Take for drying healthy well-ripened apricots with firm flesh and well-separated bone. Thoroughly wash and dry the fruit, went to excess moisture. Divide them in half and remove the pits.
At home, the apricots can be dried in the oven or in dry weather on the air, as well as combining both methods, but in any case, you'll need sheets for layout, which you can use pans, trays or mesh on wooden frames.
For drying in the oven, cover a baking sheet with baking paper, lay the apricot slices up, put in oven and dry at a temperature of 50-60oC for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Then open the oven and let the fruit to cool, then repeat the procedure until, until the apricots will not cease to extract the juice when compression (5-6 times).
You can do another thing: half of the apricots, place in a colander or sieve and soak for 5-10 minutes over boiling water to preserve their natural color. Dry fruits from excess moisture on a clean cotton cloth, and then lay on a baking tray lined with paper, and place in oven preheated to 65oC for 8-10 hours. Cool the apricots, pour in a wooden box with a tight fitting lid and leave for 3 weeks, and then store in a dry, well-ventilated place. This method will help to keep all useful properties of apricots.
For air drying spread the prepared fruits on the leaves, soak for 3-4 hours in the shade, then move to the sun, and at night get under the roof or canopy. Next, the apricots can be dried in the shade: in a private house – in the attic, in the veranda or in the gazebo in a city apartment – on the balcony or loggia. Excessive exposure to the sun can give the ugly dried apricots baked.
A combined method of drying apricots is as follows: first, the fruit is kept for 3-4 hours in the sun, then for 1 hour heated to 50-60oC oven, and then sent to dessiatina in the shade.
Keep in mind that dried apricots are prepared at home will be different from the store, as the latter to save the presentation on the production fumigate with sulfur dioxide.