We are lucky to have two producing cherry trees on our new property. We have been tasting the cherries daily to determine when they are ripe for picking. One of the trees actually has two different types of cherries: Bing and Alberta (according to our electrician Al). We picked 15 1/2 pounds of cherries in one day. They are mostly the darker Bings.
Our child laborer Malcolm
This bowl is about 5 pounds of cherries
Knowing we would have a bountiful cherry harvest, we ordered cherry pitters and an Excalibur 9-tray dehydrator (made in Sacramento, California). We were skeptical about the 6-cherry pitter, but it works great. Shawn and Malcolm pitted the cherries while I sliced them and put them on the dehydrator trays.
Cherries are the pits!
Bing cherries ready for 15 hours in the dehydrator
The Bing cherries are very sweet, so a few pounds went into the mouths of the workforce instead of the dehydrator. The Alberta cherries are more reddish orange and not quite as sweet. After dehydration, the Albertas have a slight rose aroma and flavor. We still need to pick the rest of the Albertas because they weren’t all ripe.
Dehydrated Bings
Dehydrated Albertas
Ready for consumption and use in recipes
I also canned some of the cherries in a light syrup. I added brandy to some and Amaretto to the rest.
These will be tasty over ice cream
This week, we will pick the cherries on the second tree. They are a bit sour. Al says the second tree is a Pie tree because you make pies with that type of cherry but you need to add sugar.
The Magpies are not thrilled that we have taken their tasty treats
Funny story about the dehydrator. We had picked all the cherries knowing the dehydrator would arrive that day. I had the cherries all sorted and washed and ready to go. I met the UPS man in the driveway and had the dehydrator unpacked within 5 minutes of delivery. That’s when I noticed a plastic corner was broken off on the front. It wasn’t something that would affect the performance of the dehydrator so I contemplated gluing it back together, but that just didn’t sit right with me. Something that expensive should not be broken. So I called Amazon to get it replaced. After the call agent took all my information and promised a new dehydrator would be delivered in 2 days, I asked her how to return the broken one. She told me to just dispose of it. What??? That corner is getting glued back on, and I will be running two dehydrators at a time once the tomatoes and zucchini come in!