We had perfect fig weather in my area (Zone 6b in S Central PA) this summer, and I have enjoyed a bumper crop.  I bought a Nesco food dehydrator to try my hand at drying the surplus figs.  I followed the manufacturer’s recommendations for drying figs, and am pleased with the results.  I am vacuum-sealing the figs in plastic bags using my Save-A-Meal gadget, which removes the air from the bag then seals it shut. 

Nesco recommends storing the dried figs in the refrigerator, or better yet the freezer.  How well do dried figs keep without refrigeration?  People have been drying figs for thousands of years without the benefit of refrigeration.  Should I be pre-treating the figs with lemon juice or ascorbic acid, as some sources suggest?  Do any of you have tips for a novice at the art of drying fruit?   Thank you. 

Bob

great thread very useful.  hopefully we will get lot of answers.

Bob: Very good, I would to know more about drying figs too, thanks for sharing.

Best,
Tam

We use a dehydrator and a foodsaver vacuum system.  We store the dried figs in a cool dark spot in a closet and they are holding well after a year.  Reconstitute with water and use in cooking/baking or eat as dried fruit candy/snack.

Hey Bob Interesting that you posted this today. Last week i picked the last few Hardy Chicago that I had since we were expecting and received upwards of 5 inches of steady rain. They weren't as dried ripe as I would have liked so i placed them all in an organza bag and air dried them for a day or two. When it was obvious that the relative humidity was going to stay at 100% for many days, on Friday i placed them on a drying rack in the oven at 170 for upwards of 6 hours. These figs slowly shrunk, shriveled and dropped some nice juice, BUT turned in yo the sweetest tasting, scrumptious dried figs! My wife recalled similar tasting sweet morsels when we were on holiday in Portugal. If anyone has some late season figs, that aren't totally rope, I'd recommend trying this drying technique out. You might be surprized at the sweet, chewy taste.

I've not dried figs yet, but have dried a great number of other fruits. The recommendation for keeping in the fridge or freezer is a 'cover your a$$' recommendation. Often people don't dry fruits long enough, and bacteria and fungi can grow on the still too moist fruits resulting in either spoilage, off taste or color, perhaps even a bit of illness. If you dry fruits thouroughly enough, as Danny K said, a cool dry place works fine. I jsut use plastic bags that zip closed however, so I can get into them more easily. Jars work well too, but take up more space.

I'll sometimes dry apricots to less than dry and keep them in the freezer. I perfer them a bit softer to chew, but I also know they are more vulnerable that way.

I don't yet know how I will dry figs, but they will be sliced. Things sliced dry faster and take on less of an 'old' taste, even when carefully dried in the lower temp ranges (100 to 120*F)(130 or more is often recommended by manufacturers - in my opinion, that negatively affects flavors). If you dry in a dehydrator, you don't have to worry about flies or cooler night-time temps, or even clouds, so slicing is less problematic. Our air is very dry however, so dehydrating works well here. Not as sure about high humidity situations. You might have more problems.

I LOVE my dehydrator and can hardly wait for persimmon season. :) :)

I dried some figs last week, for the first time, using an Excalibur Dehydrator...I used the directions for making fruit leathers, by cutting the figs in half and lightly spreading the the interior of the fig with a knife, while flattening the body of the fig at the same time...popped them into the dehydrator until they had a soft chewy (leathery) texture...they never made it to the fridge, as my whole family devoured them the same night. 

Drying figs are a great way to enjoy figs all year round. [URL=http://s605.photobucket.com/user/snaglpus/media/image-40.jpg.html][IMG]http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/snaglpus/image-40.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s605.photobucket.com/user/snaglpus/media/image-39.jpg.html][IMG]http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/snaglpus/image-39.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s605.photobucket.com/user/snaglpus/media/image-38.jpg.html][IMG]http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/snaglpus/image-38.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s605.photobucket.com/user/snaglpus/media/image-41.jpg.html][IMG]http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/snaglpus/image-41.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s605.photobucket.com/user/snaglpus/media/image-42.jpg.html][IMG]http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/snaglpus/image-42.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s605.photobucket.com/user/snaglpus/media/image-43.jpg.html][IMG]http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt134/snaglpus/image-43.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Dennis: Very nice figs and photos. So you air dry your figs? Thanks for sharing.

Best,
Tam

Dennis those look great!  I cant wait till I have enough figs to do something like that.  My production will have to go up a lot.  These girls of mine can eat a lot of figs! 

[QUOTE=Tam]Dennis: Very nice figs and photos. So you air dry your figs? Thanks for sharing.

Best,
Tam[/QUOTE]

Those are dehydrator racks. :)

Nice figs, Dennis.

The one time i dried some figs in sun on wood covered with cheese cloth i kept them in ziplock baggie in the cabinet
for 4/5 months , last fig eaten in January.

Martin: Thanks for sharing.

Best,
Tam

Here's my recent experience, maybe you'll find it useful.  I live in Maryland, which is probably a similar climate to yours.

I had a bunch of figs to dry, so I sliced them in half and put them into my Nesco food dehydrator.  I put them at about 120 or 130 degrees, I don't remember which, and ran the machine for about 10 hours.  Even after this long in the machine, I felt they needed to dry some more.  So it was a dry, sunny day, and I put them into a black to go container.  There was a lid on this container, and even though I didn't seal it, just put it on loosely, after a couple hours in the sun water droplets were forming, evidencing excess moisture in the figs.  I decided to just take the cover off and leave them in the sun.  I felt like after a couple days in the sun they were much more properly dried. 

If/when I do it again, here's what I'll do differently.

1.  Make sure they're dead ripe before starting the process.  I think that part of the last week or two of the fig ripening process includes some drying out and concentration of sugars. 
2.  Cutting in half was a big hassle.  Probably will try it without slicing.  Clearly anything will dry faster if cut in half, but when I buy dried figs they are always whole.  I'm sure those figs are sun dried, since they're from Greece or Turkey, where they've been doing it the same way for centuries. 
3.  If I get sunny weather, try to sun dry rather than use the dehydrator.  I prefer dehydrator when drying apple slices, etc, that have greater surface area/mass ratio, but for figs seems less efficient.

Yes Rob sun dried is better i feel as we had a dehydrator with trays in it that we would switch the levels and preferred the sun dried ones.
Even the roma plum tomatoes were fabulous dried in sun compared to dehydrator.

As a note the figs were dried whole and the Roma plums were cut in half and sprinkled with sea salt when sun
dried they had a nice roasted flavor and coupled with soppressata on Italian bread oh madonna mia

Martin, Soppressata is one of my favorite foods. That sounds like a good combo, with the bread and dried tomatoes.

Rob and Martin: Thank you very much for your helpful information in drying figs.

Best,
Tam

 Thanks to all for sharing your insight and expertise on drying figs.  The harvest season will be over within the next week in this area.  I’m going to try drying some apples with the dehydrator.  My sister sent me a poem from the old days about dried apples.  I think you will enjoy the poem. 

Bob

 Dried Apple Pies – A Poem

 I loathe, abhor, detest, despise, Abominate dried apple pies.

I like good bread, I like good meat, Or anything that’s fit to eat,

But of all poor grub beneath the skies, The poorest is dried apple pies.

Give me a toothache, or sore eyes, But don’t give me dried apple pies.

The farmer takes his gnarliest fruit, ‘tis wormy, bitter, and hard, to boot;

He leaves the hulls to make us cough, And don’t take half the peelings off.

And then a dirty cord ‘tis strung,  And in a garret window hung,

And there it serves as roost for flies,  Until it’s  made up into pies.

Tread on my corns or tell me lies,  But don’t pass me dried apple pies.

Author Unknown

I once saw an episode of 'Good Eats' where Alton Brown sandwiched fruit between pleated, air conditioning filters then placed the stack over a box fan. I have not tried it, but it might bea good compromise between air drying and machine drying.

With all due respect for this topic owner and all experienced  contributors let me chime in to tell about my dry figs...

Picked from the tree by the time they move into over ripening and

Put under  full sun from  rise to setting (very bright and hot days) a bit of wind and NO rain at all (*)

NO slicing! plain entire healthy figs..turn them over 5 or 6 times and
in a week they are  dried.

Deep the dry figs into boiling water plus a bit of olive oil for 2 to 3 minutes..then let them dry again under the sun and once ready and cool

Store into oak wood cases (3.5' x 2.5' x 2.5') in layers with green wild fennel branches in between (**)


(*) in the North figs ripen too late for sun drying, so they dry them in stone closed ovens for a day or two

(**) Grand mother would roast the figs in the bread clay oven, let them cool down then store as said above for the winter months

For a real, true crunch, our dry figs are all pollinated varieties either black or white, i.e., seeds with kernels which will add a  particular and special flavor to the fruit

Francisco

wow those look delicious Francisco!

greatwhitenorth,

Thank for looking at those dry figs.

Francisco

I think even 100 degrees is too high for drying figs.  I keep it at 95.

Francisco

Thanks for the pictures of those beautiful dried figs.  Do you have a dry season in Portugal during the harvest period where you can depend on hot sun and dry conditions for an extended period of time?  Do you have any problems with insects and other unwanted visitors finding the figs while they are drying?  The peak harvest season in my area comes in September, when the weather is usually unreliable.  The weather was perfect this year.

Bob

Just as there are many ways to grow figs, there is more than one way to successfully dry them. I prefer using a dehydrator because I think a faster drying time helps retain flavor (the 'personal palate' thing), and color. And here, near the coast, it can get damp at night, or a high marine layer can settle in an be overcast for days.

I used to try to sun dry various fruits and tomatoes, but it never worked that well, and could be very frustrating at times. It often was necessary to drag everything in as moisture settled in, and then the fruit would just set there more prone to mold. It just never worked as well as using 'the machine'. And now I have an Excalibur and there is no stopping me. ;)

I think sun-drying works quite very well a bit inland where it's uniformly warmer and dryer, especially at night. But along the coast? It can get a bit dicey.

Thanks Bob and Gina

http://www.algarve.climatemps.com/

This links tells why we keep drying figs under the sun. The first season dry figs appear still during the last days of August. Average daily sun hours around 12 and quite hot and dry with temps in the mid 30'sC.

The varieties shown on pictures ripen still during the last ten days of July. August and September are good months for drying figs still hot and with plenty of sun
No particular worries with insects, most 'visitors' are bees and the odd wasp (hornet).

To avoid the hassle of covering the trays at night or to avoid a rare shower, and potential insect damage a few farmers have adopted  air drying, basically the same principle as your dehydrators where heating comes from  solar panels and circulating hot water through coils and forcing air through them.
But the majority prefers direct exposure to the sun and says this way the figs taste better !?

My place is very near the southern coast (half to a mile) but during Summer the prevailing winds come from the NW. The few summer sea breezes (called 'branduras') do help a lot the ripening of all figs! and in years like this one with practically no breezes at all, figs keep growing and ripening.

Francisco