How to Dry Apples

My in laws have two apple trees that were loaded with apples this year.  They had so many apples that they had a bunch pressed into apple cider. They had enough apples to make 27 gallons of cider and boy was it good.  Now 27 gallons of apple cider take up a lot of fridge space, so my family was kind enough to take a few gallons home. My kids had it gone in no time at all.

My husband enjoyed the apple cider so much that he decided he wanted to take a bunch of apples to be pressed into juice as well. So we loaded up the kids and headed out to pick apples from  my husbands uncle's apple tree. The tree was loaded and the apples were going to waste, so what better way to save them than to make them into apple cider. Really we were doing those tasty apples a favor by picking them off the tree instead of them falling on the ground and rotting.

   Five big boxes later, (and I mean big), we figured we had enough apples to get several gallons of juice out of them, so off we headed to the business that had the apple press.  We were so disappointed to find the shop closed, so we called the owner only to find out that they had shut their press down for the winter.  Aghhh, guess that is what happens when you don't call before picking the apples.

Oh such a good treat. 

Now I have 4 boxes of apples to process. Luckily I was able to pawn one box off onto my neighbor. The majority of them will become apple sauce, as that is a staple around my home.  We also love dried apples, so I will dry a bunch as well.  Next year, I'll think twice about picking so many apples.

Apple Sauce and dried apples are both super easy to make.  Today I'm going to share with you how to make dried apples.

I love Golden Delicious apples. They make great dried apples.

How to dry apples

Ingredients

Apples 

Lemon Juice, fresh or bottled

Water

Instructions

Slice the apples either using an apple peeler and corer like this one or an apple corer like this one,  or use a knife to cut the apple into 1/4" slices. 

You can leave the skins on, I prefer to peel them.  I used the apple corer as pictured above, and then  peeled the skins off with a pairing knife.

In a medium sized bowl combine equal parts of lemon and water.  The amount will depend on how many apples you are drying.  After the apples are peeled, soak them in the lemon water. This will help prevent them from turning brown.  

Remove apples from lemon water and place single layer onto your dehydrator drying racks or if you don't have a dehydrator, place on a cookie sheet.  

For oven drying, preheat oven to 170, place cookie sheet in oven and let dry until they reach the desired dryness. Flip the apples about half way. Plan on this taking 4-5 hours. 

For dehydrator, after filling up all the racks, turn on the dryer. My dryer takes 6 hours.  Halfway through, rotate the trays. Be sure not to over dry, as they will be hard.  Apples should be a little bit rubbery. 

Remove from cookie sheet or drying trays and store in ziplock bags.