Dehydrating Frozen Wild Blueberries

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In this video and article, I work through dehydrating frozen wild blueberries. I show you the entire process, as well as the results.

Dehydrating Frozen Wild Blueberries

I started off with a 2lb 8-oz bag of Great Value Frozen Wild Blueberries. I hadn’t thawed them at all.

One reason I decided to dehydrate these blueberries is because I recently dehydrated a frozen cherry-berry blend. It’s really delicious. In fact, it’s one of the favorite things I’ve ever dehydrated. BUT the cherries took a really long time to dehydrate, and the blueberries dehydrated a lot faster. Even though I love the mix, I’m thinking it’s probably better to dehydrate the different fruits that are more or less the same size. Hopefully, it will go a little faster.

This is my first time dehydrating frozen WILD blueberries. I don’t think I’ve ever even purchased them before. I wasn’t really sure what the difference is between regular frozen blueberries, and frozen wild blueberries, but they look to be quite a bit smaller than other frozen blueberries I’ve purchased.

Put a Fruit Leather Tray on the Bottom of the Dehydrator

On the bottom, I put a fruit leather try to catch any juice that might drip down as the berries thaw. This will make clean up easier!

Note: In this article I’m using my Nesco dehydrator. Check out my Nesco Dehydrator Review for more information on this dehydrator.

Put Mesh Liners on the Dehydrator Trays

I typically put mesh liners on the dehydrator trays whenever I dehydrate fruit, because the fruit tends to stick less on the mesh liners compared to when I put the fruit directly on the dehydrator trays. Also, in this case, the berries are very small, and since they’ll shrink as they dehydrate, I knew that without the mesh trays, they’d fall right through.

I decided to use four dehydrator trays since this was a relatively small amount of blueberries to dehydrate.

Spread the Frozen Blueberries on the Dehydrator Tray

I started off by pouring the frozen wild blueberries on the dehydrator tray.

I spread them out, and tried not to overlap them very much, if at all. However, I decided right from the beginning that I was going to dehydrate the entire bag, even if they ended up overlapping a bit.

I Loaded the Top Dehydrator Tray with More Blueberries

I loaded the final tray a little heavier, because I needed to do so to fit all of the blueberries I had. The good news is, with that tray being on the top, I knew it would likely dry faster than the lower trays that are further away from the heat.

The Nutritional Aspects of Dehydrating

Lately I’ve been reading up on the nutritional aspects of dehydrating. Since dehydrating is something I want to do a lot more of, I want to learn more about it. The Nesco Dehydrator recommendations are to dehydrate fruits and vegetables at 135 degrees Fahrenheit. And because of that, that’s the temperature that I’ve used. However, from what I’ve read, dehydrating at a lower temperature helps to retain more nutrients.

Many suggest dehydrating at a temperature of 115 degrees Fahrenheit or lower, so I decided to dehydrate these frozen blueberries at 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

I put it on to run right before bed. Especially since I decided to dehydrate these at a lower temperature, and since they were frozen to start with, I doubted they would be dehydrated when I got up in the morning.

Frozen Blueberries after 10 Hours in the Dehydrator

The next morning (after about 10 hours in the dehydrator) you can see how much they had shriveled up. But they were still pretty soft, sticky, and quite moist.

Now remember that the top tray (which is what is pictured) was just LOADED with blueberries.

Frozen Blueberries after 17 Hours in the Dehydrator

I turned the dehydrator back on, and checked on them periodically. They were perfectly dry after about 17 or 18 hours.

So, it took a long time, even though they were small. No doubt the long drying time was due to them being completely frozen when I started and dehydrating them at the lower temperature.

When it comes to nutrient preservation, dehydrating is a good option, but often fruits and vegetables lose their vitamin C content if you dehydrate at too high of a temperature. So that’s why I plan to research this more and dehydrate at lower temperatures, even though it takes longer.

Dehydrating Wild Frozen Blueberries Vs. Regular Frozen Blueberries

Here are my thoughts on how the dehydrated wild blueberries compare with the dehydrated regular blueberries.

After dehydrating, the frozen wild blueberries are REALLY small.

In the image above, you can see the drastic size difference between the dehydrated wild blueberries and the regular dehydrated blueberries.

Another issue with these is that they REALLY stuck to the trays. This is common when dehydrating fruit, but these were more extreme, due to the small size. There are some places where they even stuck down into the holes in the mesh liners. So, it was a lot of work to dig them out.

In terms of yield, from 2.5 pounds of frozen wild blueberries, after dehydrating, I ended up with a little less than a pint of dehydrated blueberries.

Whether or Not I’ll Dehydrate Frozen Wild Blueberries Again

The frozen wild blueberries are so tiny after dehydrating, that at least for snacking, I do NOT plan to dehydrate them again. They are just too small. Having said that, they could work great for putting into pancakes and muffins. They are small enough that they may also work well in blueberry pancake and muffin mixes, since they won’t take as long to rehydrate as the regular size blueberries.

I will obviously use these, because I don’t like to waste things, but if I were to dehydrate just one type of blueberry, it would definitely be the regular size ones.