Anybody have a dehydrator?

heather&edwin

Ive recently become obsessed with the idea of owning a dehydrator. I realize that sounds absolutly insane but....well okay maybe a little ;-)

I recently jumped on the bandwagon of making my own fruit leathers beause theyre delicious and now I can control everything in them...and choose my flavors! But making them in the oven reaaallly isnt ideal. Its an all day kind of process! A dehydrator cuts that down for sure!

Also as a child we had a dehydrator and would use it all the time to make our own snacks. I would love to have this option for my (future) children! We would make homemade turkey jerky, deer jerky, apple chips, banana chips, dried fish...it all runs together in my moms old "country" home! haha but I really miss it!

Anyway..... Do you have any dehydrator recommendations? My guess would be stainless steel is better than plastic (environmentally speaking) but how do they measure up in terms of ease of use, upkeep, cleaning, and cost? The costs seem to very GREATLY!

Just looking for a little advice before I begin the hunt on my own!

apples09

I got one as a birthday present last June- I was so excited, I had been asking for one since I follow a high raw diet/lifestyle. My sister got me the Excalibur 3900 9 tray model for approx $200 dollars. She did her research and found that one to be the Queen Bee of all dehydrators.

That said, I have to say, I've used it four times since June. Even though we have a garden, I got frustrated with all the produce I'd have to grow/buy in order to just get a tiny bit of food/snacks over. I just got really bored with the amount of time it would take to dehydrate anything- it took a lot of careful planning and timing around my work schedule, etc.

I will say that the cleaning was a breeze and if you really believe you will do a LOT of dehydrating, it is a great model. You just have to commit. Good luck!  

sillygoosegirl

I see the little plastic ones regularly at our local Goodwill.  Personally, I'd start there and see how much you really use it... I've only used mine a handful of times in the 2 years I've had it.  

MDigeon1125

I wanted one to dehydrate food for my backpacking trips.  I found one on craigslist for $10.  It's a much older model but the woman said she hardly used it.  The trays have little holes in the bottom so when I'm making something that starts off really wet like sauce, I just put parchment paper on it.  So far it has worked perfectly.  I just have to be able to rotate the trays every couple of hours since the bottom ones get warmer than the top ones.  I would start off with a cheaper maybe used one then once you get the hang of it you can upgrade.

heather&edwin

Thanks guys thats not a bad idea...Ill start rummaging for a used one :-)

Im typically *not* an appliance girl...at all! But I feel like wed get a lot of use out of it so well have to test it!

SuperGreen

We started with a Nesco Dehydrator, which worked great.  $45 new. Awesome little device, worked very well.  I think it was a great first dehydrator. That first season we ran it constantly, almost every day.  We wanted to be able to run bigger batches less frequently this year, so we upgraded to an Excalibur 9 tray, which is as top-of-line as you can go for home (non-commercial) models.  It's on sale for $150 now, it's normally $250 (which is what we paid).  We've only done a few winter things in it (cranberries and apples) and it works great.  It also has a timer, which is a feature we desperately needed.

crunchyNMmama

apples09:

I got one as a birthday present last June- I was so excited, I had been asking for one since I follow a high raw diet/lifestyle. My sister got me the Excalibur 3900 9 tray model for approx $200 dollars. She did her research and found that one to be the Queen Bee of all dehydrators.

That said, I have to say, I've used it four times since June. Even though we have a garden, I got frustrated with all the produce I'd have to grow/buy in order to just get a tiny bit of food/snacks over. I just got really bored with the amount of time it would take to dehydrate anything- it took a lot of careful planning and timing around my work schedule, etc.

I will say that the cleaning was a breeze and if you really believe you will do a LOT of dehydrating, it is a great model. You just have to commit. Good luck!  

This is what we have and we love it!