Drying Persimmons Progress Rpt #4 - Air Circulation with Fan

12/21/09 Monday, Hang Air Drying Persimmons are really lots of fun.  Watching those persimmons getting dried and anticipation of the result is kind of exciting.  The 1st batch I collected are in their 6th weeks now.  They have been sitting quietly in the paper bag for 2-1/2 weeks now.  There are more sugar crystaline covering its body.  The second group is doing quite well, except I had to discard two of them due to mold discovery.  I am glad I spotted them right away.  Three weeks ago, it started to rain heavily in Sacramento area.  My garage felt a bit stuffy. That's when I discovered the mold spots.  I discarded them right away.  While I was talking to other persimmon enthusiasts at the office, one mentioned how his friend got a 'fan' going in the garage to keep air circulation.  That make sense, I thought.  With rain pouring every few days, air circulation definitely make sense.  I just so happened to have a low wattage mini fan that would do the job.  Since I started to use the fan, all persimmons are quite happy with the environment.  My new experiment is to dry the whole peeled persimmons on the tray without hanging.  I hope they will turn out okay.
Since I want to get the rest of the persimmons processed - 100 some left as of yesterday.  I processed 45 last night in the NESCO Dehydrator.  One of the recipe is drying a group of quite soft persimmons, sliced into halves, sprinkled with lemon juice and chili peppers.  After 16 hours, they turned out delicious.
Tonight, as timely as the UPS delivery can be, I got my new NESCO 700 watt FD-75 PR dehyrator.  Wonderful.  It came with two fruit roll trays and fine comb trays for the small items.  So I made my first Persimmon Fruit Rolls with some of these ripened HACHIYA persimmons that is quite challenging to slice and dry.  Hope they will turn out delicious.  As for the FD-75 PR, I am very happy for the price and how quiet it is compared to its counterpart 500 watt without the temp control I got for my mom.  It is so loud that it is confined in one of the room to do its job.
My persimmon drying experience are almost done.  I just have 20 more to go.  I think I am going to let them go ripe all the way and make fruit rolls and or bake with them.