Persimmons 2021

Jay,
Maybe we should move our ripening form to this thread to invite more input!
Dennis

1 Like

@Harbin how would you describe the taste? Can you compare it to hachia?

Here’s more about the persimmon ripening firm Dennis is referring to.

1 Like

@Seattlefigs do you have an update on the coffee cake and chocolate? How would you rank them vs a fully ripened wrinkly hachia?

There are 2 different mechanisms by which astringency is removed in persimmons: ripening and a metabolic pathway involving ethanol and acetyldehyde. CO2, submersing in water, and sealing in a chamber with vodka all use the second pathway. @jrd51 did a really deep dive on this in the thread below:

hi, i have rehomed my chocolate since i didnt like seeded persimmons. and my coffeecake since it was potted and the heatwave in june came all the fruits dropped. i lost a lot of fruit set this year becuase it that heatwave. my friend in ground tree did well she has both coffeecake and chocolate side by side. please go back to the link i already submitted the harvest date and notes about her tree here Persimmon Ripening Data - Now with forms! - #12 by murky

2 Likes

Nikita’s Gift is famous for its rich taste and sweetness.

2 Likes

IMG_0692
astringent freshly pick hard, slight orange softening at tip

IMG_0693
non-astringent after vacuum sealing for 4 days, still hard, slight orange softening at tip

Wow, vacuum sealing worked on my Saijo!!!
On Friday, I placed 4 hard, green-yellow Saijo in sealer bag and vacuumed shut. Today, Tuesday (total of 4 days), I removed them for tasting. Since I just wanted to see if the vacuuming had removed astringency, I did not bother to let them counter ripen any further.
I sliced them up and they were all NON-astringent, sweet (relatively sweet for my northerly site) and crunchy!
You can’t vacuum seal fruit that are even partially soft (e.g. soft at more than tip) due to the vacuum squeezing process. However, you can seal hard green-yellow fruit. They did not seem to further ripen in vacuumed bag. You can then counter ripen to desired softness and color.
Thanks for your suggestion - it worked perfectly and seems even faster than my Sodastream method.
I now want to back up and repeat vacuum sealing for 3 vs. 2 days.
My Saijo are quite small (only 2 and 1/2" long) so longer days might be required for larger varieties.
Wow- nothing like instant gratification. Thanks for suggestion!
Chris

5 Likes

That’s pretty cool! It’s neat to see all the approaches that work, and also neat to see that you are able to remove astringency at that relatively unripe stage.

I’ve also seen submerging in water for a couple days as an approach that works. It’s working on the same principle as this and the CO2: creating an anoxic environment. If you have a big jar or crock, that could be a good way to do it without having to use so much plastic.

2 Likes

Good suggestion. I did look into using re-usable vacuum sealing storage containers, with an attached Food Saver hose. I didn’t see any containers larger than about 2 qts.

There’s a satisfaction(and perhaps important variable!) at seeing the bag vacuum itself around the fruit. I assume similar anorexic environment achieved in a vacuum container (since containers whoosh with incoming air when opened), but not sure. More testing on the way!

3 Likes

oops anoxic not anorexic - spell check!

2 Likes

Wow, great hack! Is your machine a foodsaver? Did you use the normal bags that come with the machine?

Yes Food Saver. Normal bags that come with it. Your use of word ‘hack’ suddenly made me feel younger!

2 Likes

Nice side-by-side comparison of some of the hybrid varieties, so you can get a better idea of how they look and how big they are:

13 Likes

~24hrs in CO2 + ~48hrs normal air and my Nikita’s Gift is still too astringent to really eat. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

I tried CO2 treatment on my first 3 Nikita’s Gift fruit for ~72 hours. All the kakis in the same batch were non-astringent by that time (after sitting out overnight after removing from the CO2), but the Nikita’s Gift fruit were still too astringent to eat. I didn’t have more fruit to experiment further.

This raises an interesting question – Whether astringency is the same in Asians and Americans / hybrids. From what I remember, the reported successes with CO2 or alcohol involved astringent Asians. For example, CO2 is used commercially with the astringent Asians sold as Sharon and Rojo Brillante. Others (but not all) have reported success with the astringent Asian Hachiya. On theater hand, I had no success using alcohol do remove astringency from the American Prok. @ncdabbler is having difficulty using CO2 with the hybrid Nikita’s Gift.

Do others interpret the reported results similarly?

1 Like

I’m glad to hear it, and thanks for reporting back. I’m still looking forward to eventually tasting Saijo. I have a young tree growing well, after first getting sent a mislabeled tree, then having no success grafting it.

I’ve currently got 3 Hachiya (or at least labeled as such at the produce store) that I vacuum sealed yesterday. I’ve noticed that they’ve slackened in the bag, either a slight leak, or more likely, some precipitated gases from the fruit.

In a rigid container, you may be able to use softer fruit without squishing it. I think I gave away our containers because we rarely, or never, used them and we lack space for things - especially that we may not be able to find when we want to use them.

After a few hours that happened to 1 of my bags. Since the other 4 remained vacuum tight, it seemed to be a leak. I resealed it and it remained vacuumed.
With this next batch I’m reducing the days in the vacuum state to find the minimum # days.
Also going to keep some in the vacuumed state for two weeks to see if it would be a feasible to stagger the fruit for fresh eating.
I, too, gave away all my rigid vacuum containers. Will have check the thrift stores and buy one back!

CO2 treatment works for kaki and doesn’t work for virginiana. With hybrids it is more complicated. It seems that those with predominant kaki genes respond to CO2 quite well and those that are somewhat in the middle or closely related to virginiana remain astringent until fully soft.

3 Likes