Re: help! drying blueberries

[Guest guest]

We picked 24 pounds of blueberries and are attempting to dry half to make

pemmican. The drying is not going well. They are just very mushy and not

drying. Any ideas?

Elaine

[Guest guest]

>We picked 24 pounds of blueberries and are attempting to dry half to make

>pemmican. The drying is not going well. They are just very mushy and not

>drying. Any ideas?

>Elaine

I tried drying them once and it was VERY unsuccessful. The skins

keep the moisture in. And once you get them dry, they are tiny

little things that are hardly worth it. I think if you want to

dry grapes, blueberries, and other berries the way to do it

is the traditional way ... on a tray out in the hot sun.

Soooo ... I freeze berries. Or mash them and make fruit leather

in the dehydrator. Or juice them and freeze the juice, or make

wine from them. Blueberries seem to be the best " freezing "

berries though, for the same reason they don't dehydrate well,

so I freeze them usually. Blackberries are good for juicing,

since my family doesn't like the big seeds much.

As for pemmican ... I'd advise making a small batch for starters

to see if you like it. So far the results we've heard here

have been rather " mixed " ... I never could get a batch good

enough that people liked to eat it, so I switched to using

coconut oil, nuts, raisins, cocoa powder, and coconut for making

a high-fat snack, and kefir-soaked beef to make jerky (recipe in

the files section) for protein.

-- Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

The Garden of Eating book seems to think pemmican is quite tasty so i'm

being optimistic. Did the Native Americans just eat yucky tasting pemmican

you think? Maybe i'll rescue the partially dried blueberries from the

dehydrator and freeze them.

Elaine

> I tried drying them once and it was VERY unsuccessful. The skins

> keep the moisture in. And once you get them dry, they are tiny

> little things that are hardly worth it. I think if you want to

> dry grapes, blueberries, and other berries the way to do it

> is the traditional way ... on a tray out in the hot sun.

[Guest guest]

Well, i'm trying some of the smaller blueberries that are pretty dry. They

are very sweet and chewy so we're going to stick it out and see how the big

ones do.

Elaine

>> I tried drying them once and it was VERY unsuccessful. The skins

>> keep the moisture in. And once you get them dry, they are tiny

>> little things that are hardly worth it. I think if you want to

>> dry grapes, blueberries, and other berries the way to do it

>> is the traditional way ... on a tray out in the hot sun.

>