Has anyone tried the hoshigaki sold by Jayone, Chinese import I ended up buying at the Houston Hong Kong market. Curious if it is comparable to others or homemade? They taste and texture like I expected them to. That said I have never had hoshigaki before, so I do not have a baseline for comparison. Looked on their website and even less info than on the box, so no telling what variety it is. Pics for reference.
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I can’t compare to the proper hoshigaki, but I do know this kind is usually quite tasty! I’ve seen videos where they prepare them, and the process is essentially the same as hoshigaki. The biggest difference is they place them stem down on open-woven bamboo baskets to dry instead of hanging them, hence the disk shape.
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How do you know they are from China? The company and the lettering on the box is Korean, not Chinese. I suppose it is possible that a Korean company could import dried persimmons from China and re-label them for sale— there are various reasons— but I don’t see anything in your photos on the box which suggests Chinese origin.
In Asian markets where I am, Korean-origin dried persimmons tend to be more expensive than Chinese-origin dried persimmons. They can be delicious.
Koreans refer to them as Ggott-gam (꽃감).
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Thought I posted the other side of the box too. Jayone is indeed a Korean company, but says product of China on the box. You are correct on labeling of food products though, so who really knows.
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Below you can see what we have purchased in the past. These are not bad, but not the best I have had.
If I recall correctly these are typically $12-$15 per bag… not inexpensive. You need to thaw them a bit before eating.
In the long run, a far cheaper alternative is doing this:
I learned this method from a video I watched. It works very well. You won’t be making dried persimmons in exactly the same style as hoshigaki/ggot-gam, but it is much less labor-intensive and takes much less time.
Based on my limited experience, it still delivers pretty spectacular results. I can take unripened astringent persimmons like store-bought Hachiya, and 20 hours in the food dehydrator at 140°F turns them into deliciously sweet treats, at least as good as hoshigaki/ggot-gam. I can’t explain the chemistry but all that astringency from the tannins disappears, leaving wonderful sweetness.
The unripened Hachiya are often less than $1.00/pound at local Asian groceries, and all you need to do is peel them, slice them, and put them in the food dehydrator. I’ll vary the time depending on how much I want to eat them and how long I plan to keep them; the longer they remain in the dehydrator, the more leathery they become.
We did a blind taste test with store-bought Hachiya vs. home-grown Hachiya and family members said the home-grown was too sweet after emerging from the dehydrator. We also tried store-bought vs. home-grown Fuyu, but found the Hachiya is far superior, at least to us. Try it, you may like it.
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@Tad_07 I’m curious if you tried these and what you thought. I bought something similar once and it was very bland and not nearly as sweet and tasty as non-astringent persimmons I bought and sliced up and then dehydrated.
After reading the @Left_Coaster account I’ll be trying it with Hachiya when they come in.
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What I am making in the food dehydrator is referred to by Koreans as “gam malengy” (Korean, " 감말랭이"; romanizations of Korean have gotten complicated over the last twenty or thirty years, so that is my home-rolled romanization. It is visible in the title of the video I linked). I don’t know the Japanese equivalent.
I’ve never tried making proper hoshigaki/ggot-gam at home; I expect the insects we have here in zone 10a would make it difficult.
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Dried persimmon is a favorite here. No special technique needed. I usually wait until the persimmons are soft, cut them up, and dry about 24 hours at 115F. Can’t remember if I tried drying them while still hard and astringent. I think I did and the color or taste wasn’t as pleasing. The way I do it the dried product is a beautiful translucent orange.
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Will definitely be using my dehydrator once my Hachiya and Honan Red starts producing…may try some of my fuyus like this too. I’m in zone 9 and have the same concerns as you as trying to dry them outside. I’ve seen them done inside in a few threads and on https://mrtexaspersimmon.weebly.com/ These were not cheap either. Wanted to try the white box as sugar bloom was much stronger, but all the boxes were open and clearly people had been helping themselves. Picture of the product of China too.
@zendog Flavor of these is lackluster to me and definitely not as sweet as I’d hoped. Had fresh persimmons that are much better. Like I said though I’ve never had them dried before so wasn’t really sure how to compare them.
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Thanks. I was very disappointed with them when I bought something that looked almost the same as yours. Too bad, but I guess we’ll all just need to make our own.
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Regarding hoshigaki/ggot-gam, in east Asia (Korea, Japan, northern China) the persimmon harvest comes in the fall when the cooler weather supresses insect activity. If you live in a zone with similar climate, you might be able to successfully copy what can be seen in many videos.
I watched a local expert with connections to the rare fruit growers association and a university orchard (with an amazing variety of persimmon trees) do a demonstration of hoshigaki/ggot-gam using a homemade rack and a makeshift screen cover for the rack, but to me it seemed inadequate; in zone 10a there are small fruit-loving flies which can apparently find their way in even through window screens. So though I appreciate hoshigaki/ggot-gam very much, I will limit myself to store-bought and will continue doing my thing with the food dehydrator. 140°F for 20 hours seems to work some kind of magic… all those rock-hard astringent Hachiya slices come out very sweet. Not to mention, no worries regarding bugs.
In a plastic storage container/plastic bag, they can keep in the refrigerator for months.
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I buy mine from a Korean supermarket to satisfy my sweet tooth.
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With other fruits I find that overripe and translucent make the best dried fruit. I’m thinking pears, peaches, apricots.
I’d expect the same for persimmon, but who knows what alchemy goes on with the astringency and so forth so I’ve tried to keep an open mind. Still hoping to try some dried persimmons that I like as much or better than the ones I’ve listed above.
But I think the only home-dried persimmons I’ve had were ones I’ve done.
I also prefer dried longan and probably jackfruit.
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For making hoshigaki the traditional way, it’s a race between dehydration firming up the fruit and ripening processes turning the fruit so soft it ends up as a splat on the ground. In my experience, the ideal persimmons for drying should be very firm. Firmer than you would want to eat if it were a Fuyu. And there cannot be any punctures or bird pecks. Persimmons seem very sensitive to ethylene production after mechanical damage, and wounds in the skin rapidly start the softening process. The climate needs to be dry enough to start evaporating water from the flesh before it softens too much.
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Dried persimmon is one of my favorite dry fruits. It is so sweet, concentrated sugar as the juice evaporated, and concentrated flavor.
The nature way to dry persimmons is to peel the skin and hang them on the tree or lines to air dry till desired certain percentage of water left. At this stage, the persimmons are semidry and soft. Then they are stacked in a container for weeks to let the nature sugar appear in its surface. The dried persimmons should have white sugar powder on the surface. But some merchants cover the inferior product with store bought powered sugar or starch to pretend these are nature sugar from drying process. One of the dry persimmons in the photo above looks too white, looks like were covered with store bought powdered sugar. So be careful when you see a perfect looking dried persimmons.
Dried persimmons should have golden color inside, the surface should be dry with nature white sugar spots. If the the surface are or has been in moisture or wet, mold will grow and the surface will be covered with golden/brownish mold. Many times, the store move the dried persimmons out of refrigerator, some moisture condensed on the persimmons and cause the mold grow on the persimmons. And the store will reduce the price and do a quick sale.
There is no big difference between tree hung persimmons( look like wrinkled persimmons ) which is more moist and soft and the flattered persimmons which are much dry and chewy. Korean dried persimmons are more on the nature dry form, and Chinese dried persimmons are more on flattered form. None of them should have any additives
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For the record, over the last couple of weekends we have made batches of dehydrated Hachiya slices and they have been delicious. See post 5 for a link to a YouTube video showing what we are doing. I learned how to do it from this video, it’s not my video.
Right now store-bought Hachiya are somewhere between $1 and $1.3/lb at various local Asian grocery stores here and there. After deydrating them, I keep them in the refrigerator in an airtight container and they are good for several months. I only purchase Hachiya which are firm to the touch, the only sign of ripeness I want is an orange-colored peel.
I had the last batch in the dehydrator for 16 hours at 140°F and they came out great.
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Stumbled on this video. About 7 minutes in you can see that they use a drying room for seven days (per the English CC). As you eventually see they are making some kind of “accelerated” half-dried hoshigaki. At the start of the drying process, the temperature of the room is around 18°C/64°F, with a humidity of 56.3%. At the end-- the caption said seven days, but the drying room controls say 3.04, no units of measure-- right around 7:20 in, you can see the readout says 31.8°C/3.04 = timer/28.3% humidity.
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