Yesterday I finished preserving the 20 lbs of cherries Michael and I picked last weekend. We immediately loaded the dehydrator from top to bottom which yielded 6 cups of dried cherries. I'm not sure how much fresh weight we put in, we just loaded all 9 screens full of pitted cherries. Dehydrating cherries is easy: wash, pit, place on screen. Dehydrate at 135F for approximately 8 hours.
I then proceeded to pit the rest of the cherries in preparation for preserving. Since I'm not doing anything this year that requires pretty whole pitted cherries, I opted for speed and just tore the cherries open far enough to pop the seed out. Unless you wear gloves (and I don't) you might as well be resigned to the fact that your hands and nails are gonna stain and look gnarly for a day or two. I ended up with two gallon jars of pitted cherries.
With the pitted cherries I made Black Forest Preserves, Cherry Vanilla Pie Filling, and Smokey Chipotle Cherries.
