How to Dry and Store Persimmons for Later Use

Learn how to dry persimmons for later use and you can eat them most of the year. If you on;y eat them from the tree when they are in season you get to eat them for a very short time.  In this video you will see how the persimmons are picked just a tad under full ripeness so that they are still nice and firm.

You will see that she picks a few that are fully ripe but she hands these off to her grandmother for fresh eating.  Once she has washed the persimmons to remove dirt and  possible bugs from being outdoors she peels them. Save the peels. The stem is left on the persimmon and just the peel is removed.

Once she has a lot of them peeled she strings them by their stems. These persimmons on strings  are hung in an airy and shady space to dry. This can take a month or even more depending on the climate in your area. You test them by pressing gently until they feel like dried apricots.

The peels are spread on a screen or similar to dry in the sun. You should toss them a little every day to bring the ones that are not dry up into the sunlight.  Once the persimmons are dried you place them gently into a container that you can seal when you are finished.  As you place  a layer of persimmons you then add a layer of dried peels between the layers of fruit.

The container is then left and you can check it in a couple of week to see if the fruit has a white coating of sugar on the outside. The more white sugar you see the sweeter the persimmons will be.  I love this old  fashioned method of drying persimmons and anyone that loves the flavor of persimmons will enjoy having some around to eat long after the short in season period of them.

There are a couple of varieties of persimmons.  There is the Asian variety and it will grow in zone 7 through 11. The American variety will grow all the way up to zone 5. While the Asian persimmon is larger and can be eaten while it is still a little firm, the American variety is smaller and is sweeter when fully ripe.  You can buy the trees both the Asian and the American varieties and they will fruit in 3 to 5 years. You can also start from persimmon seeds but they will take 4 to 8 years to produce their first fruit. Per:(The Fruit Nut) who will tell you how to store and stratify the seeds.

The video on how to preserve and store persimmons is from,  Li Zikai.