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84 BULLETIN 1335, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BERRIES 
Loganberries and red and black raspberries are handled in the 
same manner. When of market ripeness and firmness they are 
picked into shallow containers. As they crush easily, special pre- 
pruners are necessary during all steps in their preparation and 
rying. 
ee are spread on drying trays and washed by light sprays of 
cold water, but they are not otherwise treated before drying. Only 
the conspicuously soft or crushed fruits that would mat and stick 
to the trays need be removed before drying. Pieces of stem, leaves, 
and undersized berries are readily removed by screening the dried 
product. 
CHERRIES 
Both sweet and sour cherries are dried. They are sorted to 
remove stems and imperfect fruits, thoroughly washed in tanks of 
cold running water, or by sprays cf cold water, pitted by machine or 
left unpitted, trayed, steam processed, and dried. Unless it is col- 
lected and utilized in some way, much juice is lost in the pitting 
process. 
CRANBERRIES 
The ripe fruit is washed, fed into machines that cut cr chop each 
berry into two or three parts, trayed, steam prccessed, and dried. 
GRAPES 
Most of the raisin grapes are sun-dried, unless drying by artificial 
heat is necessary to provide against losses resulting from early fall 
rains. A small part of the grape crop is dehydrated. 
The unstemmed clusters cr bunches of grapes are dipped into 
hot lye or soda solution, thoroughly rinsed in cold water, trayed, 
and dried. 
Grapes stand high temperatures better than most other fruits. 
Temperatures up to 200° F. have been used fcr some varieties with- 
out visible injury to the fruit. The safer temperatures, however, are 
those given in Table 6. 
If the grapes are to be marketed in clusters, they are removed 
from the drier when they contain 15 to 20 per cent of moisture. If 
they are to be stemmed, the mcisture content should be reduced to 
10 per cent or less, and the stemming begun as soon as the fruit has 
cooled. Under these conditions the grapes are hard, the stems are 
brittle and easy to remove, and the special stemming machines used 
in the process will not be gummed or clogged. 
The seeding of grapes follows the stemming. Stemmed grapes 
are treated with steam or hot water, to increase their moisture con- 
tent to about 20 per cent, and fed into seeding machines. 
The stems of grapes constitute about 14 per cent by weight of 
fresh material hata it has been prepared for drying. From 24 to 
27 pounds of stemmed grapes, containing 10 per cent of moisture, 
are obtained from 100 pounds of fresh grapes, not including stems. 
If stemmed fruit containing 10 per cent of moisture is processed 
until it contains 20 per cent, the increase in weight will be about 12 
pounds for every 100 pounds of the original product. | 
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