How to make prunes at home?

Dried plums are called prunes. The properly prepared prunes have excellent taste qualities and are able to preserve a huge amount of useful substances.

Choosing the right plum

To prepare your favorite dried fruit, not every kind of plum is suitable. Often to make prunes use plum-Hungarian.

The Italian Hungarian is the best choice. Fruits of this variety are large, oval, blue with a bluish tinge. Such a drain is perfectly suitable for drying, because it has a dense skin and elastic flesh. Alsothis variety is characterized by a small acid content, and there is a sufficient quantity of sugar in it.

In addition to the Italian Hungarian for making prunes, use Hungarian Azhansky and Vengerka violet. Such varieties as Ugorka, Burton and Izyum-erik also perfectly suited for drying.

Plums for drying are collected from the ground, but in no case are they cut off from tree branches. If the fruit falls, then they have reached maturity. Before harvesting the fruit, the tree should be lightly baked to drop fruit with damage, as well as rotten and worm-eaten. The next day you can pick up the ripened plums.

Preparation of plum for drying

Having decided on the choice of the variety for the preparation of dried plums, you can begin the preparatory treatment of fresh fruit.

Preparing prunes is not an easy process, as it might initially seem. If you just plum the plums, then prunes of them will not work.Fruits will lose their juice, become too hard and the surface of the fruit instead of black becomes brown.To get a tasty and useful dried fruit, plums should be carefully prepared for drying.

• Before the drying process begins, the fruits are stored in a covered area in baskets.The volume of fruit in one basket does not exceed 16 kg. Fruits are stored for three days. It is necessary to ensure the discharge of softness, which in the future will become a prune property. If this period is extended, fermentation processes will begin in the collected fruits. Naturally before draining the sink, they are well washed. This is done several times in a row. When the water after washing the fruit becomes transparent, then this procedure can be completed.
• Then the sorting of plums is carried out, that is, large plums are separated from small. After that, plums are checked for the presence of spoiled fruit that can not be used to make prunes. At the end of the procedure, the fruit is thoroughly washed again. But on this preparation the draining to drying is not over yet.
• Then the blanching procedure is carried out.That is, the fruits are heat treated: they are placed in hot water. This process helps to soften the tissues of the fruit, as well as to expel air from the plum and increase in cell size. In addition, when the fetus is placed in water, oxidative enzymes are cleaved. During blanching, only a small amount of ascorbic acid is lost from important elements. The number of remaining significant substances remains almost unchanged. But, treatment with one water is not enough.
• To get rid of the wax from the surface of the fruit, alkaline treatment is used.For this procedure, a boiling 1% solution of caustic soda is suitable. Plums lie in it for 15-20 seconds. But here you need to know that at home, plums can not be completely washed after treatment. In this connection, potash should be used instead of caustic soda. After treatment with alkali, the fruit is cooled.

How to make dried fruits in the oven?

For the preparation of prunes in the oven, the plums are blanched, then they are washed with cold water and left to dry on a towel. If the fruit is cut into two parts, then the blanching procedure is not carried out.Drying the fruit in the oven consists of three stages at different temperatures.

1. At the first stage, the oven is heated to 50 ° C, the fruit pan is placed in it for 5 hours. After that, the same period of time the plums cool down.
2. In the next stage, the plums are turned over and dried for 5 hours in the oven, heated to 70 ° C.
3. At the last drying stage, the temperature rises to 75 ° C. Here the fruit is already brought to the full preparedness.

Preparation of prunes in the electric dryer

To obtain prunes in the electric dryer after blanching the plums are placed on the pallet in one layer. If the fruits are divided in half, then they are stacked upwards.The drying process by this method also passes in 3 stages under certain temperature conditions:

• the first 3-4 hours drying fruits at a temperature of 45-55 ° C;
• then the plums are dried at a temperature of 60 degrees for 6 hours;
• the final stage - the fruits are put to dry for 6 hours at a temperature of 75-80 ° C.

After the completion of each stage, the pallets are removed from the dryer for several hours to cool the future prunes.

Drying out in the sun

The natural way to dry fruits on sheets of wood. Half of the fruit, separated from the pits, is laid out on the leaf not very close to each other, cut upward so that during drying they do not lose juice. Depending on the size, plums should lie under the sun for 4 to 5 days.

It should be observed that insects do not sit on the fruit. Otherwise, harmful microorganisms may appear in dried fruits.

For the night plums are brought into the house, and in the morning they are carried out to fresh air after the dew has fallen out, so that mold does not form on them.When drying the plums from time to time inverted, so that they dried evenly on each side.At the end of drying under the rays of sunlight, the fruit is dried in a shaded place for 3-4 days.

The availability of prunes is checked by certain characteristics:

• when pressing on the fruit, they do not break and do not leak the juice;
• The fruits are firm and firm, but they do not crumble when pressed;
• prunes do not stick to the fingers.

Methods of storing prunes at home

It is absolutely easy to keep prunes at home. To do this, you just need to follow some simple guidelines.To store this dried fruit, use linen pouches and bags of paper, wooden boxes with good ventilation, tightly closed containers or glass, metal and plastic containers with a sealed cover.

Storage at room temperature in a container with a sealed cover

Prunes can be stored in glass and ceramic jars with a tight-fitting lid for up to six months.

• First of all, the packaging is prepared. It is thoroughly washed, doused with boiling water and dried.
• Then it is filled with dried fruits, covered tightly with a lid and placed in a cool place.
• If the prunes were wet, then it should be dried.
• Periodically, it is necessary to monitor the condition of dried plums.

Storage of dried plum in linen bags and paper bags

Some store dried fruit in linen bags. But only in the event that in the house there are no harmful insects, for example ants or cockroaches.

Sacks of dense tissue soaked in a strong saline solution.Then they are well dried, put prunes in them and knotted.

In the same way fill and close the paper bags. Thanks to tissue and paper, dried plums can breathe, and they are moldy and preserve all their useful qualities.

The only drawback of this method of storage is the inability to place prunes near the very smelling products: coffee, spices, tobacco.

Storing prunes in the fridge

If the room is dominated by high humidity, the dried fruits are stored in the refrigerator. For this:

• Carefully weed the prunes, separate the fruits with injuries.
• Packaged in small portions in a glass container with a tight-fitting lid, containers or bags with a zip-fastener.
• Place on the shelf, the refrigerator door or in the fruit compartment
• Once a week, you need to check the moisture in the container. If it appeared, the fruits dry.

Proper storage of dried plum will preserve all its important properties.

Naturally, you can protect yourself from unnecessary trouble and buy prunes in the market or in the store. But when it is possible to cook prunes at home, do not expose yourself and your family to possible negative consequences.