Which nesco dehydrator is best

The dehydrator shuts itself off when you tell it to. Another use for a timer is to set the dehydrator to shut off before a food is all the way dry. Sometimes I also dry foods, such as broccoli and apples, at the same time. I set the timer to shut the dehydrator off when I expect the broccoli to be dry, and then turn it back on to finish the apples. Most dehydrators do not have a timer with automatic shut off. Top or Back Mounted Heating Element and Fan Drippings and crumbs can cause dehydrators with bottom-mounted heating elements to malfunction or fail.

Care must be used when operating and cleaning a dehydrator with a bottom-mounted heater and fan. Adding too many extra trays may affect the drying consistency of the unit. Temperatures may be higher at the top than at the bottom. Excalibur Food Dehydrators have fixed capacities of 4, 5, 9 or 10 trays. Stacking or Sliding Trays Nesco dehydrators have stacking trays so when you want to peek in on a tray you have to lift off the trays above it. Excalibur trays slide in and out of the box which makes it very easy to check on food and rotate trays.

Rotating trays occasionally helps food dry uniformly and is also beneficial when making bark or fruit leather since air circulation through the food is reduced by the non-stick sheets.

Photo above: Excalibur food dehydrators are available with choice of digital or manual time and temperature controls, clear or solid doors, and 9 or 5 trays. My Excalibur 9-tray and 5-tray food dehydrators with timers have worked exceptionally well for me over more than a decade of use. My 9-tray dehydrator Model CDB has a clear door and digital controls. My 5-tray dehydrator Model TB has a solid black door and manual dial controls.

I have dried hundreds of backpacking meals and a steady supply of fruits, vegetables, meats, and starches with them. I use one in America and the other in Switzerland.

They come with a year warranty and free shipping when you buy direct. In recent years, Excalibur has come out with low-priced dehydrators made in China. They have smaller stacking trays with heating elements on the bottom. I do not recommend these food dehydrators. America's Best Dehydrator. Disclosure: BackpackingChef. If you make a purchase after following the above link, I may receive a commission.

Thank you. Use the form below to ask a question about food dehydrators, or to comment on the one you own. Al: I was running really slowly due to lack of dehydrator capacity. I already had a Nesco which I had upgraded to 6 trays, so I decided to equip it to max capacity 12 and use it. I did this in stages, and as it turns out, I probably should have just bought an Excalibur Food Dehydrator.

As I see it, from a capacity standpoint the Nesco with 10 trays is roughly equivalent to an Excalibur with 5. If you are starting from scratch, the Excalibur would seem to be the better choice due to the fewer trays for air to pass through and the rectangular shape.

I would probably have been better off to get the Excalibur 5 tray unit. Al: Update On a limited sample of 3 sessions, my Nesco, expanded to 12 trays the recommended maximum expansion capacity seems to be taking as much as twice as long to dry the foods as the estimates in the Action Guide.

I think the Nesco is watts and the Excalibur is , plus the Nesco has to force air through 12 trays instead of 9. I can feel a temperature difference on the sides of the trays. It gets cooler as I slide my hand down. The items in the top part are getting done quicker and perhaps overdone. Genne: I had one that required tray rotation. Never again! I have been using an Excalibur for about 6 years Leslie: Excalibur. So efficient. I do meals for groups, so I need the space. Have used for several of your recipes.

Current fav is unstuffed peppers. Chef Glenn: Are you cooking the whole meal and dehydrating it, or are you drying the ingredients separately and then assembling? Leslie: Separate ingredients. I usually prefer cooking and then dehydrating, but it worked well this way. You can keep this dehydrator at anywhere from 95 degrees to degrees. It dries food at high speeds and is great for dehydrating jerky, fruits, vegetables, and herbs. The FD Snackmaster is one of the Nesco dehydrators with a Converga-Flow fan, which quietly and powerfully distributes the hot air across each of its four trays.

You can also expand this one to 12 trays. It also includes a fruit roll sheet and two jerky spice packets. You can find this product here. This dehydrator is often a top choice for people who are just not big fans of round dehydrators. The square unit is more comfortable to fit in with your other kitchen tools, provides more space in its trays than round models, and comes with a handle that makes it easier to put away.

The Gardenmaster dehydrators are impressive. They tend to have higher wattage than other Nesco dehydrators, and some of them can be a good deal larger than some other models because of their tray expansion capability.

But the price is worth it for some of us. This dehydrator has plenty of features to make up for the high price. First, it has a high wattage of watts to dry your food efficiently. The powerful wattage is the same, and the features are the same. The one difference is, while this is still similarly priced, it has a smaller capacity.

You can expand this model from four trays to up to twenty. It has fewer accessories, like one of the fruit roll sheets, Clean-A-Screen, and jerky seasoning. Below is one of their best. This dehydrator is easy to use and great for beginners that are testing the waters. This watt device has a pre-set temperature of degrees Fahrenheit and has four trays that you can expand up to seven.

Its ease of use comes from its lack of complicated controls or features. With thousands of raving reviews, the Nesco Food Dehydrator is a pleasantly affordable, durable, and user-friendly dehydrator.

It has an adjustable thermostat that ranges between temperatures of 95 and degrees Fahrenheit, along with a powerful watt top-mounted fan. It comes with 5 drying trays, but is expandable up to 12 trays, and features a unique Opaque Vita-Save exterior to block any harmful light that may destroy the nutrients of the food during the dehydration process.

The Converga-Flow system of the Nesco dehydrator forces hot air horizontally across the trays, rather than vertically through each of them, for even, complete drying and to avoid flavor cross-contamination. This particular model includes 2 Fruit Roll Sheets, 2 Clean-A-Screens, a sample of jerky seasoning with cure samples, and a recipe and instruction book.

It features a central dial to set the temperature and has a handy on-unit guide to recommended temperatures for certain food types. Both the Excalibur and the Nesco dehydrator are easy to use and a great buy for first-timers. They have minimal buttons and dials to make operation quick. These dehydrators have an abundance of space for dehydrating pounds of food at once, though the numbers vary between the dehydrators, with the Excalibur including more trays with your purchase and the Nesco able to expand to 12 trays with additional purchases.