| |  | | Drying Strawberries
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: Cathy Toda
Posted on: September 4, 1999
Which dehydrator is best used in the drying of fresh strawberries? Do you have any special recipe which you could share?
We assume you are asking about drying the fruits. Strawberry leaves are an important medicinal herb for diarrhea and dysentery; but as leaves do not present much of a challenge to dry, we will discuss fruits only.
We have no direct experience in drying strawberries commercially. From first principles, we can tell you that you will likely need to cut the fruits into smaller sizes in order to allow water to escape more quickly. This is true of the larger fruited varieties; the small wild-type or the older everbearing types may be possible to dry whole. In addition, you will need a heat source and a fan. Decloet, a manufacturer of drying equipment for the herb industry, can advise you further on what you will need. Decloet will be at Fourth Richters Commercial Herb Growing Conference in October (1999) with a trade booth and they will bring one of their units for display. For more information on Decloet dryers, go to the Decloet website (http://www.decloet.com).
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