Dehydrators, the good the bad and the ugly

[ForgeCorvus]

Hiya Guys
I, like several others on here, am looking to buy a dehydrator.
Also, like most people, I'm looking at the budget end of the market.
So, which ones are good for the money? And (maybe more importantly) which ones shouldn't I touch with a borrowed barge-pole ?

Can we try and keep it to sub-£100 machines please

[Bodhihermit]

There are some fairly decent ones on Amazon from around £40 upwards, but they can be expensive to run as generaly the process can take several hours to a couple of days, it does depend on what and how much food you want to dry, and the length of time yo are looking to store it.

There are other ways besides buying a commercial one, you could always do a search on youtube, there are loads of videos on how to build drying/dehydrating cabinets on the cheap, as well as tutorials on the best ways to go about prepping and drying your food, you might also need mylar bags, bag sealer, and oxygen absorbers too.

You mentioned a budget of around £100 the Stockli Dehydrator (one which i have used in the past as a friend has one) is on Amazon is £104.90 at the moment, comes with three trays and you can add a further seven which will increase your output

[Arzosah]

I'm still buying a bit more canned food than I normally would, so I can put the cans by and eventually make a solar dehydrator

[jean405]

I have a Stockli dehyrator, I bought it because it was cheaper to run than an Excalibur. I dehydrate. mostly in autumn and winter, it helps to keep the room warm

[nickdutch]

the cheap single setting westfalia one is ok. If you got two of them you could stack all the trays in one device and dry more on the same power setting maybe

[Bodhihermit]

the cheap single setting westfalia one is ok. If you got two of them you could stack all the trays in one device and dry more on the same power setting maybe

Thats a possibillity Nickdutch.

But the drying process will take much longer on a single setting one, bearing in mind you will have to rotate the trays more often to retain a more even drying cycle, the main problem is just having the one setting, adding more trays might overwork the unit, as it will struggle to maintain the 75 degrees needed, resulting in incomplete drying and food spoilage

[nickdutch]

the cheap single setting westfalia one is ok. If you got two of them you could stack all the trays in one device and dry more on the same power setting maybe

Thats a possibillity Nickdutch.

But the drying process will take much longer on a single setting one, bearing in mind you will have to rotate the trays more often to retain a more even drying cycle, the main problem is just having the one setting, adding more trays might overwork the unit, as it will struggle to maintain the 75 degrees needed, resulting in incomplete drying and food spoilage

Experience shows that the westfalia one over time gets very hot and I have reason to believe that it might be gettoing too hot at times for "normal" dehydration. i dont think its thermostatic and so more trays would possibly be a good thing. I dunno, just a suggestion. I havent tried it though.

[Bodhihermit]

Experience shows that the westfalia one over time gets very hot and I have reason to believe that it might be gettoing too hot at times for "normal" dehydration. i dont think its thermostatic and so more trays would possibly be a good thing. I dunno, just a suggestion. I havent tried it though.

That doesn't sound good nick, In which case, yeah, adding a few more tays might be a good idea, one thing i did find with the cheaper Dehydrators is the Vents in them are easily blocked just by the food laying in the trays, hampering the airflow, that could be one cause of a suspected overheat.

I suppose you could add a low powered CPU fan to the lid to help draw more air through, that might help keep the temp lower and more even.

But generally though I would steer clear of the cheaper models as they seem, to be just a little too gimmicky for my liking, after all the whole point is the processing of Valuable foodstuffs for long term storage, so if it's not doing its job properly, WTSHTF isn't the ideal time to discover that your food situation isn't as secure as you thought, JMHO though

[RE8ELD0G]

I just got one off Ebay by Andrew James.
Works a treat, cant fault it. Has variable power and a shutoff timer from 1 hour upto 48!!!

Does me perfectly and cost less than £60 delivered

[nickdutch]

I just got one off Ebay by Andrew James.
Works a treat, cant fault it. Has variable power and a shutoff timer from 1 hour upto 48!!!

Does me perfectly and cost less than £60 delivered

I had an andrew james one with clear plastic trays.It didn't work well at all. melted the trays. the company replaced it with another and it did the same.maybe andrew james has finally got good as a brand?
They certainly have a lot of potential.

do you have a link to the one you got yourself?