How to make dried longan

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How to make dried longan

Ingredients

Longan.

How to make dried longan

1. Raw material selection: Choose fruits with milky white flesh, crystal clear and juicy, sweet and delicious taste, and yellow-brown and slightly green shell.

2. Cut the fruit: Use scissors to cut the fruit from the cluster, leaving the stem length at 1.5 mm, and put it into a bamboo basket. Remove the broken fruit.

3. Classification: Use bamboo sieves with different mesh sizes to divide the fruit into four grades according to their size.

4. Soak in water: Put the graded fruits into the shaking cages respectively, and soak them in clean water with the bamboo cages for 3 to 4 minutes.

5. Shake: Pour the soaked longan into the shaking cage, and each cage should hold about 35 kg. Hang the shaking cage on the tree branch, about 1 meter above the ground. Evenly sprinkle 200-500 grams of clean fine sand into the shaking cage, and two people hold the cage tightly with both hands, and shake it rapidly to make the fruit roll and rub in the cage. Generally, shake it 600-800 times in a row. After 6-8 minutes, when the surface of the fruit shell turns brown, it is ready. Sand shaking can make the fruit shell thinner and smoother, which is convenient for drying.

6. Initial roasting: After shaking, spread the fruits evenly on the roasting stove. Generally, the thickness of the front edge of the roasting stove is 17 cm, and the thickness of the back edge is 11 cm. Each time, 300-350 kg of longan can be roasted. Dry branches can be used as fuel. Turn the fruits over every 8 hours after laying them out, and roast them in three layers: upper, middle and lower. Put the upper, middle and lower layers of longan into bamboo baskets, then pour the upper layer into the roasting mat, rake it flat, pour the middle layer of longan, rake it flat again, and pour the lower layer of longan, rake it flat again, and continue to heat and roast. After another 8 hours, turn the roasting over again in the same way. After 3-5 hours, it can be raked into a pile and put into the basket.

7. Re-baking: After 2-3 days, the moisture in the core and pulp of the dried longan treated above will gradually diffuse outward, and the moisture content on the surface of the pulp will increase compared to when it was just baked, so it needs to be baked again. When re-baking, it must be done with a low fire, and the baking time is about 12 hours. It needs to be turned over several times in the middle. When the fruit is pressed by hand without sweat, and the core is chestnut brown when cut open, it can be baked. After baking, cool it down for 24 hours.

The drying rate of dried longan is related to its variety and maturity. Generally, 300 to 350 kilograms of fresh longan are required for every 100 kilograms of dried longan.

8. Cut off the stems: Use scissors to cut off the stems of longan.

9. Grading: The dried longans are sieved and graded according to their size, usually into four grades: Sanyuan (fruit diameter is 2.91-3.2 cm), Siyuan (fruit diameter is 2.16-2.75 cm), Wuyuan (fruit diameter is 2.31-2.45 cm), and Zhongyuan (fruit diameter is 2.16-2.3 cm). Generally, Sanyuan accounts for 10-20% of all fruits, Siyuan accounts for 30-40%, Wuyuan accounts for 25-40%, and Zhongyuan accounts for 15-20%.

10. Packaging: The dried longan must be packed within one week after roasting. If it exceeds one week, it should be roasted for another 1 to 2 hours before packaging to sterilize and kill insects. The packaging container is a dry wooden box of 50×43×56 cm, lined with dry indigo leaves and plastic film, etc. The wooden box is shaken while loading to make the dried longan fill up. After loading, the box cover is closed and nailed. In order to prevent the wooden box from breaking during long-distance transportation, bamboo strips should be placed outside the box and then tied into a well shape with ropes. Generally, each box has a capacity of about 30 kilograms.

Quality Standards for Dried Longan

1. Good quality dried longan has round, large and uniform grains and a yellow shell.

2. The shell of dried longan is hard and brittle, and it breaks easily when squeezed by hand. The core breaks easily and makes a sound when bitten with teeth.

3. The flesh is thick and bright yellow. The surface of the flesh has a layer of very fine wrinkles, and the fruit stalk has a circle of red. The flesh is attached to the shell and core, but the flesh is not sticky when touched. The flesh and core are easy to peel off, and the taste is sweet and fragrant. There is no dry and hard feeling, and there is little residue after chewing. The water content of the flesh is between 15% and 19%.

4. It is heavy and will not roll when poured on the table.