Does anyone remember the preferred dehyrating book to get ?
There is"the Dehydrating Bible" & "Dry & Save"...I printed off the recipes from my favorite site- google dehydrate2store.com
Being fairly new to food dehydrating, I have to ask a rookie question:
Why Excalibur? There are other brands out there that seem to do the same thing.
My dehydrator is a 12 rack, 80L capacity, 1600w that looks like a bar fridge with a glass door. It has the on/off timer and temp adjustment. It is called "Cabelas".
I bought it in the Cabelas bargain cave section for less than the Excalibur 3900.
Should I have waited and bought an Excalibur which seems like its the Holy Grail of prepper food preservation appliances.
OG
Just as a personal note, the first, and probably only , drawback I can see is the whopping 1800 watts...I have baseboard heaters in my house that use less than that.
I hate to use my Excalibur unless it's full and it only (hehehe...only) uses 600 watts.
Right now, I can see a 10 tray at Cabalas for the same price...$269.99.
As to the capacity, the Cabalas models seem to be designed for more bulky foods with higher trays.
I dunno, marketing might have something to do with it...many "prepper stores" advertise directly to preppers, where Cabalas seems to advertise to hunters.
Other than the wattage, I see nothing wrong with the Cabalas.
I have an old Beron 10 tray box type dehydrator, as well as a Nesco stacking tray model. I really like the Beron for it's large capacity, but it is really loud. I have 10 trays for the Nesco, and can add 2 more. I believe Beron is no longer making dehydrators; mine pre-dates Y2K, and still works well. You can set by temperature, but there is no automatic timed shut off. My big problem with the Beron is that the trays are huge. When I go to wash a tray, I can get one end in the sink at a time, but the centre 5 inches don't get cleaned. I end up having to use the bath tub......not a pleasant thought, all that kneeling and scrubbing bent over, then trying to stand up again with my bad knees. I still use it, but only with window screen liners, and not sticky stuff. I cam comfortably do 10 pounds of apples at a time in it. I think the wattage is somewhere around 750. which isn't bad. I have never noticed a power increase on my bill when the unit ran steady for weeks at a time, with only shutting down for cleaning. In town I had a sink that would handle that job, but not here, yet! When I got the Beron, in 1997 I think it was, the unit cost $329.00., big bucks in those days.