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!!