The problem with dehydrated fruit is that the people who live with you tend to eat it before winter comes. The only solution? Dehydrate more fruit.
I’d give you drying times, but they’re sort of meaningless, since it depends on the variety, the thickness of the fruit, the ambient temperature, and how you plan to store them. What I can tell you is that you’ll get happier results if you leave the fruit in large pieces, even if it increases the drying time to 24–36 hours. The pears were pared, cored, and cut lengthwise into four pieces; same goes for the peaches; the plums were just cut in half. In any case, I wouldn’t go any thinner than 3/8″.
Visual cues may be more helpful.
This is what the plums looked like raw:
And this is what they looked like halfway through:
(Bonus: note changing light quality in afternoon vs. morning!)
The plums are done when they look like prunes. Both the pears and the peaches should be flexible, but not moist. Pop them in jars, label them, and hide them well.
I remember when my daughter were young and dried a whole mess of apples and stored them in a ziplock bag, thinking that I had enough for 2 weeks of lunches. They found the bag and they were gone. In an instant.
LOL! The dehydrated fruit – made in our kitchens – tastes so MUCH better than what you buy in the store.
I did half peaches last year and loved the result. I took a small bag with each time I traveled and they were great snacks.
One note though – I store mine in the freezer afterwards as a just in case something didn’t dehydrate as much as it should.