Presto 06300 Dehydro Electric Food Dehydrator

I wasn't sure there would be enough things to do with this dehydrator even though I planned to dehydrate the over abundance of apples and tomatoes from our yard. well, a quick google, and I have a list of more things than I ever expected I could do with this! There are also a ton of good books out there for unique ideas. (salt clay ornaments for the x-mas tree). I found a recipe for corn chips (grind/process frozen corn, add cheese, chili powder, onion, whatever you want and spread on the "fruit leather" tray. No preservatives!) There are also tons of dehydrator granola recipes too. My freezer is going to be full! Instead of an expensive vacuum system, I opted for the $4.00 Ziplock pump system and it's terrific.Ziploc Vacuum Starter Kit, 3-Quart Bags, 1-Pump This dehydrator couldn't be easier to use. The included booklet is surprisingly detailed. From jerky to fruit leathers and fruits and vegetables, every aspect of how to properly dry everything is covered. Pretreatments with lemon juice or fruit fresh are recommended for some fruits to prevent browning, and blanching or steaming for a couple minutes is recommended for most vegetables. The drying times are extremely variable, as expected, depending on how thin or thick you have cut the fruit or vegetable. A food processor, salad shooter, or some other of this type of cutting devise would ensure standardized, uniform pieces. My wish-for Christmas gift is a Saladmaster! From dehydrating books I have learned that the temperatures are not that critical either. I was concerned about getting this dehydrator as there is no temperature adjustment possible, but frankly for the price and all the good reviews I figured I couldn't go wrong. When you consider that food has been dehydrated for thousands of years without the benefit of electric temperature controlled dehydrators, using the best dehydrator of all, the sun, you know that more expensive fancier machines are not necessary. Low tech is good for me! The best features for me are: Pros: Not tying up my oven all day or night drying things in the oven. I can leave it on all night without worry. It's very easy to wash after using. It's very quiet. Sounds like my forced air heater or air conditioner. Totally un-noticeable after a few minutes. It's very light weight. Easily moved. I can set it anywhere in the house to use, (I have mine on top of the dryer), and it takes up very little room. ( approx. 14.5" diameter x 10" tall) There are other things I can use the dehydrator for like clay crafts, dried flowers, drying pinecones from my yard. All my food is free of preservatives/chemicals. This dehydrator is a money saver. Purchase bulk produce in season and have fresh all year. Best feature for me, it is a time saver. I will store vegetables for soup and fruit for granolas. I will be able to prepare these favorite dishes on a moments notice! The included booklet has very complete instructions. This is a super dehydrator, at a super price! Cons? Absolutely none.

I purchased a Presto popcorn maker a few months back, and was very happy with it, so I chanced buying a much less expensive no-frills Presto dehydrator instead of one from the bigger brands. I've been very happy with it, but, I've never used any other so I can't compare. In reviews of the bigger brand dehydrators, people boast about quicker dryer times, but what I've read in recipes from users of these same dehydrators, mine dries just as fast. I've only done fruit leathers, and bought it primarily to do these. It takes 6-7 hours depending on how thick my mix is. I'm still tinkering with my recipes. The applesauce/gelatin mixes take longer than fruit purees, I've found. I'm not a jerky person, but would like to try it just to see how my machine does. I'm a little wary about keeping meat at such low temps for such long periods of time (I know that meat has to be cooked before or after dehydrating.). Someone said this machine goes to about 140. The more $$$ ones don't go much higher than that. So guess it's not a concern and that a more pricey, higher wattage model wouldn't make much difference. I'm so not a cook which is another reason why I hesitate on the jerky. Our meat doesn't look very good in store to begin with plus having to marinade a full day... Anyway, I like it for fruit leathers. I'll eat 4 trays' worth in a day's time, easily. I'm glad I'm the only one in the house who likes these! Even so, I want to buy more trays, and buy the fruit leather sheets. I've been lining my trays with parchment paper (Found this tip in a blog.). A roll is about $4.00, and will do about 3 sessions' worth (for 4 trays). It works well, but a pain to mess with, and not very cost effective IMO. My grocery is putting it on closeout now (and still costs $3.50!!) so it's time to shell out the Wheaties for the sheets. It looks like they'll work well too because they have high edges which should keep the trays from rubbing and getting fruit goo from one sheet onto the bottom of the adjoining tray (a prob I'm having now). My mom wants dried apples, so going to have to try that. I drink spearmint tea, so should save some $ there by drying leaves from my mom's spearmint plant instead of buying tea. I think this will turn out to be a good investment, though the fruit leathers alone make it worth it to me! I mix 1/2 a crate of strawberries, a 1/2 crate of blackberries (about 8 of each), a 1/2 cup of applesauce, and a 1/4 cup of any fruit juice (Minute Maid Berry Punch is good.). Blend it, then pour on oiled parchment paper (I use shortening to oil mine.). Mine turned out a little thick and only covered 3 trays so will use more juice next time. SO GOOD!

Loud as heck, no temp control, clumsy fitting parts, and no power control. Those are my gripes. other than that, unit is really good for first timers like me. The fan is fairly loud, not to the point of drowning out other noises but loud enough to know it's there, buzzing away. No temp control makes it set it and forget it, but there are definitely some things where it feels like it would be better for lower or higher temps. The parts fit together well enough I don't feel leaks and they allow customization, but man are they sometimes a pain to get lined up just right. When i'm dehydrating something overnight and i wake up in the middle of the night to rotate trays or feel the dryness by touch, it can be a little frustrating when groggily trying to slide the lids or trays around to fit in the grooves just right. The last thing I don't care for is that the unit doesnt actually have any power control. no timer, no switch, nothing. It plugs in to turn on, unplug to turn off. I don't know why this bothers me. Other than all that, this unit is great for first timers. No BPA in the plastic trays nor the separately sold trays for fruit leather or mesh screens for herbs. It's reliable and not TOO loud, as I've heard other units can be way louder. Use it at least a few times a month and it just works. Cleaning it is crazy easy, just hose it down with hot water and run a light, soft, soapy sponge lightly across is enough to get 95% of stuff off it. Or just soak trays in the sink with hot water and dishsoap. It gives you many trays to work with right out of the box, you don't have to use them all at the same time if you don't want to either. Inexpensive for the quality of the device/parts.

The results have been consistently good. Fruits like apples, bananas, and strawberries come out evenly dried with great flavor, and herbs and vegetables retain their taste well. It also works well for making jerky when properly prepared, producing a chewy, flavorful result. One of the best features is its expandable design. The stackable trays allow you to increase capacity as needed, which is great if you want to dehydrate larger batches. The adjustable thermostat is another useful feature, giving more control over drying different types of foods.

I purchased this to try for my first time. We made dried fruit, beef and deer jerky. It worked great and very easy to clean and store.

I had been wanting a dehydrator for years so, on a whim one day, I just made the plunge and purchased this one. It was relatively cheap compared to others I'd seen so I figured if it didn't work, or I didn't enjoy making jerky after all, I'd only be out $30 or so. I am so glad I bought this thing though! My first batch of deer tenderloin teriyaki jerky came out fantastic. I follow a Keto diet and beef jerky is my go-to protein snack and it can be quite an expensive habit. Store-bought jerky tends to be very high in sodium as well. I love being able to make my own marinade for my jerky a healthier way. The dehydrator comes ready to use...there really is no "assembly" once you figure out which side of the trays meet up (which isn't rocket science). It comes with 4 trays which is plenty to start with but I've enjoyed mine so much I am ordering 4 more trays because I want to make larger batches of jerky at one time. (You only get 1/3 jerky from whatever meat you use...so 3 lbs of beef will yield only ONE pound of jerky.) This means four trays full trays might sound like a lot but it's really not. This dehydrator is simple and easy to use. You lay the meat, put on lid and plug it in. There is no power switch or temp control. It is already set for the perfect temp. I will say this, be wary of HOW much time you use this because I got carried away in December making jerky as gifts and my electric bill shot up $70 for that month. lol

I am really enjoying the dehydrator. When I was a kid, and had an easy bake oven, there were a couple of non-desert dishes that used little bits of dried veggies in the recipe. I suppose my fascination with dried ingredients goes back to that date. (Very long ago.) That was back in dinosaur days. Since then, there have been numerous times in my life when I wanted a dehydrator, like when I had a garden with a bumper crop of zucchini or tomatoes. It has been years since I had a garden though. But I have succumbed to the lure, after making zucchini and sweet potato chips in the oven a couple of times. The pros are that this unit is simple to use. Just slice your stuff on a mandolin if you have it, season, and put a single layer on each sheet. There are no temperature controls or timers to worry about. Cons: no temperature controls or timers to worry about. You find recipes that have all kinds of different drying schedules. You just have to use your brain instead of the overly fussy recipe. I have adapted a bunch of recipies that say put it to this temperature or that for x hours, then switch to (some other temperature) for x amount of time. You know what? Dried food is not that picky about the temperature it dries at. I have also seen recipes where people dry things like potatoes for mashed potatoes. I find that pretty silly, since potatoes are cheap, and store easily. The thing about drying foods is that they do reduce a great deal, so why waste 6 hours of drying time to get half a cup of dried potato? At least be creative with it, and come up with something interesting that makes sense. For example, I made some great crackers out of carrot fiber left over from juicing carrots. Juicing fiber would normally just end up in the dog's bowl, or in the compost heap, but now there's a use for it. I'd fix them all the time if I wasn't worried about turning orange. (Yes, too many carrots can make you orange, just as too much Tumeric can make you yellow. Weird, I know.) I have also dried things that were in my refrigerator on the verge of being tossed out: crookneck squash, zucchini, eggplant, sweet potatoes. All sliced on the mandolin, tossed in olive oil and seasoned with Krazy salt, they all made fantastic chips that stayed crispy in ziplock baggies, though all got munched up pretty quickly. My world would be complete if I could find a great recipe for drying sugar snap peas so I could get something like Snapea Crisps that cost something like three or four dollars a small bag at Whole Foods. (Though this week I did find them at Aldis for $1.39.)

So first I'd like to add before I give my honest review, this product is great for time to time use and what it offers to light use but there's some down falls that I can see after owning two of these for a year, that could even become annoying to the average user. I run a very small jerky business that I'm slowly trying to start up and expand, and the most import thing to me about this is that the FDA guidelines are followed. Here's a few issues that I've found with owning these, this strictly differs from user to user but these are mine. - The Temperature Control is non-existance which isn't terrible because it makes it easy to setup and use, as long as the manufacture sets it to 165F it should cover all FDA guidelines on Meat/Chicken. Here's where it falls short, after doing some testing the internal temp doesn't bring all the meat to 165F+ for more than 10 minutes. This is a huge pain in the ass, as this requires more time spent cooking meat (For me 8-16lbs at a time in the oven all for 10 minutes each, and you're lucky to get 3lbs in the oven at a time.) More time spent on this means less preping/loading trays. (Not even flipping the trays is good enough to fix this problem, as the tempature just doesn't hit 165F at all!) - Next is the maintenance which is my #1 issue - I've found over time putting the fruit roll tray on the bottom to catch the run off speeds up cleaning times a little, but the trays.. Those are an entire different story! Nothing seems to work for keeping them clean, or metigating the mess after cooking an entire batch of jerky (Not even the no stick tray covers.) Owning 16 trays - Cleaning these takes anywhere from 45-60 minutes to clean entirely - Removing every piece of residue left on them, and bleaching them from top down. I own a large brush and have to scrub constantly even after allowing them to soak overnight in a large pool of hot water with soap to help break down the gunk. (This is absolutely terrible! Even after all of that - You have to scrub vigorously.) The cracks in the trays make it terrible for a brush to scrub, and food is constantly getting in between them - making it a nightmare to constantly keep up with to clean every single day.

I like easy to use products that are practical and work right out of the box - I just plugged it in, put my thinly cliced fruit in the dehydrator and checked on it periodically - yummy!

Deshidrate carne y quedó espectacular. Calculaba 6 horas, se hizo en 3. Superó mi expectativa porque es muy sencillo de utilizar.

Unfortunately at 120 volts this item is not compatible for the UK market

Would recommend. Really saves time and mess. Good to dry fruits vegetables and meat for dog treats

PRODUCTO EXCELENTE