Food Dehydrator

I'm very pleased with my Good-4-U dehydrator.

Removable sliding trays, timer, thermostat, less expensive than other makes

Don't forget to use the search feature too – you'll find many previous threads/posts with lots of info. If you're not happy with BPL search engine, use the advanced search in google to search only this site. Works well, you'll get many hits.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to new threads…

This unit, among others, has been recommended by posters in another thread:

http://www.amazon.com/Nesco-American-FD-75PR-700-Watt-Dehydrator/dp/B000FFVJ3C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1235137761&sr=8-1

I'll be giving it a serious look in the near future when I buy my first dehydrator.

This Nesco is a bargain:
http://www.amazon.com/Nesco-American-FD-61WHC-Snackmaster-Dehydrator/dp/B0002WSQHU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1252883704&sr=1-3

It is a great little workhorse as well. And at $54 you cannot go wrong! That and a roll of parchment paper and you are good to go.

On how many trays? Well honestly 4 to 6 is plenty for most people. You can fit a lb of cooked pasta on 2 trays and still have plenty of room.
Pasta, rice, beans, fruit and veggies have for the most part a 1 year shelf life after drying (and rice/pasta can really go longer) so you might as well dry lots then store in air tight containers in your cupboard till you need it.

If you are doing meals or things that contain dairy or animal store tightly sealed in the freezer after drying and use within 3 to 6 months on average.

If all you do is dry for two weekends you can have a years supply easily of basics….

Kent,
Thanks for the heads up on the google search feature. I did see the review someone had done for the Nesco when I did a quick search But I didn't come across a list of suggested machines. Hope I'm not duplicating.

You just reminded me to check my Excalibur dehydrator…I have some alfredo pasta in it from last night. I'm very happy with it, but it was a bit pricey and I don't have others to compare it to. The trays are 1' x 1' square, so you can fit allot on each of them. We have got in the habit of dehydrating left-overs in preparation of freezer bag meals, so we have great, tasty meals for backpacking that are very inexpensive.

John,
Dehydrating leftovers is a great idea!

For those that have a Nesco- do you have to rotate trays around when dehydrating? My family used to have a machine without a fan and I recall having to rotate the trays every few hours.

From my experience:
-Look for a thermostat. Meats, fruits and veggies all need different temperatures. The ones without a thermostat tend to run hot enough to dry jerky but will burn more delicate foods.
– Timers are a life saver. Otherwise you have to stick around hours from now when it's done. The easiest way to dry stuff I've found is to start it when I go to bed and set the timer for the middle of the night.
– Round trays with a hole in the middle can be a real pain because you can't easily line them with parchment paper or aluminum foil. You are also likely to spill food through the center hole, especially when you are removing the dried food.
– Dehydrators with fans dry much more evenly than convection dehydrators.
– If you have to remove the top to look at the progress you loose more heat than a front loader.

That I have the one mentioned by Sarah

http://www.amazon.com/Nesco-American-FD-61WHC-Snackmaster-Dehydrator/dp/B0002WSQHU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1252883704&sr=1-3

However, I think she was wrong when she said it was selling for $54. If you went to the site you will see that it sell for $64 and is regularly priced at $82.99.

I bought one of these thinking I was going to get all into the world of dehydrating, but like many of my impulse buys this just proved to be something I used twice. I don't know if I'm impatient and don't like waiting for my food to dry or if I don't like dried foods that much. In any regard, I still have it. I have everything that came with it. Even the spice packages to make the jerky that came with it and the recipe book that is only included as a bonus on certain deluxe models. I have only owned it for just over two months. I also have all the manuals, warranty information, and box to go along with it. If you are interested in venturing into dehydrating food, I will sell you mine for $50 and ship it for free. If you are serious, I could even take picture of it too. However, like I said, I only used it twice to dry apples. get back to me with your thoughts. Thanks!

Just thought Id throw that out there. A heat fan circulates the air from the top all the away to the bottom where it is expelled ;) I know all Nescos operate like this, however, I know that other brands don't so be careful if you go a different route.

Yeah, you'd be right – $64. Lol! Sorry about that!

And I'll add this: even I barely use my dehydrator – I save it for things I cannot buy – like for drying cooked pasta and Jasmine rice. Otherwise I do what I like best: waiting for the Fed Ex and UPS men to show up with packages from http://www.packitgourmet.com and http://www.harmonyhousefoods.com with ready to go dried ingredients. Oh yeah, it is lazy but whatever, I am a busy person and it is just SO much easier! ;-)

I've looked at getting a dehydrator lately and decided this one is "the best". (Excalibur 3526T) Search for it on Ebay. Excalibur, the manufacturer, sells blemished ones with the full 10 year warranty. It's a 5 tray model with a timer and no holes in the middle which get in the way of making fruit leather. The fan in the rear creates consistant drying from tray to tray without rotating them as is necessary on many. They also make a 9 tray model, but I don't think that's needed by most people. They make models without timers too, but the savings on blemished ones is negligible. Realize, as some before have said, many people don't use theirs much. It takes quite a bit of commitment and effort. For this reason, you could go on craigslist to buy one for $25-35. Then, if you find you use it consistantly, you can upgrade to "the best".

Mine is the Excalibur 9 tray without the timer. I've had all 9 trays full at once when I've a ton of different fruits, pasta sauce, etc. But in most cases, 5 trays would be fine. I don't miss the timer, as I don't find timing to be all that critical.

It is easy to buy something like this and not use it. If you're fine with buying expensive pre-packaged meals, there are some good nutritious ones out there. I would just avoid the ones with a ton of ingredients that you can't pronounce (i.e. Mountain House)…they might taste good, but after wards you end up tired and smelling up the place. You need all the energy you can get when backpacking, and the better you feel, the more you enjoy the great outdoors!

I own a 9 tray with timer excalibur.
Had to buy it on the internet the price is more than x2 in France…
I love having 9 trays, because i dehydrate lots of fruit.
When we hike we eat about 100g/day of dried fruit : plum, banana , sweetapple, apple, manguo etc…
So four last hike of 12 days thats about 2,4kg x4 = close to 10Kg of fruits to dehydrate that already took a long time.

Id rather get a dehydrator without timer to save $$$ than a smaller one.
If you hike solo a 5 trays should be plenty enough.

I have seen a couple comments on getting the machines to avoid buying commercial meals – but honestly, before a person spends big cash ask yourself if you will REALLY use that dehydrator. Chances are you WON'T. A few will and really crank out the items. If you want to dry meals you made at home, sure, that can be nice. But if you want to dry ingredients for meals price it out first:
Consider this….Lets say you pay $100 (and if talking an Excalibur keep going up!) a dehydrator and then you start drying vegetables, fruit, etc. Well you are $100 in the hole before you even start drying. You may be better off to just go buy the items already dryed for you! Dehydrated and freeze dried vegetables and fruits are easily found with nothing added to them. They are as good for you as anything you dry. You can find them in town and online easily and they are not expensive when you run the numbers.

If all you want to do is dry a leftover portion of dinner once in awhile or a lb or two of pasta once a year you would do better to invest in a $3 roll of parchment paper, line a baking sheet and dry it in your oven on the lowest setting. No big investment needed and nothing eating up your kitchen space.

Otherwise, please visit http://www.justtomatoes.com http://www.harmonyhousefoods.com and http://www.packitgourmet.com for ALL the dehdyrated veggies, beans, fruits and more you could ever want for making your own meals. For that $100 you could stock a zombie invasion pantry in your house!

An alternative to commercial dehydrators:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUu9goMp7EI&NR=1

Watch the whole episode- its a great show.

Hey Group,
Thanks for all your suggestions. I'm going with a dehydrator because I want to dry left-overs and use then when my wife when we go backpacking. Our meals generally come out to under $3 a portion. Thats about 1/2 of a typical commercial meal. Not including the cost of running the machine, I estimate that it will take 23 meals (cost of machine/ difference in food cost) to offset the cost of the machine. This doesn't include the cost of beef jerky I occasionally splurge on.

I'll end up going with the Nesco FD75-PR dehydrator. Two features that many people suggest a unit have are a thermostat and a fan (preferably on top of the unit).

Thanks again!

The Nesco FD 75 is a good choice. I've been using Nesco products for more than a decade. My original Nesco FD 50 is still being used by my sister. I also used the FD 75 in the writing of both my wilderness cookbooks (the second isn't available until next spring) and for countless other recipes and uses (drying herbs and potpourri). It definitely stands up to the abuse I've given it. I also know that is the model the authors of Lipsmackin' Backpackin' now use.

Drying leftovers is the best way to go for flavor, cost, etc. As they say – stew always tastes better the second day. Adding mere pre-dried ingredients doesn't allow for the development of flavors that drying your own complete meals does. There is also the environmental impact… if you are ordering pre-dried items from all over the place that causes a larger environmental footprint than buying fresh/local foods and making your own meals. The little bit of electricity that it uses has less of an impact than the courier trucks used to ship the pre-dried foods. Not to mention the control and cost savings is great.

Of course this is merely my take on it… hike your own hike as they say. :)

edited to add… if you need a timer simply plug the dehydrator into one of those anti-burglar light timer things. I found a power bar that has one of those built in. It cost about $8 and gives me an on/off switch now too. I don't often need to use it because many times my dehydrator runs 24/7 (like this summer during recipe testing).