Dehydrate Your Persimmons For Winter Storage

Dried persimmons make a great snack.

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Fuju Persimmons
We have two Fuju persimmon trees and this year both of them really produced. The thing I love about Fuju persimmons is that you can eat them firm, like an apple or pear. They aren't as good when they get too soft so when that happens, I dehydrate them. Dried persimmons make a wonderful snack.

You can see that we had way too many to eat.
And this is after  we gave lots of them away!

Dehydrating Persimmons
I like to peel mine but many people leave the skin on.
Place the peeled and sliced persimmons on the non-stick teflon dehydrator sheets. If you leave the skin on, you can just cut them horizontally in circles. I like mine peeled and cut into thin wedges as seen in the picture below.

Spread the persimmons on your dehydrator's teflon sheets on the trays. 
Place the trays in your dehydrator. 
We have a 5-tray Excalibur Dehydrator which we really like.

Dehydrating temperature will depend on what's important to you. If you want them to be "raw", and retain their living enzymes, you can dehydrate them at 115 degrees F. This will take 24 hours. You can cut the time if you raise the temperature to 125 or higher.

Dry at 115 to 125 until they are somewhat dry on top and start to pull up from the teflon sheets (about 10 hours). At that point, turn them over, remove the teflon sheets and place the persimmons directly on the mesh sheets. Dry another 10 to 12 hours until they are dry but still a bit pliable. 

Remove when dry but still a bit pliable.

Store in an airtight container.

Serve with an assortment of nuts when guests come. Or put this nut/fruit assortment in your kid's lunchbox or take to work as a midday snack!

A healthy snack.