Pineapple is one the freshest fruit to eat. Then, you may be asking why we need to dehydrate it. Well, there are advantages to produce dry pineapple, among them is the concentration of sweet flavor. The dried pineapples are great to eat as snacks and also for baking purposes. It has a chewiness of any other dried fruits so that snacking is so enjoyable and healthy with the dried pineapples. Another advantage is the fact that dried pineapples can be stored longer than those fresh fruits. The high water content of the fresh pineapples is the reason why it is getting spoil faster.
To be able to produced dried pineapple, you will need an electronic device called the food dehydrator. It has the ability to create and maintain certain heat temperature so that the pineapple can dry without having to be cooked. The result is that the pineapple will have minimal loss of flavor if compared than if the fresh pineapples are dried with the cooking process.
If you want to try and dry the pineapples using the device, you will need some other kitchen utensils, the cutting board, round cookie cutter if you want to be able to cut off the core nicely and also a knife. The first step is to cut the bottom part of the fruit for about 1 inch and then trim the leafy crown on the top. Position the pineapple on a standing position on the cutting board and they slice off the skin.
When the pineapple is peeled totally, then lay it down on its side to cut it into half an inch in thickness. Take the core off with the one inch round cookie cutter. Then put these slices of pineapple in the tray of the dehydrator. Remember that you will need to put them so that they will not touch or overlap each other. Each of the slices will have to be laying flat on the tray before you put the tray back to the dehydrator. This position is very important so that you will have equally dried slices.
Process these pineapple slices in the dehydrator for about 24 – 36 hours. You will need to put the temperature of 140 degree Fahrenheit. The time needed for the fruit to dry will vary because of other factors such as the humidity and also the level of juice content in the fruit. Although you need to process for that long, but you will need to monitor them. If necessary, you will also need to turn the slices so that both of the sides will be drying evenly.
