Hmmm, every year I think about food dehydrators, and every year I put the purchase off another year. I haven't seen any recent discussion here about them. What are other people's latest experiences? How have the offerings changed?

We have another bumper crop of basil this year and we're having a heck of a time drying it. Plus there's lots of other things I'd use it for if we had one.

Some choices are listed here: Fern's Nutrition

And here is a lot of detail about the American Harvest Gardenmaster

This one doesn't look so good: "chrome plated shelves"

Anyone have first-hand experience?

I have a couple. One is a cheapy I got from Big Lots for $12-15 some years back. It has six trays, a simple electric heating element, has neever given me any lip, and does just fine with herbs and things.

However - it doesn't have a blower. I relented last year and got one with a blower for drying my romas. Late summer can be so humid around here, that the ambient-heat dehydrator would take 3 days to dry them, and they'd start to mold before they were done.

I bought a used, 10 tray Magic Aire II off ebay for $60. No fancy heat sensor, but it does fine. I had it drying romas continuously for three weeks this year. I'd take the trays off morning and evening, removing the ones that were done, adding new ones, and rotating the top trays to the bottoms (or the less dried-trays to the bottom). Worked great.

I don't know about fancy-pants features, since I'm a tightwad by nature. Dehydrators are not rocket science. Just a heating element, and a fan in some cases.

If you'll only bee drying herbs - I wouldn't even bother with one with a fan. They dry pretty quick.

I was thinking that I'd also use it for tomatoes, peppers, and apples. What else is is useful for?

Hmm, just a thought, I have one of those convection ovens with the big fan in the back, has anyone tried using that on low heat for dehydrating? I've been wondering how well green peppers do in a dehydrator too? We like them fresh but they can get pretty $pendy in the wintertime, and they get too mushy when frozen.

I've got a couple American Harvest dehydrators. They are both running pretty much full time this time of year. I dry apple and pear slices, with 6 trees it's hard to keep up. I also dry tomatoes pretty often. I've dried zucchini, sliced thin and sprinkled with a spice mix. I soak the slices in white wine vinegar before sprinkling and that makes a nice interesting chip. I have dried peppers, carrots, beets, corn, peas, herbs... it all works. Some things retain flavor better is they're blanched before drying. I also make a lot of jerky since we have a couple avid hunters in the house (my husband and his dog) so I have plenty of meats. I've used my convective oven too, but you really need trays to dry on. If you use a pan or cookie sheet the food sticks so bad it's horrible to get off. Using parchment paper helps with the sticking problem.

Drying is a great way to preserve foods! I definitely recommend getting a dehydrator. You can get a decent one at Walmart or similar for around 50$. One note on the American Harvest models in the links you posted. The newer ones put the fan and element on top rather than the bottom. This is a much better design. The drying foods will inevitably drip and drain to the bottom. Even though there is a catch tray it will fill and overflow into the fan and heating units, making an irreparable mess. Look for dryers with the working stuff on top and just an easy to clean catch tray on the bottom.

Pinky, We also have a convection oven. I put loose basil branches in it on cookie sheets so that most of the leaves were suspended rom the branches and not touching the sheets. After 8 hours at 105 degrees the basil was still moist.

Pogo, Good tips about the working end of the dehydrator. What has been your experience in terms of the time that it takes to dry herbs in a dehydrator?

Get an Excalibur, but buy it direct -- most places are selling older models and don't give you the same warranty. You'll find people using 20 and 25 year old units still - they work forever and will do anything from herbs to jerky, plus shelves come out to make yogurt and reliquify honey, amongst other uses.

Thanks for bringing this up Johnnie, I had thought about dehydrating some peppers but until you started this thread I didn't think of using my oven, I'm going to try it now.... put some cooling racks over the regular oven racks instead of using pans tho.

I guess the only way I've done herbs was to put a rubber band around them and hang them up somewhere to dry.

Pogo.. what is the dehydrated peppers like when used in chillis and for cooking, do they retain their flavor and do they get mushy?

Nother stupid question, how do you know when they are done dehydrating?
Pinky

Found this technical guide that compares square, rear-mounted heating units to round, bottom heaters.

I looked at the American Harvester models, and it appears that only some of the new models have the heat unit on top (some of the Snackmaster series). But the Gardenmaster Pro still has the heating unit on the bottom.

I guess I'm going to order the 5-Tray SMALL GARDEN Excalibur 3526T. There are some good deals available until September 30. BTW: I was surprised to not see any ads in this month's OG for dehydrators.

I am guessing (by inference) that the rear-mounted design does not require as much wattage (heat) as the bottom- or top-mounted units. Does anyone have specific info on that?

Hey, can anyone fill us in on the virtues or warnings of sodium bisulfite? The Excalibur web site advertises it as "an antioxidant, to preserve the beautiful natural colors of your fruits and vegetables", and claims that it "preserves the vitamins and nutrients that can be lost during food preservation".

My Excalibur dehydrator must be 10 years old by now. I use it for figs every year, and also for tomatoes and apricots when there is a good harvest, definitely not this year. The dried figs are delicious, and they can last for months. This summer I discovered a forgotten bag that had been dried last August, and they were just fine.

You should receive a booklet of directions with the machine, which has guidelines for how many hours it takes to dry which fruit. Since I don't want to use preservatives I dry the figs thoroughly, about 26 hours. Commercially dried figs are somewhat softer but they are made with preservatives. If I want to plump them up I just put them in a little hot water.

I have The American Harvest Snackmaster Express, model FD60, made by Nesco. It cost about $50, 2 years ago.

Just go to www.nesco.com to check their products. I sometimes get the seasonings to use for meat sticks...you use ground meat, and the flavor is very similar to Slim Jims, but without all the grease! (I use 90% lean beef)...my son devours them!

It came with about 5 trays, but I have ordered more trays (some are removable, if you are drying taller things that need more headroom), along with herb screens, and fruit-roll trays, which I also use as drip trays for jerky.

The heat/fan/temp. stuff is on top, and it has a dial to adjust the temp...lowest for herbs (95 degrees), and highest for meat/jerky (155).
I love it!

I also have an older, cheapie model with just a heating element on the bottom, but I used that for years before I got the new one as a gift.

You just have to rotate the trays & check the food alot more often, with that kind.

Good luck on your decision!
Vicki

Pinky,

YES!!! We have a convection oven, and use it to dry paste tomatoes. I've thought about getting a dehydrator, but they don't look like they have a very big capacity, especially for the money they charge.

The oven has worked just fine.

Pinky - sorry, I just saw your question. I use my dehydrated peppers and they aren't bad in cooking, but I only add them very late so that they get as little cooking as possible. The cell structure is already compromised so I don't want to cook them long. For example I add them to a bean and rice mix I like but I put them in the pot when I only have a couple minutes left to cook.

I make sure my food are very dry too because I don't use any preservatives. I make most things in thin slices so the end result is a crisp chip. The things I dry in chunks are meant to be rehydrated so it doesn't matter if they are rock hard. I also vacuum pack the dried food and freeze it. Maybe overkill but none of it goes bad

I've experimented quite a bit with making jerky. We get a few wild turkeys each year and I like to jerky those. I don't soak the meat as long as recommended in the brine because it comes out too salty, and I don't dry it as dry as I usually dry things because it gets too hard. These two factors would easily lead to spoiled jerky, so I vacuum pack it in very small sizes (a few pieces) and freeze them. That way when we want jerky we just open a pack and eat it right away. It's been very good.

I've used a cheapy model for several years now, don't even know the brand - but I have dried cherry's, green peppers, jalepenos, onions, jerky, bananas, apples, pears, tons of tomatoes, and on and on. I highly recommend the dehydrator, and would love another. Mostly I dry and grind (use a coffee mill that I keep specifically for spices and such)....combo of herbs and veggies - I grind into spice powders. We call the green pepper powder "green gold"....because we have grandkids and (me) others that aren't fans of chunky veggies. It is used and sprinkled into everything you can think of. I went on-line once and found a blue ribbon recipe for a zucchini bread made with dried zucchini powder! The dehydrator is on several days a week and a much loved toy!

Diane,

What a great idea; spice powders and green pepper powder. The veggie powders sound especially great for making soup stock. Thanks for the tip. I'm going to experiment with that when our dehydrator shows up.