Thanks but this did not work for my Prok. I tried storing in a warm spot, storing in a cold spot, storing in a closed container with ethanol, mixing paste with ethanol, mixing paste with gelatin, freezing. Nothing worked. There were a few very ripe fruits still on the tree in December - still astringent.
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@jrd51 … thats not nice. Have others experienced the same issue with prok ?
Others i wanted to try are H63A. WS8-10, 100-46.
Do you know if any of those have the same issue ?
My sisters mature wild american trees are in full sun location… and they do loose all astringency after a week on the counter… if you pick them when they are a little soft.
A persimmon that never looses its astringency would be a bummer for sure.
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According to this article, various polysaccharides including xanthan gum and carrageenan can have good effect. I picked up some xanthan gum today and will see how it goes. I’m hoping that, if it works, it doesn’t also thicken it too much.
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@jjjreisss … my wife uses that as a thickner for a few keto dishes…
Occasionally she makes keto sausage / biscuits/ gravy… which is very good.
I recall the gravy has cream cheese and xyanthum gum in it… possibly other stuff to.
It does thicken well.
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I have two giant fuyu persimmons that are always slightly astringent. My asian family says that non-astringent Persimmons grown in cool and short summer regions can retain slight astringency (especially late season varieties and gosho varieties when not pollinated). The astringency of these fruit supposedly cannot be removed by treatment as it can with other astringent cultivars.
So, I only eat these slightly astringent persimmons after drying them as chips (ripe ones) or Hoshigaki (underripe and a little green).
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This year I harvested fruit from 2nd year grafts of both H63A and WS8-10 on the top-worked Prok. Both varieties became non-astringent or minimally / tolerably astringent while either (a) soft ripe on the tree for H63A, or (b) soft ripe on the ground for Barbra’s Blush. Bottom line: Good varieties become minimally astringent even if grafted to the very same tree that can’t reliably produce non-astringent fruit.
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I have no idea.
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But you live in Z9B, right? I usually associate Z9 with warm areas but it only really describes the winter. Are you in some northern maritime region that never gets cold but also never gets hot?
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Yes, I’m in Santa Cruz with maritime influence, and in a canyon so I’m always a little cooler. Other Jiro, izu persimmons are fine.
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I thought I remembered that someone successfully removed the astringency in hybrid persimmons with alcohol. However, I have searched and have not found the post. I have about 30 lbs. of JT-02. I have tried several and it hasn’t seemed to have much effect on them. If any of you have been successful, could you please tell me how you did it? Also, has anyone tried carbon dioxide? Or any other method for that matter that has been tried successfully on hybrids.
I tried Kasandra without success. I have been watching the forum carefully for a few years. I haven’t seen one report of successful use of ethanol on a hybrid.
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I’ve tried three days in CO2 with firm but fully orange JT-02, Nikita’s Gift, and Sestronka fruit without success in removing astringency. Astringent kaki fruit in the same batch were non-astringent after the CO2 treatment.
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I just posted in the hybrid thread about using alcohol to remove the astringency in Gora Goverla and Nikitas Gift. A ripe but still firm Hachiya would be non-astringent in 3 days, but it took 5 days to get the hybrids to be fully non-astringent. I would imagine that the higher the percentage of American persimmon in the parentage the longer it might take to get them non astringent and possibly some hybrids won’t work. I expected it to work with Gora Goverla, since I had heard of others doing it, but I was please to see it work with Nikitas Gift as well.
Here is the picture of the persimmons in the bag 5 days ago with the little dish of gin.
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Did you just leave these at room temp? Or did you try an elevated temperature? In the literature on astringency removal, a hot water bath at warmer temperatures takes hours instead of days. I think with the hybrids and Americans, that will be crucial to winning the race against the normal softening process.
Also, one thing that the researchers do (and I believe commercial operations) is spritz the fruits evenly with the ethanol source before sealing them up. Apparently, the amount of ethanol needed is only a few mL worth.
I’m still twiddling my thumbs waiting for my trees to come into bearing, but I can’t wait to actually test this out.
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More work to make hybrids and apparently more patience for astringency removal! I think it’s worth it.
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I’m giving this a try on some unripe Prok. Colored, but still firm and astringent. I’m not expecting success, but unsure what else to do with them!
- One is going in a container with a piece of banana.
- Two got wetted with vodka and placed in another container along with a few ml of more vodka. One of these persimmon I gently scored the skin ~1mm deep to see if that makes any difference.
Will report back in a week or so. I expect to have to swap out that banana a couple times so it doesnt get nasty.
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I just left them at room temperature on the dining room table. No direct sunlight gets in through the windows that might have warmed them up, but it would have stead diffuse light during the day. I was hoping this would work based on what I had seen from some Ukrainian growers and wanted to use the simplest technique possible.
I’m interested in this as a possible way to produce fruit for sale down the line, so I thought it best not to “process” the fruit itself in any way, which I thought spritzing them might actually fall under, although I’m not sure. Once you get into processing there are other regulations, permits and requirements that may come into play, particularly with alcohol. I had heard about a farmers market vendor selling “vodka persimmons” which were kaki he grew and treated this way, so wanted to test the same minimal process. For bulk, I could see filling a cooler with persimmons, adding a saucer of vodka balanced on top, cover it for 5 days and they should all be good to go.
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@speedengineer thanks for doing the experiment. I do think it is harder, possibly impossible with American persimmons even if it seems like it should work the same way. At least that is what I had seen from others. Maybe it just requires treating for more days.
I look forward to following your attempt.
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One thing to keep in mind is that persimmons will often lose astringency as they ripen indoors due to the mere passage of time. More precisely, it’s due to endogenous metabolic processes not some exogenous treatment. Also, maybe just being stored in an airtight container, exposed to its own gasses, will accelerate the internal process independent of any external, artificial treatment.
So each experiment with a group of fruit that get a treatment with ethanol or CO2 or whatever should include a control group subject to the same protocol but without the treatment. For example, @speedengineer (above) should have a fruit in a plastic container with a small metal cup that contains only water.
The real question is not whether the treated fruit ripens. It is whether the treated fruit ripens faster / better than the untreated fruit.
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When I have more fruit to play with I plan to do a controlled study. Alcohol, apple, CO2, water, no addition, and counter in air would made sense to me.
If we can find a low effort method for crunchy hybrids that will change the game.
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