Excalibur Electric Food Dehydrator Machine 4-Tray with Adjustable Thermostat, Accurate Temperature Control and Fast Drying with 4 Square Feet of Drying Space, 250-Watts, Black

Beautiful perfect machine, amazing results and nice and quiet. Our 1st Excalibur is still running strong after 18 years, but this one is superior in every way. Very happy!

I have been using an Excalibur dehydrator that my mom purchased in the early 70's, (which still works great if you're concerned about the quality and durability of Excalibur products!), but was becoming increasingly worried about its energy efficiency especially since I live in a high-rate electrical district. After calling the company directly to get more information on the newer model efficiency, I ordered this unit from Harvest Essentials via Amazon. First, this seller is fantastic! I placed my order Monday morning and received my dehydrator the next day via Fedex! It was packaged very securely and arrived in great shape! I also ordered a clear door from the same seller which arrived the same day in a separate package. I fired the dehydrator up today and it runs like a champ! I will say that it is much quieter than my prehistoric model and since it's made of plastic, is also much lighter than the wood cabinet of old. :) I am also a fan of the new (to me) trays which consist of a plastic frame and a removable BPA-free mesh liner that sits on the frame. They are a huge improvement to the metal "window screens" in my old version! I haven't gotten any of the Paraflex liners, choosing to use parchment paper instead. That may change with time. Just a heads up - the unit will arrive with the timer and temp switches probably still in "factory test" mode - meaning that the unit will turn on when you plug it in. Don't make the same mistake as I did in thinking the unit would then run without the timer. (My old unit did not have a timer, so it stayed on until turned off.) I put my fruit into the dehydrator, plugged it in, and thinking the dehydrator was on, set my mental clock for 11 hrs and merrily went back inside. I went out two hours later to check on it, only to find it was no longer running. :/ The timer, which I guess had arrived with a few minutes left on it, had run out and shut the unit off. Thus I lost 2 hrs of drying time. Oh well. Lesson learned. :) (Side note: Yep, that info is in the manual. Guess I missed it on the first read-thru!) As for efficiency - since Excalibur doesn't provide any of the official yellow tags showing the expected energy usage, I can only go by a comparison between my old unit used last Saturday, my new unit used this Saturday, and my solar/electric meter. With my old unit on, the electric meter was "running forward", showing that there was more energy being used than my solar system was currently generating. With the new dehydrator running at approximately the same time of day (and with roughly the same energy load in the rest of my house), the electric meter is now happily running in reverse, which means the new dehydrator models are much more energy efficient than the old versions! Also, for those of you concerned about the warranty; as confirmed with Excalibur directly, the warranty IS still valid if purchasing from Amazon or an authorized seller via Amazon. I am thrilled with this dehydrator, and with the seller, Harvest Essentials, as well. I can't wait to see what the next 40+ years of use bring! Thanks Excalibur!!

I don't have a ton of experience dehydrating food, but this machine seems pretty nice. I liked the reviews I saw so I went for it. First batch turned out very good. Machine seems to run efficiently. Very quiet. Very easy to use. Can't wait till summer time to experiment with different fruits and herbs. We have so much fresh fruit in the area, it seems weird to buy fruit in the winter when prices are higher. Will definitely stock pile this summer. Haven't made jerky yet, but I feel like it will be a breeze when I do!!

AMAZING!!!! I have been wanting one of these for SO long. I have always used just the small round dehydrators you get from Walmart, etc. and while they do the job okay, it is nothing AT ALL in comparison to what this baby can do. I was floored by how quickly and evenly it was able to dry the food. Also just how much I can dry at once! It holds SOOOO much food at a time. I also loved the convenience of never having to rotate the trays, and being able to set a timer so I didn't have to watch it like a hawk. So far I have dehydrated bananas, apples, bell peppers, tomatoes, green beans, onions, pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, peaches, chiles, and made fruit leather. They have all turned out perfectly! My kiddo is happily snacking on dried fruit now instead of candy and junk. My whole family loves the final product. I love shopping at our local farmers market, but pretty soon with the seasons changing that won't be an option. it is great for me to be able to buy up a ton of fresh, locally grown produce and dry it, so that we can enjoy it throughout the winter months. For example, I dried about 3 dozen bell peppers that I chopped up, and now everytime I make spaghetti, etc. i can just throw a handful into the sauce without having to run to the store to get them. SO convenient, and better quality ingredients! This is also ideal for preparing food for food storage. It does such an amazing job, compared to dehydrators I have used in the past. I can confidently store the food now, without worrying about wether it will spoil or not, because this dehydrator does the job so well! I cannot say enough good things about it!

I bought this dehydrator because it was the #1 choice of America's Test Kitchen. What a mistake! I'm trying to dry three trays of cherry tomatoes - tiny little things that I put in 9 (!!!) hours ago! They're still not done. The booklet that came with the machine says to dry tomatoes at 125F for 5-9 hours. I started at 125F, bumped it up to 135F a few hours later, and have had the machine on max temperature (165F) for three hours now, and those itty bitty tomatoes are still not done. It's not even humid today. It's much more effective to do them in the oven. A few days ago I followed a recipe online to dry cherry tomatoes at 250 in the oven, and it took five hours. They turned out perfect. But I didn't want to tie up my oven for that long on a warm summer's day. It seems like now I'll be up all night listening to this machine whir another 9 hours in my kitchen... unless I want to transfer all of my half-dried tomatoes to baking sheets and finish them in the oven. A waste of almost 300 bucks. So annoyed! ETA: the trays are all lightweight plastic. Not metal. For 300 bucks, one might expect light-weight metal trays and screens, but no. I've used this dehydrator for a few days now, and your best bet is to put food in first thing in the morning and let it go all day while you're home... unless you're the type to run a heating element in your house while you sleep, which I wouldn't do. Since I'm retired, I can put new batch of fruit and veg in every day to dry my produce and keep up with it, but if I were still working, I'd have lost a ton of food by now. This machine is impractical and disappointing.

Excelente

Alguien me ayuda a saber cómo hacer los chips de verduras? (Camote, betabel, zanahoria). Utilicé la receta del libro que trae y quedan agüadas. Intenté hacerlas de nuevo sin cocción previa y quedan sin sabor.

Prodotto veramente scadente!Presa elettrica non adeguata al mercato europeo!I vassoi cadono !Amazon deve controllare la qualita Euro 1361,00 euro!!!una truffa!

We run two of these almost 20 hours a day in peak season when we are dehydrating mushrooms and herbs. Quiet, easy to use and very efficient! Fantastic product and well worth the money! Avoid wasting your $$ on other dehydrators!

Si te sobran frutas o verduras este es un método de conservación estupendo. Yo tengo una huerta y me ha venido fenomenal para los excedentes.