How to choose prunes and keep it for a long time at home?

According to nutritionists, prunes are the most useful and nutritious dried fruit, which is used not only as a treat, but also as an effective medicine. But only if you know how to store prunes, you can count on the active use of its many beneficial properties.

It is best to purchase ripe plums and dry them yourself, at home, in compliance with all the nuances. But, if there is no such opportunity or desire, you can use ready-made dried fruits, you only need to pay special attention to the selection of a suitable product.

How to choose a prune that will be stored for a long time?

Purchasing prunes suitable for long-term storage is not so simple.

The following recommendations will help to significantly facilitate the process:

1. Beautiful appearance in this case can play a cruel joke with the buyer. The ideal glossy surface is the result of a long chemical treatment of products. Such instances will not retain useful properties for a long time. It is better to pay attention to non-fragile fruits of medium degree of dryness.
2. You can take the fruit and rub it on the back of the hand. If there are traces on the skin, then the quality of the product is very low.
3. If the drying date of the product is known, then it must be used within the next 6-8 months after the procedure.
4. For long-term storage at home, carefully dried fruits are suitable. Juicy meat products are best eaten first.

Tip: It is better not to buy ready-made dried fruits if there is no confidence in the date of their manufacture. This can not only lead to disappointment with the taste properties of products, but also provoke serious poisoning.

Methods for storing prunes at home

Keeping a healthy product at home is easy.

You just need to adhere to a number of simple rules:

• Storage in a container with a tight lid at room temperature. It is necessary to inspect the fruits and select only good specimens without visible defects. If necessary, the workpiece must be additionally dried. We take a glass jar, wash it thoroughly, pour over boiling water and dry it. We fill it with dried fruits, close it with a carefully ground lid and put it in a cool dark place.
• Storage in paper bags and linen bags. This option is only suitable if there are no traces of moths, ants and other harmful insects in the room. We wash the fabric bags in the traditional way, rinse, dry. Then soak in cool brine and dry again. Fill the container with dried fruits, but not very tightly and tie. Prunes can also be stored in paper bags that do not need pretreatment. This approach protects the product from mold and drying out.
• Cold storage. In the hot months, prunes are best stored in the refrigerator. We sort out the fruits, throw out all the spoiled, quality dried fruits and distribute them in plastic containers or glass jars. Tanks can not be filled more than half. Every week we check if moisture has accumulated on the inner walls of the container. If there are such signs, then we change the capacity, additionally dry the fruits and pack again.

The maximum effectiveness of the above methods will be manifested only if you dry the product yourself. In all other cases, there is no guarantee that the products will not deteriorate after a few days.

How to dry prunes yourself

Dried fruits, cooked at home, are not only an impressive shelf life, but also a more delicate taste, clean and fresh aroma.

How to dry prunes with your own hands:

1. We select the ripe and freshest fruits, take out the seeds from them, and wash them.
2. We prepare a solution of soda by taking a teaspoon of powder per liter of water. We bring the product to a very warm state, lower the prunes into it for a minute, remove and rinse in cold water.
3. We lay the blanks on a baking sheet with parchment paper and dry in air for two hours.
4. Next comes the most troublesome stage of drying the fruits. We put them in a metal sieve or colander and drive them as follows: 3 hours in the oven at 45 ° C, 4 hours in the air, 4 hours in the oven at 55 ° C, 4 hours in the air, 12 hours in the oven at 75 ° C.

Despite the fact that there are simpler approaches, it is this one that is considered correct and allows you to get dried fruits with the purest taste. It is highly discouraged to increase the breaks between stages or the duration of active drying, this can affect the safety and quality of the product.