Buy Excalibur 2400 4-Tray Economy Dehydrator, Black

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List Price: $150.00
Sale Price: $129.99
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This dehydrator rocks. I use it to make raw foods such as crackers & crusts and to dry sprouted seeds and nuts. It has worked well for my needs, feeding 2 people. The 4-tray unit may be too small for a family doing a lot of dehydrating. This unit doesn't have a timer. That's no problem, though. I just plug it into a grounded heavy-duty appliance timer. For the raw foodist, I recommend the Excalibur's square shaped drying surface design over the the round shaped dehydrators. I haven't purchased the rather pricey ParaFlexx sheets, but they would be handy for dehydrating things like spreads, yogurt, runny things, & thin crackers. The 4-tray unit dimensions are 16 1/2"L X 13"W X 6"H (Sorry, I'm metric illiterate). All dehydrator fans are going to make noise. I do not consider the 4-tray unit to be loud.

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I left a review for this product back in March but somehow it was moved to another listing. I'll attempt leaving the review again with the hopes of saving another unsuspecting buyer from wasting his/her money:

I don't have a lot of space and thought that this 4 tray dehydrator would be the perfect solution. This thing is JUNK!!! The temperature control is completely inaccurate. On top of that, it only worked about 10 times before the heat failed completely. I tried the reset instructions to no avail. I then called the company and they made some excuse about the "rare" need for fuse replacement. The rep convinced me that it was a fluke and that the machine would most likely never need another fuse. I wanted to protect my investment so decided to chance it. It cost about $20 for the fuse/shipping. Installation instructions were fairly straight forward though it took some hassle to get everything back in place. I used the machine about 8-10 more times before it died again. What a complete waste of money--I wish I had never purchased this product. I called the company and they offered (at full charge) to send me another fuse or I could send the product to them for repair. The cost to ship there and back plus the outrageous repair fee would equal close to what I paid for the thing in the first place. When you look inside, this thing is built like one of those light-bulb-on-a-battery things you throw together as a kid. That would be a bonus if the parts and repair were priced in accordance. This company knows how to make lots of money. I wish they had the same ambition when it came to making a decent product. I'm going back to the $30 model at my local store. Those round tray versions get a lot of bad mouthing by this company. Maybe that's because they actually LAST and they also cost (for the entire unit) only slightly more than the puny fuse in the Excalibur. Don't fall for the marketing hype like I did. This company does not stand by its product.

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If you do a Google search, which I should have done up front, you will see that the temperature control on these units is awful.

I have to crank mine up all the way to 145F to get the internal temp up to 100F (not even warm enough to dry without spoiling.)

Older Excaliber units were very good. As is the case with so many companies today, manufacturing has gone down hill. Fewer and fewer new purchasers are pleased with this product. I wish I had kept my shipping material. Lesson learned.

Honest reviews on Excalibur 2400 4-Tray Economy Dehydrator, Black

I don't have a lot of space and thought that this 4 tray dehydrator would be the perfect solution. This thing is JUNK!!! The temperature control is completely inaccurate. On top of that, it only worked about 10 times before the heat failed completely. I tried the reset instructions to no avail. I then called the company and they made some excuse about the "rare" need for fuse replacement. The rep convinced me that it was a fluke and that the machine would most likely never need another fuse. I wanted to protect my investment so decided to chance it. It cost about $20 for the fuse/shipping. Installation instructions were fairly straight forward though it took some hassle to get everything back in place. I used the machine about 8-10 more times before it died again. What a complete waste of money--I wish I had never purchased this product. I called the company and they offered (at full charge) to send me another fuse or I could send the product to them for repair. The cost to ship there and back plus the outrageous repair fee would equal close to what I paid for the thing in the first place. When you look inside, this thing is built like one of those light-bulb-on-a-battery things you throw together as a kid. That would be a bonus if the parts and repair were priced in accordance. This company knows how to make lots of money. I wish they had the same ambition when it came to making a decent product. I'm going back to the $30 model at my local store. Those round tray versions get a lot of bad mouthing by this company. Maybe that's because they actually LAST and they also cost (for the entire unit) only slightly more than the puny fuse in the Excalibur. Don't fall for the marketing hype like I did. This company does not stand by its product.

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Been using this for a few months so far, and couldn't be happier. I love beef jerky as an everyday snack, but it can get expensive buying it at the store all the time. A coworker is big on do it yourself foods and told me how to make jerky at home and decided to give it a try. At first I was doing it in the oven, which worked decently, but he kept telling me about his Excalibur and how great it was. So I decided to throw down the money, and very happy I did.

He had the 9 try version and that just seemed like way too much, which it would have been. I found this 4 tray and the price was pretty good at $100. I can do about 2 1/2 pounds at a time which is perfect. The Excalibur is so straight forward and easy to use. Theres no On/Off switch, so just plug it in and it turns on. The temperature dial even shows the type of foods you should be using at each temperature. (ex 155:meat, fish, 125:vegetables) This is good if you are not sure what to use. There is no timer, which is ok for me. I'll only do a batch on my days off anyways. Jerky takes around 6 hours, sometimes a little more.

I will admit the dehydrator does feel like cheap plastic, but you dont need something thats made out of heavy duty metal to dehydrate. It is pretty light for its size. Theres not much to it besides the case, the fan inside and the trays. Each tray has a removable and flexible mesh that is easy to clean. The fan is a nice feature as some other brands do not have one. This allows for the heat to be blown across the trays evenly. Although I have noticed that the lower tray seems to dry slower then the other 3. But for that I just recommend rotating the trays about half way through. You can rotate more then once if you really want to, but I dont think you need to. Rotating once did the trick for me.

You can do many types of food in a dehydrator, but I just use it to make beef jerky. I love being able to experiment with my own recipes and make it just the way I want. My friend gave me a recipe at first, and it was good, but I've been able to perfect it for me. After making a couple of batches and eating my own recipe I decided to try a bag of my favorite brand from the store, and Wow what a difference. I dont even like the taste of that brand anymore. I can never go back after making my own.

I highly recommend buying an Excalibur. Depending on your needs, the 4 tray was perfect for me. Dont let the fact that its made out of plastic fool you. It is high quality and I love using it.