Excalibur Food Dehydrator 9-Tray Electric with Adjustable Thermostat Accurate Temperature Control Faster Drying, Black: Home & Kitchen

I honestly don’t know why it took me so long to get a dehydrator. I love this thing. We’ve had it for a few months and have dehydrated tons of fruits and veggies in it, have used it to raise dough, fruit leathers, etc. We bought this model to save some extra bucks but I think the convenience of having the timer would’ve paid for itself instantly. Other than that, I’d buy this agian 100 times over. Happy that it was made in the USA, it’s sturdy, works well, and is quieter than I expected it to be. I opted to get the extra clear door for it, it’s nice to look in there and see how things are doing or if they need to be turned without having to open it up. Great buy for our family.

After doing my research I settled on this one. Glad I did. The first three days I had it we ran it constantly. Experimenting, trying new things, and plain having fun with it. It’s large trays allows you to put 12 pounds of apples in there at one time. Done 10 pounds of beef jerky in about 5 hours. This thing is not only large but fast and efficient. My older round model would take forever to dry out anything. It’s nice to be able to run two batches a day. Clean up is easy. My biggest concern was the dehydrator smelling like beef jerky after we made our first batch, but after wiping it out and letting it air out it retain no order what so ever. Definitely not disappointed in my purchase of this unit.

Received on time, unpacked, washed it all down, ran for 1 hour on lowest setting, let cool, 1 hour on med, let cool, 1 hour on the highest setting, let cool. I had some previous dried lavender that had re-hydrated in the air – I put that in on a medium heat overnight, just to get rid of any potential plastic or other odors. I loaded it up the next morning and have been running it 24 hours since then. Very happy with the way it works, the quantity it will hold, and the quality of the unit. I used the 105 degree setting on the first batch, to try to preserve as much of the living enzymes as possible, it took about 30 hours to dry a full load at that temperature. The second load made turkey jerky at 150 degrees in about 10 hours. I could not be happier with this unit. If you just want to dry some bananas here and there and some herbs, it may not be worth $200 – but if you have a large garden like I do it is invaluable. I expect it will pay for itself this year by preserving food that otherwise would go bad.

We love dehydrating our tomatoes and herbs. We’ve been using 2 round dehydrators with a fan for many wonderful years. One finally wore down so we “shopped around” and decided to get The Excalibur. The 9-tray model has been on our “wish list” for a long time and now was the time to get it.The manual/recipe books that come with it are easy to read and informative. Granted it’s been a long time since we read a dehydrating manual but I think the dried puree/fruit roll-up type recipes listed in these guides may work for us.So much herbs and tomatoes got us to buy a second round dehydrator. No regrets but glad we were able to get The Excalibur this time. It’s a bit pricey but we knew from everything we read that this was going to be THE dehydrator to have and we are not disappointed.I actually had dry tomatoes in a few short hours! Ours were sliced a little thinner than recommended since it was the first time. We also used only 3 trays spaced apart. The trays held more tomatoes than we thought. I used parchment paper carefully wrapped around the bottom mesh shelf to catch any dribbles.–Parchment IS recommended in the user guide. Very happy the company gives recommendations so you can fully use the dehydrator without buying more accessories. The special shelves would probably be easier and cost/time efficient over using parchment if you intended to use them often for roll-ups or craft work.I dried twice as much sage in one machine without any hassle other than checking for dryness. Most was dry at the same time. From 9 full sheets down to one to finish drying.When we dried the dill I noticed that the dill had been blown away a little from the fan on the center trays. Made sense since it’s so light. It didn’t seem to really affect the drying in any way. It was very quick.Clean up is always a chore dehydrating anything wet; it would be expected. With our round dehydrators I would spray a little oil on the racks. They were bulky and had to be scrubbed with a brush thoroughly anyway so why make it even harder? The racks from Excalibur are soooo much easier to clean. The black, hard plastic supports are light and durable. Easy to clean off. The mesh had quite a mess from the tomatoes that I would’ve been really down about had they been the thicker round shelves. I just put the mesh in the dishpan to soak while I washed other dishes and viola! Clean with no scrubbing :DYeah, I’m reallllllly happy with this purchase

I have been wanting one of these for years, having heard so many good things about them. I have an old Aroma Dehydrator that I have had for at least 15 years, and it was passable–but slow. And I know I could not dry certain foods in it at all without problems.So, after drying some surplus zuchinni (who doesn’t have that?!) that took 18 hours, I decided to pull the trigger.These dryers are not cheap. I passed on the economy version, as well as the one with the built in timer. I figured I could just use a plug-in timer. When the box arrived, I was initially dismayed at the sheer size of this thing! Now, I know it would be big, but somehow I hadn’t imagined a machine just as big as my big ol’ microwave! I have a tiny kitchen, and this dryer was certainly not going to fit on any counter. I put it on my little table, and it took of half of the real estate.Now, I have lots of kitchen equipment stored in the basement. Canner, meat grinder, the old dehydrator, etc. But the Excalibur was so big and bulky, I was reluctant to have to carry it up and down the stairs–hey, I ain’t getting any younger.So what I did was set it up in the basement on top the dryer, laid some paper on the adjoining washing machine, and plugged it in. I sliced my zucchini upstairs (better light) and put the slices in a bowl to take downstairs. I like to sprinkle a light coating of salt on the zucchini chips, so took that with me.I used 6 medium zukes, and it only fit on 5 of the trays. I set the timer for the maximum time (14 hrs), and went upstairs to bed, figuring I could take off the chips that were dry, and figure how much more time it needed while I was away at work.Seven hours later I awoke, and decided to check on the progress, and was amazed to find EVERYTHING was dried perfectly an evenly! 7 hours (and they might have even been finished at 6 hours) as compared with 18 hours with my old dehydrator!So I am initially VERY impressed. I like the built in thermostat, and I like the way the trays are nice and square, and the massive amount of space that can be utilized. Last year I dehydrated tomatoes, and had to do 2 or 3 loads, 24 hours at a time. I cannot WAIT until I get those ‘maters on this workhorse!I have a lot of peaches coming in. I am going to try my hand a leather, and even use up some of that apple butter I put up last fall that nobody eats much of. I ordered some silicone sheets from Amazon; I would have gotten the Excalibur ones, but the cost was just too prohibitive. I know they are an American company, and cannot charge the cheap prices that China can, but I am on a budget, so have to make do.All in all I am really happy with this machine. It will live in the basement, but that is okay for my needs. The only thing I will miss is the wonderful smell the permeates the house when I dry the basil. Maybe if I leave the cellar door open…UPDATE—If yours makes that annoying vibration that starts after it has warmed up (not the fan guard), I found a fix for mine. Once the vibration starts, turn it around and gently loosen one or both of the nuts in the back that attach to the fan. Not much, just a tiny bit–less than a quarter of a turn will quiet it down, but the nuts will still be tight enough to be secure. What a relief!