Flender/Flender Gear Units/Helical gear reducer H2
and exposed to sulfur fumes for minimum of 3 . An average 4 days of open sun drying is subsequently

performed. After this period, the trays are stacked and exposed to the wind for long-term nal drying. Presorted dryfruits are

stored in wooden boxes for sweating for several weeks. Final dry product maycontain from 2 to 5 ppm of sulfur

dioxide. For low-moisture dry apricot second-stage drying is applied. Vacuum shelf dryers are commonly used for this purpose, starting with

evaporated fruits. Different shades of the nal product, from lemon yellow to deep orange, may be achieved, depending on thedrying conditions (. Tunnel dryers are also used for apricot drying. The process consists of two steps, both in tunnel dryers. The rst step is drying to produce 5% weight reduction. The secondconsists of steam blanching and returning to the tunnel for nal drying. Other dry apricot products, akes and powder, are formed from the low-moisture product; nuggets and granules are formed from dried extruded apricot paste (. Puff drying of apricot juice provides spongelike nal product (. 4.1.3.3 Peach and Cherry Certain varieties of freestone peaches are sun or articially dried to about 2% to 2% (..) moisture content (. Pitted and lye peeled fruits are halved and sulfured for about 4 . The sun drying process takes longer than it does for apricots as the fruit pieces are larger. Articial drying is normally provided in countercurrent tunnel dryers with hotair temperature of 6 . The drying time varies from 2 to 3 with unit tray loads of about 1 kg/ 2. Sweet or sour cherries are also dried as whole fruits with or without stems or as pitted fruits. For drying of whole fruits special skin pretreatment is applied: dipping thefruits into boiling 0.5% solution of NaOH, followed by rinsing in water. Sulfuring of the white or pink cherries requires about 3 min, less for black cherries (. Countercur- rent tunnel drying with hot air at temperature of about 7 for 8 is the typical p