January 19, 2012
Excellent Value And I Love It - Sunbeam Dehydrator Review
You will see what I mean when you get it, this is not enough wrong to cause you not to buy one. Apples were ok, jerky took a long time to clean up, so you have to make a trade off, either mop up excess marinade off of surface of meat before putting in hydrator (which takes away flavor) or plan on a long clean up after words. I have read on some different sites about some of the cons being, too noisy, no on/off switch. As for the noise, I thought it was extremely quiet, I think my dishwasher is much louder, it was on the kitchen counter and the noise was no bother at all. My only hesitation was the 700 watt power rating. That is a lot of electricity over a 24 hour period. Cannot wait to do jerky with my grandkids! Since purchasing this, I’ve dried several items - pears, plums, bananas, tomatoes, thyme, oregano and cranberries.
They will lose their crisp unless you vacuum pack them. I purchased the food saver brand based on its reviews & have been happy with my choice. It had advertised features that suggested it would work faster and more efficiently than the “cheaper” models, including a fan to force heated air more uniformly through the drying trays without constant rotation, and a thermostat to set the temperature settings. Actual experience varied, however, as the unit did not seem to dehydrate the food contents any faster than the 120W RONCO convection dryer. To turn on the dehydrator, you plug it in. To turn it off, you have to unplug it.
I chose the Nesco FD-75PR 700-Watt Food Dehydrator because of the power, the size and the temperature controls. So far, I have dehydrated onions, red and green peppers, bananas, apples, oranges, and grapes and have been very pleased with the process and outcome. I don’t know how long the other reviewers have owned theirs, but after 19 months and 1 warrantied repair (we paid shipping one way), we now own a broken dehydrator. The very nice people at Nesco told me that at this point it would be more cost effective to buy a new one that to pay to have it repaired.
It generates little ambient heat, so you don’t have to worry that it will overheat and burn the house down. When I bought the dehydrator, I thought it wouldn’t matter, because the long 8-12 hour drying times just meant that you have to plug the machine in before bedtime and your jerky will be done in the morning, right?
I can honestly tell you that for the price, with this dehydrator, you get exactly what the average person needs for effective and efficient small to medium sized batch drying. of course, I wish it had an on/ off switch and a timer, but you can get a timer/ power control (similar to what you’d use for Christmas lights) and use that so it’s not a deal breaker for me- especially at this price.
Now my kids, who are on special diets, can share jerky with me that I make. I absolutely love this dehydrator! While it was said to dry foods in a fraction of the time that a cheaper unit would require to do it, our experience has not been consistent with this expectation. The Nesco is an attractive unit with seemingly nice features, but our experience with its performance suggests it is about the same as any other similar unit. I’ve been drying things for a year or so. I have a cheap “as seen on TV” Ronco dehydrator which I do not love, and felt it was time to step up. I tried it two days ago drying the 600-800 persimmons I have each year from one tree. A friend discouraged me from drying food because the fruits he dried (with a dehydrator) turned out to be so discolored that he did not want to eat them.
I do not like having to unplug an item while it is running, but the design offers no other choice. landscape design photos.
Filed under Kitchen Appliances by Sophia Davis