What is the best brand of food dehydrator?

I am thinking of getting one to preserve my summer garden harvest. Looking online, there seems to be a variety of price points. The raw foodists use the Excalibur and say it is the only thing going, but it is pricey. I would probably only use mine during for a few months in the summer, but use it often for that period. Any suggestions?

I ended up buying a Nesco American Harvest off of craigslist for $20. It's not the top of the line so that was about half the original cost. It's not been used because the girl I bought it from is both pregnant and lost her job so they were trying to liquidate things they didn't need.

It seems like it's kinda cheap plastic construction but we'll see how it goes. Wishing us both luck!

They seem to have two levels, snackmaster and gardenmaster. The gardenmaster seems to be larger and dry faster but it is also two or three times as expensive. Let me know how you like yours and if it is adequate to save produce from a small home garden. I borrowed a cheapie Ronco form my friend, so I can use that until I figure out what I want.

Mine seems to fall in between the two somewhere. I looked at a used Ronco about a month ago but read reviews before I bought it and decided against it. It still takes a long time for certain things to dry according to the instruction manual so who knows, I might end up reselling it if it eats alot of electricity.

I an use my friend's for the time being, but I should look at getting one of my own. This is the second or third time I have borrowed hers.

The gardenmaster model is a lot more, but it doesn't need to be more than plastic. It just a temperature controlled heat and fan that doesn't have to support a lot of weight on the racks. It's not you're cooking lasagna in it or anything. It needs to have good air circulation and a convenient design, but there's no need for it to be made out of metal to hold a few vegetables or fruits or meat strips or whatever you're putting in it. Don't let the plastic fool you. I don't know about the American Harvest, but I get the impression, at least if it's a recent model, they all have the same design, they just differ in how many trays or accessories and whether or not they have timer control and such. I'll think you'll be okay, and $40 is cheap enough that if you don't like it, it's not the end of the world, and if you really like it then you can justify one of their other models, if you get tired of not having a timer or whatever.

I just didn't expect it to be such cheap, fragile looking stuff, ya know? That just means I have to be even more careful with the stupid thing lest I crack it but good.

Treat it with the same loving delicacy that treat the vegetable slices you prepared. :)

:rofl:

"as seen on TV" dehydrators and those did a good job of both veggies and meats. I'm not a meat eater, but I did sample the dried fruits and fruit leathers. They were very good, evenly dried.

That tells me anything with ventilated trays, a low heat source and a fan will do the job.

I have a ten year old Ronco (no fan) and a new Aroma (fan, rotating trays.) Both do the job well, but the Aroma handles high water content fruit better than the Ronco and everything dries much faster in the Aroma. The latter is important when we have a bounty to handle.

We will continue to use the Ronco for drying chiles and some herbs for as long as it keeps working. It's cheap to run and it does the job.

is probably because this is the desert and our thin, arid air helped the process along considerably.

But if the Ronco works well here, I might buy two. They are cheap on ebay and I could do big batches that way.

Has anyone done real sun drying? I stopped by a friend's this AM and she had a pile of old window screens she wanted to get rid of. I could dry stuff on those for free, but I am concerned about insects and vermin getting the food before it was finished drying.

They sell it at garden stores. Arrange the food on the screens and make a tobacco netting tent over the whole arrangement to keep bugs away.

Food has been air dried in the south for a long time, usually in the form of "leather britches beans" and fruit leathers. Jerky is different, though, and requires a heat source.

I paid a little more for it than the lesser models because it has a digital timer so you don't have to remember to turn it off. Granted you could also buy a wall timer and plug it into that, but those are a pain for how you have to set them.

It comes with five or six racks - all removable, so you only use the racks you need (they stack, so it's taller the more racks you have). it blows down from the top and is designed to get even circulation no matter what you have on each rack, and it also has a small holed rack overlay that you can use for some of the wetter veggies or whatever.

I haven't regretted buying it for a second. my main objective was to do beef jerkey, which i'm working on, but obviously you can dry most anything. my next thing would probably be tomatoes - i love dried tomatoes.

This is the model I have
http://www.excaliburdehydrator.com/5-Tray-SMALL-GARDEN-Excalibur-26-hour-Timer-3526T-27-37-regular-prod.htm



It has a 26 hour timer. I have dried just about everything imaginable. It is large and bulky but it works great and it was free!

That is exactly the one I want but it is soooooo expensive. If you know anyone else who is giving one away, I would take it off their hands, 'k?

(and don't say 'ignore what?' :eyes: )

I described it somewhere downthread. I love it, particularly the digital timer. I have no complaints at all. What you consider pricey, I don't know - they don't give them away, but I could see using this one for 10 or more years easily. Probably 20 years from now I'll still be using it. Digital timer aside, which this has, I'm at a loss as to what they can really improve upon, so like a toaster, I suspect the future changes might be in aesthetic design, but probably not basic technology. What are you going to add? It heats air, moves it around a good airflow chamber, and you set your temp and the time you want it to go for, and let it rip.

On edit - sorry, got my threads screwed up. I thought this was a repeat question from another thread.:eyes:

I've had a Snackmaster for about 15 years, and it's getting kind of tired...stuff takes longer to dry, and I figured it was time to replace the drying unit.
They don't make that particular model anymore, so I was looking for a model that would fit the 8 trays I already have (most units can take on up to 12 trays).

Found a Nesco that had the 'oomph' I was looking for, and it fit the trays, but all I really needed was the fan- asked if it was possible to buy just that...
and IT IS! :bounce: :woohoo:
Cost me $34...where if I'd gotten the whole shebang it would have run me $68.

The new Nesco fan goes on top, and I just use the old dryer unit as a bottom and don't turn it on.

I did have to deal with the actual company and not the retailer for this, but they were very nice. :thumbsup:

Article in this month's Mother Earth News:




Many gardeners freeze, can or give away surplus zucchini and tomatoes, but what about drying them? Not only is drying a delicious way to preserve and concentrate the flavors of your fruits, veggies and herbs, but when dried, produce requires little space — and no electricity — to store, so you can enjoy it throughout fall and winter.

Last year I dried peppers, squash, garlic and quite a few cherry tomatoes, which brought much comfort when a power outage pushed my frozen treasures to the brink of thaw. The biggest revelation came in early spring, when I began using dried foods as other stockpiled veggies ran low. I discovered that cooking with delicious home-dried foods is as easy as cooking with packaged convenience foods, at a fraction of the cost. Sweet dried fruits and crunchy veggies are great in meals, but they’re good enough to enjoy as snacks, too.

What can you dry? From tomatoes and beets to sweet corn and green beans, almost any vegetable that can be blanched and frozen is a likely candidate for drying, along with apples, strawberries, peaches and most other fruits. In times past, people waited for a spell of dry, breezy weather to dry bunches of herbs or peppers threaded on a piece of string. And the first dehydrator I ever used was a parked car (just lay the goods on the dash or under the rear window). You will need only a warm oven to dry a basket of shiitake mushrooms, but unless you live in an arid climate where sun-drying is practical, eventually you’ll want a dehydrator. To compare plug-in options, read David Cavagnaro's Choosing a Food Dehydrator. Or read as Eben Fodor shares his expertise on building simple, nonelectric food dryers in Build a Solar Food Dehydrator. (For an inexpensive DIY solar dehydrator, see Super-easy, Low-cost Solar Dehydrator. — Mother)

But back to the food. Do you want the simplicity of scalloped potatoes from a box — but homegrown? Or how about the makings for dozens of pasta salads in which everything but the noodles came from your garden or a local farm? With a stash of dried foods, you really can drag through the door after work, set some dried veggies to soak, and then flop down for a few minutes, talk to the kids or change your clothes. By the time you’re back in the kitchen, you’ll be greeted by plump, pre-cut, organically grown veggies ready to be stir-fried, sautéed, simmered or tossed with dressing for a fast salad. Plus, drying foods to stockpile is one of the easiest ways to achieve a more local diet.

..cont'd

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2008-08-01/How-To-Dry-Food.aspx


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How To Dry And Freeze Tomatoes:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2008-08-01/How-To-Dry-And-Freeze-Tomatos.aspx





Choosing a Food DeHydrator
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2003-06-01/Choosing-a-Food-Dehydrator.aspx

Build A Solar Dehydrator
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/2006-08-01/Build-a-Solar-Food-Dehydrator.aspx
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/2008-08-01/Recycleable-Solar-Dehydrator.aspx