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.
