What's the best food dehydrater out there?

[ORBoy_80]

I'm looking to get away from freeze-dried and make my own dehydrated food. Anyone have any input on a good unit? Elk season is less than five months away after all!

 

[6mm Remington]

NESCO Not sure if it's the best but it's USA made and it works very well. I've made a ton of jerky on it and dried pounds of Morel mushrooms. I'm completely satisfied with it.

David

 

[couesbitten]

Excalibur, probably the best there is. They make a 5 tray and a 9 tray model, get one with a timer and thermostat. I purchased mine on Amazon, got it from the Amazon Warehouse deals, description said it was "used, in excellent condition, comes in original packaging, packaging will be damaged". When it arrived, the box had been damaged (baseball size hole in the side which had been very well patched), the dehydrator itself didn't have a mark on it. The 9 tray sells for about $250 on Amazon, I got mine for less than $200. I just looked and they have a 9 tray for $212.53. Good luck, this is what I've been doing for the past couple months, getting a pretty good stockpile of dehydrated, vacuum sealed food.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B008OV4FD0/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all

 

[JFKinYK]

Biggest thing is to make sure it has a fan, not just a passive heating element. The fan will decrease your drying times and help all the trays dry evenly, although rotating trays is still advised and usually necessary if you stack more than a few trays on a vertical system.A thermostat is also nice to select different temps. For a timer I just buy a regular outlet timer for a generic appliance.

The horizontal ones where the trays pull put of a larger box are more expensive but not as scalable - you cant just buy some extra trays and stack em on to make it bigger, but I think they do dry more evenly. I've never used one. The Excalibur is the most common and cabelas has some "commercial" ones of this type too.

 

[ORBoy_80]

Thanks a bunch everyone! Sounds like it's time to do a little shopping. This forum is rad.

 

[jcodyc40]

Excalibur 9 tray works great for me. It holds more then 2 of my Nescos and doesn't require tray rotation every couple of hours. Being square verses round I find it easier to shoot jerky and pepperoni sticks and makes packaging easier as well.

 

[Bulldawg]

Cabela's commercial dehydrators are really nice and work great! I can dehydrate about a dozen meals at a time with the smaller one.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Cabelas-Commercial-Food-Dehydrators/714059.uts

 

[Broomd]

Excalibur 9 tray works great for me. It holds more then 2 of my Nescos and doesn't require tray rotation every couple of hours. Being square verses round I find it easier to shoot jerky and pepperoni sticks and makes packaging easier as well.

+1...great unit. My wife really likes ours, and her jerky is kick-a$$....worth every penny...

 

[GotDraw?]

Ok, so reading about hair splitting subjective discussions on the relative merits of optics coatings has me worn out!

Let's do something FUN!

ALL y'all (southern plural of y'all) who rave about your homemade jerky should send it out to Luke, Aaron or Becca for a taste-test shootout!

Best recipe gets posted!

JL

 

[Darren Best]

Another vote for the Excalibur 9 tray.

 

[robtattoo]

I've been running one of these cheap Chiwanese things for a couple of years now.
I use it all the time (mostly for dying rifle brass....) & I have zero complaints.
It's probably got well in excess of 200hrs use with no problems at all.
My only minor gripe is that it only came with 2 silicone sheets.

 

[worx53]

Cabelas has a 9 tray on sale right now $99 - screaming deal

 

[Colberjs]

I got the Cabelas (I think 10 tray) with the clear front door for about $120 last year and it was terrible. You had to rotate the grays to get any kind of even drying and it took forever. I don't recommend it. I could've got an Excaliber in the Bargain Cave the same day for not much more but had never heard of them and based my opinion of it off of looks. I regret that decision now.

 

[couesbitten]

I tend to research the hell out of anything I buy and then shop for the best price. In doing my research prior to buying my dehydrator, the Excalibur units got very good reviews/feedback.

 

[worx53]

Great...sounds like they'll be getting mine back I just ordered...it looks just like the one with good reviews on amazon.....I told a cabelas manager two weeks ago on the phone 99% of their "cabelas" labeled stuff was complete garbage...and he basically quietly agreed.

 

[COlineman78]

I have the Nesco Snackmaster and it has worked very well for me. It's very simple and the temperature control is limited. The only thing I could want is a timer, but that can be solved with a simple outlet timer. Use it mainly for jerky, but last year I found a bag of fruit flavored marshmallows that I dehydrated for a backcountry snack and they were like crack. Between the 5 of us the bag didn't last too long. They were kinda tricky to make though because if you got them too hot they would expand and get bigger than the trays causing a sticky mess.

The downside is that the trays are too big for my dishwasher, so it probably doesn't get as much use as it should because I am too lazy to hand wash.

http://smile.amazon.com/Nesco-Snack...1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage