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. Thanks for making such a great product! I was looking to expand my business (Pawfectly Healthy all natural homemade dog treats) into dehydrated fruits and vegetables. The documentation is basic but good enough. It shows you drying times and has tips & tricks for different foods, recipes included. Not only is there no timer to set, there’s no counter to note how long the dehydrator has been running. You may think you’ll remember that you put the jerky in at 8 pm, but sometimes you won’t. The book does not provide very much detail on blanching vegetables, which is necessary to destroy enzymes in the tissues and also enhances the destruction of harmful bacteria. Different vegetables have different blanching times and over or under blanching may have an undesirable result as far as loss of color and flavor during drying or storage. For the cost of one-way shipping, NESCO replaced the defective item. We are happy that NESCO stood behind its product.

I’ve dehydrated tons of different stuff on it including carrots, corn, apples, bananas (the only thing my kids haven’t liked), bell peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, onions and lots of jerky. I’ve even tried dehydrating some leftover soups and stews which worked remarkably well. We made strips and stick jerky. In 3 hours it was done!

Then we used the unit and realized it MORE than makes up for the size with its quality and speed in drying foods! The unit was tested making “hamburger” jerky first, in 12 hours we had Slim Jim quality meat sticks, while creating the Slim Jims we marinated the 1/4 strips of beef roast in a teriyaki style homemade marinade.

Lastly, the entire unit is made of plastic, including the trays. Food will stick, especially if you marinate meats. I absolutely love this dehydrator - I have not stopped using it since I bought it a week ago. So far I have made banana chips, sweet potato chips, dried cranberries, fruit rolls, and beef jerky.

I’ve done this two or three times when drying large batches of water-heavy things like tomatoes. I really like this dehydrator. Wondering if anyone else has had this issue” Now I am afraid to use it (besides, the trays don’t really fit together anymore). Because drying times vary, I don’t feel having a timer would have been helpful. The heater/fan unit feels sturdy, and the trays are lightweight but sturdy too. One lady said they tasted like the cinnamon twists at a fast food Mexican restaurant, another said kind of like cotton candy. They come out crispy and sweet!

The only reason I would upgrade is to be able to have a tray where there isn’t a hole in the center (for making raw pizza dough and raw wraps). girls sleeping bags.