The wait, I got home last night and this morning walked out to my gigantic Celeste tree and it is full of birds and ripe figs. I never ever thought of looking at a fig the way I do now because of y'all, LOL. So now I have to dry as many as I can to preserve them with no added sugar so preservers aren't an option. Any suggestions ?

Until you hear from someone who has dried figs, I'll just tell you what a man told me he does.  He splits the figs just up to the stem and lays them spread out like a butterfly on the dehydrator  trays and dries them on medium heat until they are leathery.

I have a trial run started in the sugar shack. It is a Metal building that gets really hot during the day. I should know in a few days.

I remember as a kid, my mom would use dehydrator trays but just leave them out in the sun whole. Nothing added to them. She stored them in the deep freezer afterwards. Hot dry heat there in Central Valley CA.

I saw the spanish drying figs on a frame that had a wire bottom, lined with news paper.  They would either flatten the figs then put them to dry in the sun or they would leave them whole, then they cover with cheese cloth on the top and secure it so no bugs or birds can get inside.  Worked well for them, they are drier and hotter than my climate though.

For a moment, I thought you were referring to having reached your ebay limit. LOL.

Hershell, congrats and good luck on the drying experiment. Be aware that drying small light figs like Celeste will reduce them to the size of berries. 

Frank, I do have a warning for the eBay sellers, my wife thinks I have bought enough. so I think I am grounded or reached my limit how ever you say it but I can still trade. And if they dry down to the size of a berry, oh well they will just take up less space. I hope they are still good to eat. I can't weight to taste the new varieties that I never knew existed.

Hershell, sorry to hear of your bird troubles. It is extremely frustrating to look forward to your harvest and have some animal snatch them right as they ripen. You need a better strategy next year, and if you figure it out please share your ideas. For preservation, dehydraters might work best as you will avoid flies and other insects. With the humidity in the southeast, the figs will have a hard time drying I would think, without good air movement. Good luck!

Mike in Hanover, VA

I really don't have a bird problem. A few of my neighbors grow blueberries and dislike them more than I do. There are a lot of figs and a few mockingbirds. We have a lot of hunter, gatherers around here. Good or bad.

You can also make freezer jam out of the figs. Its easy, requires very little sugar, and they will keep for 1 year or more. There are may recipes on the net, but I use the basic one that comes on the jar of pectin I buy at Walmart. Just make sure you get freezer pectin, not regular.

A new wrinkle. Thanks Gene.

I don't understand freezer jam. So, you keep it in the freezer? And you put freezing cold jam on your toast?

Could you freeze the jam in small freezer bags, thaw each individually, transfer each to a jar and keep in the refrig when you need them? Just a thought.

@Calvin: The main difference between freezer jam and canned jam is that you don't have to heat it to same high temperature/pressure, etc as if you can it and you don't have to worry about botulism.  But you have to keep it frozen until you are ready to use it.  When you are ready to use it, as Wayne suggests, you just put it in the refrigerator, and at from that point forward it works the same as regular jam.  Growing up in Florida we used to get flats of dead ripe strawberries, wild blackberries, etc, and make freezer jam.  To me this tastes much more like the fresh product since you don't heat it that much.  And you can keep it in any old jar or container you have lying around. 

@Hershell: I don't know what your sugar shack is like, but there are a few things you may want to consider:
1. direct sunlight helps to dry the figs.
2. it's important to keep the insects away from the figs while they are drying.
3. to cut in half, or not?  the ones you buy in the store are not cut in half, so it must be possible to dry them whole.  These are most likely grown in a mediteranean climate where humidity is low.  The lower the humidity, the faster they will dry.  It's probably a race between spoilage and drying in a very humid eastern/southern climate.

Due to these restrictions, my sister has dried her figs by setting them in the back window of a vehicle parked in a sunny spot.  She lives in Northern Florida, probably similar climate to yours, and they turned out very good.  The good thing is the inside of a parked car will reach temperatures much higher than the outdoor air, probably greater than 120 degrees.  This hotter air will have lower relative humidity and therefore will dry the figs much faster.  Also, bugs will not get in but it's not a totally airtight system, which will help keep it fresh in there. 

I have a dehydrator, and I have used it on figs in the past, but I would probably try the car idea first.  The dehydrator just didn't dry them that much or that fast, in my experience.  Worked much better on thinner sliced items like apples or mangos

Thanks Rob for the info. The ones in the sugar shack looks like they need one more day. It is extremely hot in there, probably around 115 or so. I will put a thermometer in to check though. I am going to build a small green house and try it as a dehumidifier as I know it gets extremely hoy in a closed up greenhouse. I guess that would be one benefit of being a contractor.

I see a lot of dried figs in the ethnic grocery stores, from Greece and Turkey. They taste very good. They are mostly light figs with dark red insides, of different sizes (depending on the price and packaging). I think they are only second to the fresh figs and I wouldn't mind eating them often at all.