Best apples & pear varieties for drying out there, that are sweet and not tart.
Its been brought up before, but many just take them from books and lists with no real life experiences.
Any suggestions please.
Getting more interested in pears, as they give a different texture when dried and seem more sweet.
In Central Europe the greater portion of pear varieties we used to grow were smaller ones that had a very short shelf life and were prone to bletting. They were dried in drying houses with wooden and weaved racks and a clay oven in the middle which was loaded from outside. This allowed for large quantities getting dried at relatively high speed.
Some of those varieties are Blutbirne, Coloree de Julliet and other local early varieties. Then it was butter pears as they have next to no gritty grains in their flesh.
I’ve tried using Williams (Bartlett) to make sundried fruit leather and while the taste was excellent, the sandpaper texture was not great.
As for apples, that have zero tartness, my neighbour swears by Red Delicious. To me, that is just like a fruit version of spa wafers. I prefer russeted Reinettes with a good balance of sugar and acid and strong flavour. Traditionally those were used because you needed the acid (and a bit of smoke) to prolong shelf life. I have that taste fixed in my mind together with the slightly chewy texture.
I have eaten dried Comice (grown and dried by a friend) and they were excellent!
For apples: gravenstein. It has the necessary flavor to remain after drying. Amazing actually. Of the 20+ varieties we have tried, nothing has come close. It has a bit of tartness when fresh (and I don’t really like them so much fresh), but when dehydrating, apples lose a lot of their kick. A straight sweet apple when dehydrated isn’t much of anything after dehydrating (even without heat). More one-dimensionally bland. Pears seem to have the opposite effect (sugar bombs) although we haven’t done pears as much.
Seems like all the classic Heritage apples grown toward the drying are sub-acid or more tart. For great tang when cooked with later.
Ideally dry flesh apples are faster and easier to dry. I suppose there are a few sweet ones.
I have had Golden Sweet and Husk Sweet , but not dried. I bet those would taste like honey.
I’ve found that Winter Banana makes a very good non-tart dried apple.
Haven’t tried drying Husk Sweet yet. I should do that this season.
I tried to access the USDA descriptor search to find plus 150 gram and up apples that are sweet with dry flesh. But the website must be having maintenance.
Sweet Baugh and Pumpkin Sweet fit the bill too.
I tried drying Jonathan two years ago when a friend’s tree was overloaded. They were really good that way.
That is the limit of my apple drying so far, but I think Lamb Abbey & GoldRush might also be good dried. Will give that a try when they come ripe this season.
I had a ton of Barttlet pears last summer and gave a bunch to a buddy. He dehydrated most and gave me back a fair bit in return. He added cinnamon to them and they were excellent. I couldn’t believe how sweet they were, just delicious.
My favorite drying apple is suncrisp. Its very sweet and some acid.
I like Evercrisp. It’s too tart for the OP but I find some tartness makes them more refreshing to eat. Still eating on the Evercrisp. I also dried Potomac pears that were almost too ripe. They dried ok but were one dimensional sweetness.
One day I want to try ole timey sulphur fume drying.
And traditional English straw drying.
I dry many apples for giving to family members at Thanksgiving: Honeycrisp, Jonagold, Fiesta. My personal preference is for Jonagold. I love dried pears too–especially Karl’s Favorite (Ewart?) Dried Victoria plum is not bad if you like tart fruit. My practice is to slice the fruit about 3/8" thick, a vertical slice not horizontal. Apples take about 9 hrs. in my dehydrator, pears a bit longer. ( I have to consult my log to see what works.)
If you haven’t tried drying fruit, it’s easy and safe. I had concerns the fruit would mold if I didn’t dry it enough. But once I actually did it and followed the manufacturer’s recommendations on determining when dry, I never had any issues.
I like the NESCO Gardenmaster Digital Pro Food dehydrator. It’s a 1000 watt unit with 4 trays standard. It allows expansion so I use 8 trays without having to increase drying time due to extra trays. Not sure where the fall off would be with more trays. I did not have to flip tray order as some dehydrators recommend while drying.
I like thin slices so I use a Mandoline food slicer. You will get some waste as the food feeder thing doesn’t work with the last pieces of fruit. I just put those in tupperware container for snacks. Don’t be tempted to bare hand it. I thought I was careful but slipped on a tough skinned apple and cut myself. I have since purchased a steel mesh glove.
Takes 6 hours for apples and 9 hours for peaches with my thickness of slices and using the recommended temperature setting.
Wolf River is great dried. However the tree itself is not that productive, at least for me.
Wolf River are nice big apples though when you do get some of them.
I dry crabapples they are great little bites packed with sweet and sour flavours. I cut them in half, use a melon baller to take out the core, I don’t peel them. If they are bigger I do slice the halves into sections
I only have a sample size of three (Potomac and two Harrows), but all of my pears are amazing dried. Like candy. They taste very different fresh, but I can’t tell them apart after drying. So if you narrow it down to blight resistant European pears you probably can’t go wrong.
I dried lots of the lowly Liberty apples one year in my dehydrator and sprinkled them with cinnamon and a tiny bit of sugar. They were delicious.
Even better, I found a food saver bag of them in the basement that was 12 years old that had been missed. Of course I had to try them out of curiosity. They tasted just like the day I dried them and I am still here to tell the tale. I gave my husband some without telling him how old they were to see if he could taste any off flavors, and he wanted more and thought they were a perfect snack food.
So, if you are looking for long-term survival food that needs no freezing or canning, dried fruit seems to be a pretty good option!
