How hot, hot shot?

November 29, 2005 3:55 PM

How hot do I set the oven for drying mangos and for how long?

I just sliced up a few fresh mangos and put them in the fridge so I could (hopefully) dry them tomorrow in my oven. However, I'm afraid my oven might run too hot, even at its lowest setting—about 75-85 C. Is this much too hot? Will I only spoil the fruit if I try?

Also, how long should I leave them in for, assuming the oven isn't too hot? And for the sake of those with better-running ovens, what are the optimal temperatures and times for drying mangos?

posted by Evstar to food & drink (3 comments total)

The National Center for Home Food Preservation has lots of info on this topic. Well, drying fruits in general and making something called 'mango leather' in particular. Kind of a neat website, in fact.
posted by jedicus at 4:22 PM on November 29, 2005

In particular the Mango Leather recipe has a note on how best to go about it with an oven instead of an electric dehydrator.

It indicates using a temperature of 60 C. I would recommend using an electric oven thermometer that has a temperature alarm (useful for lots of other things). That way you can heat it up to, say, 65, then switch the oven off. When it's gotten down to, say, 55, then you turn the oven on again. Repeat until the mangoes are dried. That might be an awful lot of oven watching, though.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
posted by jedicus at 4:27 PM on November 29, 2005

Thanks for the info so far.

I'm still hoping someone who's done this themselves might know whether or not this is a lost cause. I spent a while preparing the fruit, don't want to waste those yummy slices.
posted by Evstar at 5:10 PM on November 29, 2005