The sliced sections are placed on trays in the dehydrator and it takes about 24 hours until they are finished. Drying concentrates the sugars and the finished pieces are literally as sweet as candy.

I use an Excalibur Dehydrator which has a temperature controlled thermostat and a fan. I set the thermostat at 104 degrees, a temperature which does not destroy the enzymes, so that even d this can be considered a raw food.

The 10 trays make about 1 1/2 to 2 quarts of dried pears.

I usually store my pears in an extra refrigerator I have for food storage. Otherwise if you have not truly removed all the moisture or dried the slices sufficiently, at some pont the dried fruit could begin to grow mold. Commercially dried fruit often has sulfur dioxide added a a preservative to prevent this.

The fruits that are over ripe or misshapen I cut up into chunks, place in a pot, cook for about 10 minutes and then preserve in canning jars. I usually add a little brown sugar to help the preservation. These taste great in a bowl of oatmeal midwinter.

If I have the time and the motivation, I can also send the cores, peels and any soft fruits through my Champion Juicer. You do not get actual juice, more like pear sauce.

This can be paced on Teflon sheets and dried into pear leather or cooked down on the stove with a little brown sugar and cinnamon to make pear butter. it's delicious!