Excalibur Electric Food Dehydrator 8-Tray 7.2 Cu Ft Drying Space with Adjustable Temperature Control Stainless Steel Construction and Glass French Doors, 700-Watts, Stainless Steel

We have tried other dehydrators...most had fan issues and we finally decided to just go for what everyone said was the best of the best. So far, we are not disappointed! We had beef jerky marinating when the machine was delivered...yeah we had that planned! It turned out beautiful. Next batch - chicken jerky for the dogs. Again results were amazing. Just ask the dogs - they'll tell you how good it was! Then bananas and three pounds of apricots. We had done bananas before but never apricots - we were very pleased with the outcome. They take a long time but they are sure worth it! Next chicken/sweet potato dog treats.I ordered the nonstick sheets to go with this and they work well too. The racks are easy to clean - they fit flat in my sink (I have an over-sized sink). It runs quiet! I love the option to leave out racks if you have thicker foods to dry. This has run almost daily since delivery. Figured put it to the test and see how it holds up and so far it has passed the test with flying colors.When you order they give you a several day delivery window. My Excalibur was delivered on the first day of that window which was awesome. It was well packed and everything was there. The book is rather nice to that comes with it. We have done a lot of dehydrating but was nice to have references for all the fruits that we have not done before.This is the first dehydrator we have owned with a timer. I could probably live without it, but it is a very nice feature to have available. Never have to worry about it when you get busy and lose track of the time. And if you can, go for the 9 tray! I had looked at the 5 tray but I think I would have regretted that purchase. Saw where everyone said get the 9 tray so I followed everyone else and got the 9 tray and I am SO glad I did! The warranty is nice for peace of mind. There are tons or recipes on the Excalibur site. I know exactly where all the extra tomatoes from the garden are going to go this year!What an advancement from the old round Ronco that I started with many many years ago, bought at a flea market for $5. Got to admit tho, that thing ran for years! So old there was no fan...just the heating element in the bottom. I think I prefer my Excalibur over that one ha!I don't think you will be disappointed with this machine. Yeah it is big. Be sure you measure where you are going to put it so there is no surprise when you unbox it. It is lightweight tho.I guess overall I can say I am VERY happy with this purchase! I hope it serves me well for many years to come and from comments of others, I have a feeling that it might just do that!UPDATE 5/27/14: Having used this now for a few weeks almost nonstop, my statement of "I could have lived without the timer" is definitely FALSE. That timer sure does make life easier! So glad I got the one with the timer. We have put out multiple batches of chicken jerky (pet treats), dog cookies made with chicken and sweet potatoes, beef jerky (for us not the dogs ha), 15 pounds of apricots, 6 pounds of onions, bananas. Nothing is safe from the Excalibur! I should have bought this one first.

This is our second Excalibur and it is a very nice unit. Works well, and it's easier to clean than our older modelDefinitely recommend getting some silicone liners if you plan on doing any small pieces.

The media could not be loaded. Excalibur is great brand for dehydrating so many foods and herbs. I used it this past season for herbs and vegetables. (I bought the silicon tray liners seen in some of the photos additionally.) The dried tomatoes are our household favorite - especially on homemade pizza! I love that there is time and temperature control and I was able to dry things efficiently and accurately. The digital visualization of the timer hour countdown is wonderful too! The Excalibur Food Dehydrator runs quiet as you can hear in the video. I live in a humid area so most things took longer to dry than the instructions recommended, but I am still very happy with how this dehydrator preserved and held the color and flavors of my food. I filled all the trays on my model with chopped green peppers and it yielded a quart of dried food!! This food dehydrator is a great tool addition to my gardening season! I look forward to drying apples and blueberries next season.

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.