Blueberry is a delicious fruit rich in nutrients. Blueberries contain a lot of anthocyanins, which not only have good nutrition and health effects but also can delay body aging and protect eyes. Our dryer removes excess water from the blueberry and retains nutrients for long-term preservation. Dried blueberries also inherit the advantages of blueberries and there is almost no difference in nutrition and taste compared with fresh fruits.
The shelf life of fresh blueberries is relatively short. Traditional dried blueberries are dried in the sun. But blueberries are harvested in summer, and the maturity period is from June to August each year. However, there is a lot of rain in summer, which has caused great difficulties for the traditional drying method to process dried blueberries. In addition, the quality of dried blueberries is uneven, and sun-drying requires a lot of labor and time, which cannot adapt to industrialization and large-scale production.
Our air-energy heat pump blueberry dryer adopts a scientific drying curve and dehumidification curve so that the blueberry maintains its natural color after drying without damaging its effective nutrients (such as anthocyanins). At the same time, the equipment has a high degree of automation and does not require special supervision. The drying process is all completed by intelligent control.
The advantages of blueberry drying room
This kind of blueberry dryer uses pure hot air to continuously circulate through the drying chamber. In the process of heating the material, the hot air takes away the moisture generated during drying, to achieve the purpose of drying.
In the drying oven, the components such as the oven and the tray are made of stainless steel, so they are not only clean and hygienic but also durable and have a long service life. It even has equipped with an automatic control system to make it easy for you to operate.
During the drying process, the materials are placed in stationary trays, which is not prone to adhesion and can maintain the original shape and color of the materials. Based on the above characteristics, the blueberry drying room is especially suitable for drying fruits, vegetables, and Chinese medicinal materials which have high-quality requirements.
The process of drying blueberries
The production process of dried blueberries mainly includes selection, cleaning, placing, drying, testing, sorting and packaging, etc.
- Material selection: Choose ripe fresh blueberries as raw materials, and require no obvious damage on the surface, no insect eyes, and no decay.
- Cleaning: Pour the blueberries into the 3% sodium hydroxide solution to clean the wax on the surface, otherwise the water in the middle will not evaporate easily, and then rinse it with clean water.
- Placement: Arrange the cleaned fruit pieces evenly on the plate, not overlapping, pile up, and there must be a gap between the fruit. When placing the fruit, be careful to prevent it from breaking.
- Drying: Blueberries have high sugar content and are easy to lock in moisture. The drying process of blueberries takes up to 20 hours. The drying process needs to be completed in four stages.
- The first stage: Put the blueberries in the drying room. At this time, set the temperature to 45°C and the relative humidity to 20%, and use the drying and dehumidification mode for 8 hours.
- The second stage: At this time, most of the water in the blueberries has been discharged. Set the temperature to 55°C and the humidity to 15%. The drying mode is used to strengthen the dehumidification to further remove the water in the blueberries. This stage lasts for 6 hours.
- The third stage: In this stage, the temperature is set to 40°C, and the temperature difference can speed up the distribution of water in the fruit to shorten the drying time. At this time, set the humidity to 10% for 4 hours.
- The fourth stage: In the last stage, the drying system is used to no longer heat, and only the fan continues to circulate so that the blueberry moisture is naturally dried in the drying room. After 2 hours, the dried blueberry fruits can be obtained.
The advantages of the blueberry dryer
- Drying evenly, high speed, high efficiency. The material is not easy to adhere which can preserve the original color and taste of the material and improve the quality of products;
- Production environmental hygiene, equipment operation without waste gas, wastewater, waste residue discharge;
- Automatic touch screen control can accurately control the temperature and humidity of the oven;
- The heat source of the dryer including electricity, coal, natural gas, air heat pumps, biomass. It can be customized according to the user’s demands;
- The larger the size of the machine, the larger the output of the material, the larger output need increase the heat source;
- Saving the labor costs, no need to arrange full-time personnel to guard equipment;