Stockli dehydrator advice please...

[Storm]

Has anyone got any experience or tips on how to dry very juicy fruit (like blackcurrants and gooseberries) using a Stockli (or similar) dehydrator?

Most stuff I’ve tried has worked well but berries like blackcurrants and gooseberries that have got very liquid centres just split and all the juice dribbled down and formed a glue-like goo as it dried out.

The only thing I could think of was to make fruit leather with them.

How well do blueberries, blackberries and raspberries dry?

[juiceland]

To dehydrate these types of fruit is quite difficult and would need literally days in a dehydrator if done whole. You can either prick every individual berry with a pin which can be quite time consuming or you can can use other methods like blanching to burst the skins. Theres a very good book caled Mary Bell's Complete Dehydrator Cookbook which has loads of useful information on dehydrating.

[Kristen]

just split and all the juice dribbled down and formed a glue-like goo as it dried out.

I've tried Raspberries in my dehydrator, and its just the mess that you describe!

I seem to recall some sort of paper you can get for drying messy fruit - something like greaseproof paper perhaps, and maybe perforated?

Edit: Parchment paper perhaps? Seems to be available for Excalibur dehydrators (their airflow is different though, across the trays rather than up-and-through them)

[PAULW]

I have had some success drying raspberries, the trick is not to dry them at maximum heat but about 20 deg below max, blackberries are a differant thing I usually end up with a shrivelled black blob that takes about three weeks to rehydrate, never tried goosegogs

[Storm]

thanks for the suggestions. the raspberries dried ok - it took a long while though like you say. the goosegogs and blackcurrants still fail no matter what I do. may try fruit leather or simply freeze them!!