How to Make Dried  Apricots/How To Dehydrate Apricots:

  Apricot is extremely nutritious, containing sugar, protein and minerals such as calcium and phosphorus. It also contains vitamin C and B vitamins. In addition to being sold and eaten by some farmers, most of the ripe fresh apricots are dried by the farmers according to traditional methods. Traditional methods have poor sanitary conditions and quality of dried apricots, and the loss of apricots is 15% to 30%. According to calculations, if the whole apricot is dried, the traditional method takes 15 to 20 days, while it only takes 2-3 days to use a dryer for drying. Compared with dried apricots made by traditional methods, the dryer not only takes a short time, but also does not require manual guards. The quality of dried apricots is good and the price is high.

How to make dried apricots at home:

1. Cut the cleaned apricots in half with a knife to remove the cores, and then cut them into small pieces
2. Put the cut apricots into a bowl, add sugar, stir evenly, and coat each apricot with sugar
3. Cover the lid and marinate for more than five hours
4. Pour the marinated apricots into the pot, boil on high heat until boiling, then cook for another minute
5. Sugar water will be produced in the pot during the heating process. Soak the apricots in the sugar water, cover the pot or cover with plastic wrap, and soak for 24 hours (usually the apricots will release enough water, as long as the pot is of the right size, the last The obtained sugar water is enough to soak the apricots. If the sugar water is not enough, you can add some purified water appropriately, but don't add too much).
6. Put the marinated apricots into the baking dish, put them in the oven, set 70℃ to dry for ten minutes
7. Take out the dried apricots and dry them in the sun for 2-3 days.

Precautions: 
1. Choose hard apricots instead of soft apricots, otherwise they will rot easily when cooked.
2. It is recommended to use small apricots. If you use big apricots, cut them into small pieces, otherwise the drying process will take longer.
3. If the lowest temperature of the oven is higher than 80℃, you can choose to expose it to the sun directly. Too high temperature will make dried apricots black and will bake if you are not careful.

Use a dryer to make dried apricots:

1. Selection and processing of materials: choose apricots with thick flesh, sweet taste, and orange flesh
2. Cleaning and enucleation: After cleaning with a bubble cleaning machine or a hair roller cleaning machine, use a fully automatic enucleation machine for enucleation and cutting. After cutting, place the fruit slices on the sieve tray without overlapping.
3. Sulphur fumigation: send the sieve tray containing apricot slices to the sulfur fumigation room for sulfur fumigation for 3 to 4 hours. The amount of sulfur is about 0.4% of the weight of the fresh fruit. Spraying apricot slices with 3% saltwater before sulfur fumigation can prevent discoloration and save sulfur. For apricot slices with good sulfur fumigation, the core cavity should be filled with metering liquid, and the dried product can maintain a bright golden yellow or orange-red color.
4. Drying:
The first stage: the temperature is 36℃, the humidity is 50%, and the temperature is kept constant for 5 hours after heating;
The second stage: the temperature is 45°C, the humidity is 45%, and the temperature is kept constant for 8 hours after heating; this stage has a relatively large amount of water. If the drying heat pump has insufficient moisture removal capacity, it is necessary to open a strong exhaust port for moisture removal;
The third stage: the temperature is 50℃, the humidity is 40%, and the temperature is kept constant for 20 hours after heating;
The fourth stage: the temperature is 58℃, the humidity is 30%, and the temperature is kept constant for 20 hours;
The fifth stage: the temperature is 65°C, the humidity is 18%, and the temperature is kept constant for a total of 18 hours after heating;
5. Packaging: The appropriate amount of water for dried apricots is 16%-18%, and the drying rate is 5:1. After drying, the finished product is placed in a wooden box to soften for 3 to 4 hours and then packaged.

  If you want to dry apricots in large quantities, it is recommended that you use a dryer to dry apricots. Baixin Machinery is a manufacturer specializing in the production of dryers. It has 20 years of rich experience. For apricots drying, it has professional drying equipment and mature drying technology to ensure the perfect drying effect.

  The most popular apricots dryers of Baixin Machinery are heat pump dryers and continuous mesh belt dryers. I will introduce these two dryers in detail for you:

1:The first method:apricots heat pump dryer

Commercial 100-3000kg/h large amount of dehydration wide application and easy operation
  Heat pump drying machine use the principle of inverse Carnot cycle. It absorbs low-temperature heat energy in the air, which becomes high-temperature heat energy after efficient heat collection and integration by the heat pump system, and is transported to the drying room for cyclic heating and drying of materials.It refers to exhausting the hot and humid air in the drying room directly to the outside of the drying room through dehumidification device, and then replenishing natural fresh air.

  Hot air circle drying machine belongs to high temperature heat pump unit. Its working principle is: the working fluid of the heat pump is compressed by the compressor, becomes high temperature and high pressure gas, enters the condenser, condenses and liquefies the heat, and is used for air heating in the drying room. The moisture in the material is vaporized and evaporated by the form of hot air, and the evaporated water vapor is discharged by the moisture discharge system, thereby achieving the purpose of drying the drying material.

2:The second method: apricots continuous mesh belt drying machine

Large amount of dehydration 200-5000kg/h apricots drying machine continuous automatic work easy operation
  Apricots dryer machine is a kind of continuous production drying equipment, the main heating way has electric heating, steam heating, hot air heating. Its main working principle is to spread the material evenly in the network. The material is moved in the dryer by the operation of the machine, and the hot air draws out the water vapor of the material. so as to achieve the purpose of drying.
  The operation temperature is 40-120 degree centigrade. And the dry cycle is 1-5 hours.

Apricots drying video：