Full detailed explanation of the whole process of making candied jujubes

Candied jujubes are a dry-form preserved fruit made by processing fresh jujubes. Lianzhou candied jujubes and Guangxi Wuzhou candied jujubes are relatively famous. The processing technique is as follows:

1. Raw material selection: generally it is advisable to choose varieties with large fruit, small pits, loose flesh, thin but tough skin, and relatively little juice. The best fruit maturity is when the green color begins to fade and the fruit turns milky white.

2. Grading: grade the jujube fruits by size, and remove deformed jujubes, jujubes with pests or diseases, overripe jujubes, and damaged jujubes.

3. Slitting: in order to facilitate sugar penetration and flattening into shape, slits are usually cut on the fruit surface. Put the jujube fruits into the channels of a jujube slitting machine (slitting machine) to cut the slits; the cutting depth should preferably reach half the thickness of the flesh. If the slits are too deep, the fruit breaks easily; if too shallow, the sugar liquid does not penetrate easily. When there is no slitting machine, the slits can also be cut manually; generally each jujube is required to have 80-100 slits cut. When slitting, do not cut through either end.

4. Washing the jujubes: rinse the slit fresh jujubes clean with clear water.

5. Boiling the jujubes: use a stainless steel jacketed kettle or a copper kettle to boil the jujubes. The amount of white sugar used is 0.8 times, for example, if 25 kg is one kettle of raw material, then 20 kg of white sugar is needed, and the white sugar must be added in several portions. First use 10 kg of clear water to dissolve 10 kg of white sugar, boil over high heat, and stir continuously, skim off the floating sugar foam, continue to add the remaining white sugar and heat to cook; the sugar liquid concentration continuously increases, and when sugar crystals appear at the edge of the kettle and the boiling point temperature of the sugar liquid is above 105 degrees Celsius, the raw material is close to graining. At this time the heat should be low, stir continuously, and it can be directly boiled in the kettle until the white sugar grains, or the jujube fruits can be scooped up, cooled by blowing air, and rolled on a vibrating machine so that the grains are uniform. Each kettle of jujubes is boiled for 1-1.5 hours.

6. Drying: dry the candied jujubes that have fully absorbed the sugar at 65 degrees Celsius until the moisture content is about 20%, which is almost the state of being half dry and half wet.

7. Shaping: use a jujube pressing machine or manual labor to flatten the candied jujubes, improving the appearance of the product.

8. Drying: dry again until the moisture content of the finished product is 16%.

9. Grading: pick out the broken jujubes, and grade the qualified candied jujubes by size.

10. Packaging: pack in paper boxes or plastic food bags. Each box (or bag) weighs 0.5 kg to 1 kg, then pack into cartons, with 25 kg per carton.