Dried fruits are popular among consumers due to their sweet taste, portability, and long shelf life. Whether it’s dried apples, mangoes, bananas, pineapples, or strawberries, almost any fruit can be processed into delicious dried fruit through drying. In modern food processing, fruit dryers are the core equipment for producing dried fruits. So, how does a fruit dryer machine work?
First, fruits typically undergo pre-processing before entering the fruit drying machine. This includes washing, peeling, removing cores, and slicing or dicing. Appropriate cutting sizes not only facilitate even moisture evaporation but also ensure consistent appearance and texture of the final product. Some fruits may also undergo color preservation treatment or sugar impregnation before drying to prevent oxidation and discoloration and to improve flavor.
After pre-processing, the fruits are evenly placed on drying trays and loaded into the fruit dryer. The core working principle of the fruit dryer is hot air circulation drying. The equipment is equipped with a heating system, a fan, and a duct structure. The heating system heats the air to a set temperature, and the fan then circulates the hot air continuously within the drying chamber. The hot air blows evenly across the surface of the fruits, causing the moisture inside the fruits to gradually evaporate and be carried away.
During the drying process, temperature, humidity, and time are three crucial control factors. Different fruits have varying water content, tissue structure, and sugar content, and therefore require different drying conditions. For example, fruits with high sugar content, such as mangoes and bananas, usually require relatively lower drying temperatures and longer drying times to prevent the surface from crusting too quickly; while fruits like apples and pears can benefit from increased airflow to accelerate moisture diffusion.
As the drying process progresses, the moisture content of the fruit gradually decreases. Once the target moisture level is reached, the dryer stops heating and enters the cooling phase. Cooling prevents the dried fruit from reabsorbing moisture or deforming due to high temperatures, and also facilitates subsequent packaging operations. The resulting dried fruit not only has a low moisture content and a long shelf life, but also largely retains the original color, aroma, and nutritional components of the fruit.