Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I advise against purchasing on Amazon through 3rd party sellers due to them not being authorized retailers – I believe this voids your 10 year warranty. Use a Bed Bath and Beyond 20% coupon to get one of the best prices around (save $200) Last year I didn't know anything about dehydrators and was shopping for one. My wife spends part of her day in the kitchen inventing new healthy recipes. She demands the best kitchen appliances and tools. A Dehydrator was not an exception. At first I thought that $1000 is a little bit too expensive for a metal box with trays and a fan. But it's truly one of the best residential dehydrators on the market. I will try to explain why I think so in this review. We always try to eliminate as much plastic contact as possible in the kitchen. This dehydrator does it best. Stainless steel interior and exterior walls and stainless steel trays. PROS: 1) 99 hour timer -- set it and forget it. Cheaper dehydrators have a shorter timer which means that it might turn off before the goods inside are completely done while you are busy with life. 2) 10 trays -- too quickly do you realize that you can fill 10 trays NO PROBLEM when you start dehydrating stuff, any smaller and the goods you make are gone before you were able to jar them up for road trips. Wait until you try homemade kale chips. They are mysteriously addictive. 3) Eligible on BED BATH AND BEYOND for 20% off coupon -- and is an authorized retailer. 4) 10 year warranty--as long as you buy from an authorized retailer. You can find the list of authorized retailers on the Excalibur website. 5) Built like a tank and all pieces appear to be user replaceable if something breaks. 6) Best dehydrator for raw/living foods as it seems to have a very accurate temperature gauge -- we go no higher than 110 F degrees (some dehydrators are more built for higher temp meat products and may not have as accurate temp gauge built in for maintaining lower temps. 7) Control panel is located in front of the unit-- perfect location for control panel screen. If you look on Amazon you will see that cheaper dehydrators have a control panel on top or on the back which makes it not convenient if you want to place your dehydrator under a cabinet as you will have to pull it out or scrape knuckles trying to figure out which setting you put it on. 8) Stainless steel trays-- no plastic is touching food. An absolute requirement for my wife. 9) Large recipe book included for beginners--we tried lots of recipes from the included Excalibur book. We have not made one thing in this dehydrator that didn't taste amazing. 10) Made in USA – proud to support USA Manufacturing. CONS: 1) Heavy and not easily moved. It's best to find a spot for it right away. 2) Doors seem to be frequently mis-aligned and need a little TLC to work properly. Easily fixed for aesthetics and functionality. My wife is very particular how things look. 3) LCD screen should be a different color -- I am so sick of blue LCDs/LEDs. Other Thoughts: If you get one of these machines and it is making a rattling noise despite your best efforts you need to get it replaced. This unit should sound just like a loud fan and no annoying rattling. When on it should become a white noise to you. Our dehydrator came with mis-aligned doors and customer service was excellent about sending replacement hinges and doors. We have had this dehydrator for 1 year and are discovering new ways to use it every day. Attached are photos of some of our creations that have been hugely successful in our recipes and snacks. Dehydrated organic red onions is our secret ingredient for homemade salad dressing. I also want to provide a list of other small kitchen appliances and items that we always use prior to the dehydration process. They aren't necessary but sure open up some possibilities. 1. Breville food processor (used to process ingredients for most of our bread recipes) 2. Vitamix blender (used to process ingredients for crackers, wraps and fruit leathers. Any high speed blender should work fine.) 3. Rosle spinner (used to dry kale and other greens before putting it in dehydrator) 4. “If you care” brand parchment paper (used as a better replacement for a Paraflex silicone sheet. Dehydrator trays are made of wire so require something like parchment or silicone sheet if you are dehydrating a liquid substance. Paper can be cut with scissors to fit dehydrator tray. Paper is very lightweight so air can easily get in between. It may become noisy when some sides of paper start flapping. Just find the right position for paper on the tray. Mostly used for crackers, wraps, and fruit leathers) 5. Paraflex sheet ( we purchased one to try it out but it didn't turn out to be as useful as we thought. Unlike paper that slightly moves inside of dehydrator the silicone sheets are unmovable and as a result seems to increase dehydrating time by 25-30%) 6. Spiralizer ( we spiralize zucchinis, mix them with tomato dressing and turn into a pizza crust in dehydrator) 7. Glass airtight jars to store dehydrated foods (we use Bormioli Flip Top and Ikea flip top jars) – Please note IKEA ones are far superior because the metal parts are stainless steel can be put into the dishwasher. While Bormioli flip-top jars use aluminum metal that corrodes and feels horrible if put into the dishwasher. Bormioli glass is far superior to the IKEA but for convenience and aesthetics IKEA is using better metal. 8. You do need good knifes (we use German Wutsof and Japanese Global) and good cutting boards (we use Urthware brand based in Canada and is a handmade untreated non toxic solid peace of wood cutting board) if you want to fill the dehydrator trays quickly. 9. Glass Measuring cup (Arcuisine brand) 10. Kitchen Scale