This is done at a temperature of 80–90 degrees with the door closed.

After the last stage, the drying is removed from the oven and laid out on a clean towel, where it cools. Ready dried fruits have a light yellowish tint, are very elastic and do not break. These are excellent ingredients for compote and vitamin tea.

How and where to store?

We figured out how to properly dry apples and pears, all that remains is to figure out where and how to store them. Well-dried fruits retain all the vitamins and minerals that are present in fresh fruits. With proper storage and following preparation technologies, drying can be stored for more than two years.