Need advice on food dehydrator

[matt819]

I did a quick check and found that someone asked this same question about 5 years ago, but the info is likely dated, so I thought I'd ask again.

Need advice on best food dehydrator to buy. Best being relative, of course, requiring a balance of decent enough quality and decent enough price. I'm not about to spend $300, for example.

If it matters what I'm dehydrating, here goes: tomatoes, kale, herbs. Unlikely to dry fruit.

I also have questions about pressure canning, but I'll submit that post separately.

Thanks.

[Major Nikon]

1. You can make one very easily and cheaply

All you need is a box fan, a few air conditioner filters, some dehydrator tray liners, and a couple of bungee cords. The advantage to this type of dehydrator is it uses room temperature convection, rather than heat to dry your food. I think this is preferable to heat especially in the case of drying herbs, however the way I dry my herbs is simply to group them in small bunches and hang them to dry with the stems up. Consumer grade dehydrators are pretty simple, usually consisting of a few drying racks, a convection fan, and a small heating element. If you plan on doing a lot of dehydrating, Excalibur dehydrators are quite nice but also quite pricey.

[noamnety]

2. I probably posted the same basic post 5 years ago

but my advice is the same. Check salvation army or local thrift shops. I got two american harvester ones there, each 5 or 6 bucks, so cheaper than what it would cost to build your own. The second one I bought was a "snackmaster" - don't get that model as your primary one because it doesn't have a thermostat, it's just a one temperature deal. It's not a big deal to me because the trays all can stack on the other better base that I bought, but if it were my only one, I'd be depressed.

[Melissa G]

4. +1

Good advice. I buy them at the thrift store and donate them back because I so rarely drag the machine out. May use it more this round now that I have a more spacious kitchen coming!

[MADem]

3. We have a cheap one--it has five trays, a heating element, and a fan.

We use it to dry sweet potatoes for the dogs as treats. We have one dog with medical issues who is on a restricted diet and can't eat commercial treats, so we make our own and that's one they both enjoy.

You have to shuffle the trays every three hours or so, but it works pretty good.

I think you could probably "air dry" your herbs, but I think the tomatoes would do well in the dehydrator. Not sure about the kale...?

[The empressof all]

5. Mine is made by Nesco

Go directly to their site. They usually have good prices.

I have had it for years and use it frequently in the summer.

Does what it is suppose to do and does it well

[NEOhiodemocrat]

6. I have the nine shelf Excalibur

I have had several other ones over the years but this is definitely the best one I have ever used. I think it comes in smaller and larger size. It is very good for tomato's but I am a fruit dryer mainly, which it doesn't sound like you are planning on doing. For someone who does the dried fruit my size dehydrator will do about 27 bananas or 18 apples per load. For information on it saw on back www.drying123.com Not sure of the price as it was a Christmas gift from the kids. It has a very informative direction booklet that comes with it. Dial up heat setting. Over the years have had everything from one with light bulb and fan (not enough control over temperature...well none really) to stack ones that operate with fan (drying time to long, at least for fruit) I would dry herbs by hanging and air drying them. One big plus in a dehydrator in my opinion is one piece shelves. The round ones with open center are hard to load and I don't feel that they dry as evenly. The shelves in the Excalibur are basically square with a removable plastic insert that the product sits on. This makes it very easy to remove the product after drying as can take off the plastic sheet and pop it off from the bottom, very convientient.

[noamnety]

7. testing out a new method today

seedless grapes are $4 a 20lb case right now. I have all 8 racks of my dehydrators full. Here's after about 24 hours (they might have been done by now but I didn't know to blanch them first):



and I've expanded into the vehicles.

[matt819]

8. Intriguing

So this would be the $14,000 dehydrator?

The Excalibur is out of my price range. The postmistress in my town is going for the inexpensive Nessco. I'm still dancing around about the L'Equip. And since every purchase these days is political, here's a small added dilemma. It's available in a nearby town's kitchen store. Nobody in the family likes this store, as many of the sales people are surly and snobby. Plus, it's $20 more than on Amazon. So now I'm torn between buying from a local business with cranky staff or from Amazon.

Maybe I'm just delaying until the season has passed? It's all very psychological.

Post photos of the car-dehydrated grapes.

[noamnety]

9. The weather was less than cooperative.

They were drying sloooooowly, but we had a string of overcast days. Figures the heatwave would break this week. Anyway, as the others finished on the regular dehydrator, I shifted the car ones inside. Finished product:


Even the husband, who is usually less than supportive of my weird experiments, announced that these were better than store bought. Ridiculously good. Store bought ones are sweet, but these have a tartness that I didn't know raisins could have.

In other dehydrating news, I read that you can dry tomatoes to completely dry, then grind them, and store them as tomato powder. Hoping to try that this year instead of using all my mason jars for canned sauce.

[matt819]

11. Pretty nifty

I've never thought about tomato powder. Now there's something to try.

I just bought a L'Equip Filter Pro Dehydrator from a locally owned store. Paid $20 more than I would have on Amazon. So it goes.

I'll read instructions tonight and get started tomorrow. Kale is first. Tomatoes just coming in now, so it'll be a while before the tomato onslaught.

[Tab]

10. I purchased a Nesco American Harvest about 6 years go

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FFVIWY/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Some of the key features were an automatic thermostat and a digital timer (good for 48 hours) so you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to unplug it. That said, you could get away with having a non-timed one running into a home light timer, but I did a fair amount of research and this one seemed to match all I was looking for without being too outrageous in price. (Currently going for $135, but I probably got mine for less back then).

[noamnety]

12. I was looking at plans for larger solar DIY dehydrators

and showing them to my husband. He came back the next day with what might be the most genius idea ever, we're running a temperature test right now so we can figure out if we need insulation on the sides before we add shelving:



As he pointed out - the cart tilts so it's angled at the sun and you can drive it around throughout the day as the sun shifts.

[matt819]

13. You guys are pretty crafty

Well, they don't call them sun-dried tomatoes for nothing.

[noamnety]

14. updated photo

I added handles to the glass so I can lift it out without cursing, added removable shelves (bought 6 foot lengths and cut them down to 2 feet), put in some black corrugated irrigation pipe along the back wall for catching more heat, added styrofoam panels to the outside for insulation, reduced the top vent and added a bottom air vent.

It got up to 135F in the box today, and the actual outdoor temp was only 69. I'm happy with that - I can run at 135.

Last bit of stuff to do - add some screening to the vent holes to keep out bugs.

The photo is with five 1x2ft racks in, but I can put in up to nine.