Mom wants a small one for Christmas, nothing too crazy. I'd like to keep the budget at around $150 or less. Doesn't need to be anything too fancy or robust but it needs to work and I'd prefer to stay away from the all plastic ones I'm seeing just because they look like they'd break if you looked at em funny. So what does the beeb say?
I've had a $40 plastic one for about 14 years now, and it works great (can't remember brand, salton maybe rings a bell?). I don't know how many pounds of jerky, dried fuit and veg over the years I've run through it, but it's LONG paid for itself. If I were to buy another one, I'd get one with square trays, as it's easier to make fruit leather. Other than that it's just a fan, and small heat source and a couple stacking trays. Not much to go wrong with it.
Agree with above. I bought one from prime day a couple years ago. Made a lot of jerky in it. Its round so a little pain but has digital control to change temp and time. Was maybe 50-60-70 tops. All plastic, no issues.
We have a square plastic one as well and use it to dry all our food for camping. It works. Don’t use it as a step stool and it shouldn’t break.
I have a plastic one that has been fine for several years. When I get home, I'll look up the brand. It is marginally more stable than a Harbor Freight jack stand, but I wouldn't recommend using it for that purpose.
We've had this one for 7 years. Works great for venison jerky. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B9F7WJW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Leaning towards Nesco based on a couple of the recommendations here. I noticed a couple others have square dehydrators and one person said they like theirs, but just wish it was square. What are your thoughts since you both have round ones? Do you a square would be better to work with or wouldn't make a difference?
I could see a square one being an advantage. The biggest thing is to make sure you get one with a fan in it.
Never used square, but it'd depend on a fair number of variables (where is your fan source, what are you dehydrating, how consistent are your cuts, etc.). Unless you're making "fruit leather" (fucked if I know what that is - is that like a knockoff Fruit Rollup?), I'm not sure square vs round matters.
Oddly enough, if fruit leather is what I think it is, I think that is one of the primary things she intends to use it for.
It's a fruit puree poured out on a silicone/parchmant sheet and dehydrated. Great kids snack (fruit rollup) It's easier to cut sheets to fit square trays and contain the mess.
My dehydrator (I believe it's a nesco as well) came with round trays with lips on them to put on the racks for fruit leather. I've never used them for that but they're quite useful for drying out fermented pepper mash in to pepper flakes.
Mine came with those things as well but I never used them (although the tip about using for pepper flakes is interesting).
I wish mine came with trays, I usually make little parchment trays to contain the liquid mess, but honestly don't do it too much as it's a pita to fit the oval shape. I use mine for dried peppers, onions, garlic, herbs, citrus, etc to make rubs and seasonings a lot. I attempted to make my first fermented pepper mash this summer but it got contaminated somehow, and went off. That was fun pouring it out We'll go through phases where it's plugged in for weeks straight, and then put away and forgot about for months. It gets a lot of use in late summer when the garden is in full swing, and can't keep up with it. One day I'm going to build a big solar one just for garden stuff.
That stuff is gold but definitely has a bit of a learning curve. I actually usually ferment as halved or quartered peppers (easier to keep everything safe and under the brine) but I have had a bit of success with fermenting the mash itself. Then once fermented I blend it up with other ingredients, and run it through a food mill to clear out the skins and seeds leftover. Then what's left in the food mill goes in the dehydrator to become pepper flakes and the leftover brine gets used to marinade some chicken and nothing goes to waste.
