Quote …
(“ Last year I used vodka to remove Hachiya’s astringency but it did not work. I blamed the vodka”)
Humm…
Try Tequila !
I have used it to remove the astringency of limes !
First glass or two , may not work ?
But by the third one ,it’s definitely working .
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Yeah……I’ve had the same experience. But it may have to do with the added salt….
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You reminds me of my friend who cooked with wine. He alternated between taking a swig and adding some in his dish until he finished cooking. It was amusing to watch.
Here is the bottle, a Dutch vodka.
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How long did you leave it in the before tasting the fruit? I do 72 hours and I’ve never had it fail.
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I read the testimonies of members here last year and tried it. The first time I checked it at a one week period. It did not work so I added more vodka and kept it for another week.
After that, I gave up. The container was tight. The vodka was old so I blamed the vodka!!!
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Jay,
Maybe we should move our ripening form to this thread to invite more input!
Dennis
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Here’s more about the persimmon ripening firm Dennis is referring to.
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@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
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Nikita’s Gift is famous for its rich taste and sweetness.
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astringent freshly pick hard, slight orange softening at tip
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
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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.
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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!
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oops anoxic not anorexic - spell check!
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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!
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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:
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~24hrs in CO2 + ~48hrs normal air and my Nikita’s Gift is still too astringent to really eat. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.