It’s getting cool here. We’ve had one light frost, another is forecast. But days are generally quite nice – 60’s, sometimes low 70s. This won’t last for long. Soon we will plunge into a winter regime.
Meanwhile I have a treeful of Kasandra persimmons, I’m guessing 500 fruits. No leaves. They have been bright orange for weeks. A relative few have ripened on the tree but cold nights and occasional cold days seem to have slowed progress. The average fruit is a little soft at the bottom but hard at the top.
On the other hand, when I bring these fruits indoors they don’t seem to move much faster. Both IKKJ and JT-02 brought indoors seem to soften much quicker even though they were less orange to start.
I know that I have to pick the tree soon, before we get a hard freeze. My question is when. Specifically, should I pick the fruits now and store the ones I want to ripen at room temp (~70 F). Or should I leave the fruits on the trees as long as possible then pick them just before a forecasted hard freeze? So is there any benefit to keeping the fruits on the tree?
Just as a footnote, I’ve tried drying some of the fruit. At 135 F, progress is fast. The fruits are pretty dry and astringency is removed within a day or so. Unfortunately the fruit often turn brown which I find unattractive even if I’m not sure it affects the taste. At 95 F, progress is slow even if I cut the fruits in half. I think the result will be OK but I don’t know yet.
Edit: I put a still slightly astringent JT-02 cut in halves into the dehydrator at 95 F late yesterday afternoon. This morning it was soft, wet, non-astringent. It had not dried materially but the residual astringency was gone. Meanwhile halved Kasandras remain hard and astringent after 2 days. . . .
I have a similar problem - but not that extreme.
On my graft of Kasandra, I have a lot of unripe fruit currently. They won’t ripen any more after leaves have turned color.
In the past I’ve taken the fruits down and stored them in a box with apples at room temperature.
I would check every day. They ripen very fast.
Is this temperature (e.g., when leaves turn color, temps are cool) or metabolism (e.g., when leaves turn color, stuff stops happening inside the tree).
FWIW, my leaves turned color weeks ago and dropped entirely maybe 1 week ago. But the fruit continues to ripen, just very slowly. On a tree with LOTS of fruit, I can find 1-3 new ripe fruit each day. I should probably pick them and get them in a fridge so they don’t all ripen at once.
I believe there are two processes happening to a fruit - maturation and ripening. Once there are no leaves or chlorophyll, there will be no more maturation. There may be other necessary conditions for maturation such as temperature but I don’t know. All I can guess is that a tree needs leaves to mature the fruit.
But there is a ripening process that can happen to the fruit whether it is mature or not. If the fruit is not mature, it will not ripen to sweetness.
For persimmons, I believe they will continue to ripen off the tree at least as well off the tree as on the tree. Especially in a room which is around 70F in the presence of ethylene.
I picked one of my Zima Khurma several weeks ago when it had turned orange and most foliage still green. Placed it under a glass on a paper towel in my south facing sunny window for 3 days. It was by then very sweet, nice texture and no sign of astringency. (@TNHunter ) method works very well, so I recommend to pick before ambient freezing temps and store in cool dark place until you want them, then use this technique several days before consuming.
Dennis
Kent, Wa
FWIW, I’ve tried a few approaches to drying the not-quite-ripe fruit.
Drying whole fruit or fruit with calyx removed at 135 F takes 2-3 days. The result is non-astringent and edible but unattractive (IMO) because the fruit tends to turn brown.
Drying halved fruit at 95 F takes about a week. The result is non-astringent, edible, and reasonable attractive – like brown-orange chips. See the picture below. But both the skin and the pith harden so I think the optimal approach would be to remove the skin and pith beforehand. Of course that would be extremely work-intensive.
The removal of astringency is gradual and seems to track the removal of water, for whatever reason. In other words, as the fruit get drier, they get less astringent.
Most of the fruits are seeded. Removing the seeds while you eat is a chore, but the seeded fruit seems to taste better.
This is my 3rd or 4th crop. In the past, I have had doubts whether I liked the flavor of Kasandra. This year there are no doubts. I prefer them to my Americans.
I’ve still got hundreds of not-quite-ripe fruits in the garage. My approach going forward will be to monitor them, removing any that seem ripe. I’ll eat some of these fresh, but then dry the rest. I’m hoping that astringency will be much less of an issue with the ripe-ish fruit. In general I have found that a fruit that appears ripe (i.e., red-orange and soft bottom to top) is usually either entirely non-astringent or only slightly astringent at the shoulders and under the skin.
Meanwhile, my wife cored and peeled three fruits that we are drying in a dehydrator (not hanging), trying to produce a sort of Kassandra Hoshigaki. It’s been a day and a half; so far they look pretty good. I’ll probably do as many of these as I can but fall back on simply coring and halving – like pictured but with the pith removed.
Edit: When Kasandra is fully ripe, the calyx can usually be pulled off with the pith attached. I think I’ll try pulling the calyx plus core, dry what’s left with the skin on.
I’ve been refining my drying method. More on that later.
Separately, I removed the calyx and core from a bunch of Kasandra fruit. Then I let the cored fruit sit for 3 days at 70 F. In the end, astringency was gone. Then I mashed the fruit and painstakingly removed the seeds by hand. Then I attacked the pulp with an immersion blender to break up the skin. The result was roughly 2 1/2 quarts of “sauce.”
The sauce is very tasty. I’m gonna let family eat what they want at Thanksgiving. I might make leather with the rest.
I’m gonna put this topic to bed by summarizing my take-aways. I think I have hit on a great approach to completing the ripening of Kasandra fruit indoors in my short-season area. Apologies in advance to anyone who ends up thinking, “Duh! I invented that protocol and wrote about it years ago.”
Leave the fruits on the tree as long as possible. Remove them after leaves fall but before a hard freeze. I assume that the fruits will be orange (not red) and wholly or partially hard (not soft).
Place the fruits in a cool location (e.g., a garage) where they can ripen slowly. Temps around 50-60 F seem to work well. Higher temps will result in faster ripening which can be overwhelming and may encourage mold.
If possible, place the fruits in a container in a way that they do not touch each other. Good air flow reduces the risk of mold.
Wait until the fruit are soft enough so that the calyx and pithy core can be removed manually (no knife). Core them. Return the cored fruits to the storage container.
Spray the fruit with ethanol (e.g., 80 proof vodka). Repeat if necessary, but in my experience 1-2 sprays are sufficient. Any residual astringency tends to be concentrated near the skin, especially around the shoulders, so spraying only the tops / sides works well.
At cool temps (50-60 F), the fruits lose astringency entirely and develop very few defects, such as mold or discoloration. I didn’t do it, but I assume you could accelerate this final phase with higher indoor temps.
Using this method, the flavor is outstanding – sweet and caramel. To my surprise, it does not appear to improve with drying. Here’s my finished fruit, which looks a lot like the fruit a week or two ago. Admittedly I violated the prescription against touching.
@KS_razerback just liked this last post. My thanks to him for reminding me of the lessons learned in prior years! Now I’m prepared for this season’s Kasandra crop.
Just a note to those with longer, perhaps warmer seasons.
I have a 3 year old kasandra tree that held 30+ fruit this year. Yesterday (Sept 30) around noon I noticed 2 fruit that had changed from orange to a more reddish tint. I felt of them and they were already quite soft.
I picked them and put them on the counter in my ripening chamber. Around 630 after dinner… I tried one of them.
It was totally non astringent already and very delicious. Below is what it looked like.
Now I am in southern middle TN not far from the Alabama state line.
It looks like all my Kasandra fruit will easily ripen on the tree, or with just a little counter time.
I am not sure how far north you would have to be to start having to do these extra steps to get them to ripen.
I read just this week that thecityman… who is about 70 miles north of me… his Saijo persimmons ripen just fine on the tree… mid October - early November.
I think their ripening time is similar to kasandra… possibly a little later.
Sounds like if you are Tennesssee or more southern… you should not have any problems ripening, Saijo, Kasandra on the tree or countertop. Nothing special required.
That sounds right to me. Here, a few Kasandra fruits ripen on the tree but 95% are not quite done by the time really cold weather hits in early to mid-November. At this stage, the bottom 1/2 to 2/3 of the fruit is ripe but the top 1/3 - 1/2 is still a little hard and astringent. The additional time indoors in required mainly to ensure a loss of astringency. BTW, the fruits do not continue to ripen outdoors in the cold; I left some on the tree last year but the only benefit was to fatten a raccoon. But if my season was only 1-2 weeks longer I think they’d mostly ripen on the tree.
On the other hand, Saijo ripens much earlier here. In my pictures posted recently in the Persimmons 2025 thread, you can contrast the color of Saijo and Kasandra. From memory I’m guesstimating mid October. Saijo picked not quite ripe does ripen easily on a countertop within 3-5 days.
Edit: @TNHunter See the thread Persimmon 2025. Today I picked my first ripe Saijo of the season. Kasandra is a long way from ripe.
Yeah, I tagged you because you seemed to endorse that view (i.e., “I think their ripening time is similar to kasandra… possibly a little later”). In stark contrast, my experience here is that Saijo ripens at least 4 weeks earlier – without damage such as a bird peck. For example, the fruit I ate today was unblemished.
I have no reason to doubt @thecityman’s observations. Mainly I just wanted to be sure that readers don’t overgeneralize. We wouldn’t expect a persimmon to ripen earlier in a cooler climate; but evidently that’s what’s happening here.
Maybe. But in general I’d prefer a less exotic explanation. The consensus seems to be that Saijo ripens early. For example, TOA writes “the Saijo persimmon tree is ready to harvest beginning in September and continuing into October.”
The anomalous observation – the odd fact that needs to be explained – is late ripening, especially in the South. Maybe there’s a late-ripening sport, but again genetic mutation is not my first choice as an explanation. More likely there is something odd in the growing conditions that resulted in Saijo’s delayed ripening until November.
If Saijo ripens 4 weeks earlier than Kasandra… my Saijos would be ripening early September… then Kasandra and IKKJ would ripen mostly in October.
That would be ok… spread the harvest out some.
Kevin had multiple Saijo trees… he really loved them. I think it was in the 2021 persimmon thread where I read his comments on them. I will check that again.
In the Persimons 2021 thread… thecityman / Kevin gives the details below how he dehydrates his fruit from 3 Saijo trees.
…
I have what is probably a very strange way that I dry my Saijo’s. I actually take them after they are fully soft, then pluck the top off and squeeze the other end of the fruit and the soft flesh just sort of plops out into a pile on my drying tray. By the time they finish drying they are really more like thick fruit leather than a real individual dried fruit piece. But the taste is absolutely out of this world. It is absolutely like the sweetest, best candy ever. Its quite firm but not hard. Just great. Its a bit wasteful as you do leave some of the fruit flesh behind in the skin, but to me it worth it to get this dried candy without the peeling in it. I’ve tried cutting them into sections with the peeling on but for me the peeling hurts the taste since it has no sweetness. Yes, this is a very long way from the Japanese Hoshigaki method, but it only takes one night in the drier and the end product never molds and is delightful to me.
