Beef Jerky and Fruit Home Dehydrators
Best Food Dehydrators From Excalibur, Nesco, American Harvest etc
May 26, 2009
Making beef jerky and fruit rolls at home means knowing exactly what preservatives and chemicals are added to the food. This is good for controlling allergies or just general health.
Popular brands include Excalibur, Nesco, American Harvest, L'Equip and Snackmaster.
How Food Dehydrators Work
Food dehydrators dry food with warm air (85 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit). Not hot air, to avoid cooking the food.
Solar dehydrators don't use electricity but can be difficult to use. Electric dehydrators are popular because of their convenience and all-weather reliability. They do use hundreds of watts for 5 to 10 hours at a time, totaling more than 1 kilowatt-hour for each batch of dehydrated food.
Stackable trays mean that electric dehydrators can dry a large amount of food yet take up no more than a foot or two of kitchen counter width. Dehydrators average 5 to 10 trays (about one square foot per tray), with some units being expandable to 20 or 30 trays.
Stackable Convection Dehydrators
These are the simplest dehydrators, with only a heater at the bottom of the unit. Warm air rises from the heater to dry food in the trays above.
The trays are often stackable, meaning that trays can be added or removed depending on the amount of food to be dried.
Advantages
- Quiet.
- Cheap.
Disadvantages
- Slow. Can take over a day to dry one batch of food.
- Uneven drying means that trays need to be manually rotated (top tray is moved to the bottom).
- Moisture from the food can drip on to the heater, unless there is a cover for the heater (which is rare).
Stackable or Round, Top Fan Dehydrators
These are like convection dehydrators but with a fan and heater at the top, blowing down to distribute the heat more evenly and quickly. A large hole in the middle of the trays allows the air to flow.
Advantages
- Reasonably priced, less than a hundred dollars.
- No need to rotate trays. Though sometimes one rotation is required depending on the type of food.
- Easy to clean. Fan and heater are at the top, so moisture from the food does not drip on to them.
- Expandable. Forced air flow means that up to 20 or 30 trays can be stacked and still achieve reasonably even drying of all the trays (with 500 to 1000 watt heaters).
Disadvantages
- Fan can be loud.
- Hole in the middle of trays can be inconvenient for large items (example: raw food pizza crust).
Fixed or Square, Rear Fan Dehydrators
These have the fan and heater at the back of the unit, blowing warm air sideways over the trays.
Advantages
- Even air flow and drying, more even than top fan units. Absolutely no tray rotation required.
- Because the trays are slotted into a frame, one or two trays can be removed to fit taller pieces of food.
- Full area of tray is easily used because there is no center hole.
- Trays slide out conveniently, like drawers.
Disadvantages
- Fan can be loud.
- Expensive, normally the most expensive of all (over a hundred dollars).
- Fixed frame means that the number of trays cannot easily be expanded.
Food Dehydrator Features
A thermostat control is useful for drying different types of food. This is especially critical for a raw food diet where high temperatures are thought to destroy healthy enzymes in the food.
Some models have 24 or 48 hour timers to automatically switch off the dehydrator. A generic plug-in timer can be used instead.
Warranties range from 1 to 12 years.
The Best Food Dehydrator
Top fan dehydrators are good entry-level units. They will be fine for most home use. Serious users will want to pay more for a rear fan model.
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