Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Apple chips

Risa has learned, through experience, that the storeroom is right for potatoes but not very good for apples -- they store better in lower humidity than she can provide. And while everyone likes her applesauce, the supply goes more slowly than we think -- there's lots from last year, still. She could freeze some, but the space is taken. So she'll dry all she can, though it looks like it will be a short drying season. She's gonna start right now, though the apples on the second-maturing tree (first one's apples have been eaten) are still a bit green.

She takes a bowl, puts in it a teaspoon of vitamin C, 1/4 cup of salt, 1/2 cup of sugar, a teaspoon of cinnamon, and a cup of homemade cider apple vinegar, and adds water. This is the dip-bowl, in which the chips will pick up a bit of flavor and lose some of their hurry to turn brown.

She picks a basket of apples. With her favorite kitchen knife and chopping block, she reduces a number of apples into slim chips which are thrown into the bowl right away as she throws each core in a bucket destined for the chickens. Then she spreads the chips on a screen.


The screen is carried to the potting shed, which will get close to 100(F) today -- nice and warm. The process is then repeated till three screens are full. That's about as many chips as she can deal with at one time.


As the sun doesn't reach all the chips in this setup, she's running a little fan to help with the dehydration. Next year, maybe a better system. In about four days these should be done, and ready to throw into a dry jar or bucket. And then she'll do another batch, and so on until the weather is too cold to bother. The remaining apples can go into storage if in great shape, but more likely into cider.

Each batch of apples will be sweeter (but also, perhaps wormier) than the preceding one. The chips make good snacks but can be reconstituted for use in hot cereals, with yogurt, or in pies, cakes, and breads.

4 comments:

  1. Update: temperature in shed went to 108(F).

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  2. Anonymous6:22 AM

    I dry apples with only a sugar/cinnamon dip. I do it later in the season with a home made electric dryer.

    Don't much like single use tools but I find the apple corer/slicer that I started using 2 years ago useful. It makes all the slicers the same thickness - but perhaps not so much an issue for you if you are a better slicer!

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  3. I like the recipe for the dried Apples! Wish I had seen it before I dried this years crop. Maybe next year I'll try it...Thanks, Ginny

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  4. Y'know what, it's not single use! You can use it to slice sections of slightly overage zucchini for household use, reserving the punky "core" for the chickens!

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