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To Dry Blackberries
Dry in thin layers in sun (fruit not over ripe), proceeding as for strawberries.
A single line that assumes you have already read the strawberry entry a few pages earlier: spread the fruit thin, put it in the sun, and wait. What it leaves out is everything about the conditions that make sun-drying work.
- The instruction that matters"Fruit not over ripe" is the hinge. Dead-ripe blackberries collapse into a sticky mass that never dries through the centre, and the leaking juice draws insects. Pick berries that are fully black but still firm enough to hold their shape between finger and thumb.
- What sun-drying actually requiresIt needs several consecutive days above roughly 85F with low humidity and moving air. In a damp or cool climate the fruit will mould before it dries. Bring the trays indoors at night, or dew will undo the day's work.
- Thin layers, and on whatA single berry deep on wooden or stainless screens, never on galvanised or aluminium mesh, which reacts with fruit acid. Cover with cheesecloth raised on blocks so it does not touch the fruit, and turn the berries once a day.
- Oven or dehydrator insteadA dehydrator at 135F, or an oven at its lowest setting with the door propped open, does the same job; whole berries may take anywhere from about 8 hours to a full day or more depending on size and load. This is the practical route for most kitchens now.
- Knowing when they are doneProperly dried blackberries are leathery to hard, with no visible moisture when a berry is torn open, and they do not stick together when squeezed in a handful. Under-dried fruit is the usual cause of spoilage in storage.
- Conditioning and storageLoose-pack the cooled fruit in a jar for a week, shaking daily; if condensation appears inside the glass, return the lot to the dryer. Then seal in airtight jars away from light. Freezing the dried fruit for 48 hours first kills any insect eggs picked up outdoors.
- YieldBlackberries are roughly 88 percent water. Expect on the order of 1 pound of dried fruit from 6 to 7 pounds fresh, so a full flat of berries reduces to surprisingly little.
Drying was the cheapest preservation a household had: no sugar, no jars, no fuel, only weather. Books of this kind often gave drying, canning and preserving side by side for the same fruit, and the drying directions were usually the shortest. Blackberries were commonly gathered wild from hedgerows and fencerows rather than bought, which made them a fruit worth putting up in quantity at little cost. Dried blackberries went into winter pies, puddings and teas, and the fruit and its root bark both had a long folk reputation as a remedy for summer bowel complaints, a use repeated in some nineteenth-century household manuals alongside the cooking directions.