2001: I had no experience with dehydrating before I got this machine. It comes with a good instruction guide on how to prep the veggies and fruits. The drying times are very accurate as listed in the book. The speed for drying apples is 5-6 hours, maybe less if you leave some space between them, I've found. It also comes with the trays to make fruit leather. Easy to clean with a warm wet cloth. A great little workhorse, all around. Very pleased!
Post script 2005: it died when washed out in a 2004 flood of our basement! How ironic!
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I love my dehydrator. The thing is easy to use, with a controllable thermostat labeled for whatever you're drying (high temp for meat, low for herbs). The manual that comes with it is easy to understand, and has terrific recipes in it. I highly recommend getting the two extra trays, a fruit leather sheet, and plenty of the "clean-a-screen" inserts. (And if you're feeling really adventurous, the jerky making kit is *awesome*!)
Once you've made banana "chips" in your dehydrator, you'll never buy those nasty fried store-bought ones again! Pineapple is delicious dried, and dried apples are simply marvelous. You can dry almost anything, and know exactly what's in it. Why pay good money for chemicals and so-so taste, when you can make your own really healthy snacks for you and the kids in this very handy appliance?
It just isn't any simpler than this!
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I had purchased this dehydrator at a retail store for more than it is offered here, but it is worth it. I sit in an office chair all day and tend to get a case of the "munchies" during the day. I used to buy candy bar after candy bar, which in turn put a few pounds on me as well. With the dehydrator I can make healthy foods to snack on that are good tasting and economical. I would suggest to anyone looking to save a few dollars and a few inches on the waistline to invest in one. You won't regret it
Honest reviews on Nesco American Harvest FD-50 Snackmaster Pro 4-Tray Dehydrator
It takes me twenty minutes to core, peel, slice, and treat 5-6 apples, lay them out on the trays, and get them started. After some experimentation, I have settled on using four parts water to one part lemon juice and a little cinnamon for the treatment, and the same liquid can be refrigerated and used on subsequent batches. (For other fruits, use common sense; e.g., for pears, I use ground cloves instead of cinnamon.)
I initially tried using a slicer/corer and then sliced the slices lengthwise in thirds or so. However, this gave them all an uneven thickness, which was not ideal. I then tried the way recommended in the book: core and slice in rings. This was better, but ultimately I developed a hybrid approach: cut the apple in half through the stem and core; core each half with a knife, peel, and then slice the other direction into half-rings. It's easier to get a uniform thickness this way than with the full rings, and more apples fit on the trays at once due to less wasted space. (I majored in math, so I know how to fit the max number of slices on at once without overlapping. YMMV.)
As far as apples: use apples that have good flavour. It does matter which variety of apples you use. Granny Smith have good flavour, but are not terribly sweet. Fuji are very good. Macintosh are excellent. Sarah will just about go through fire for dried Yellow Delicious. Gala are pretty good. Jonathan are excellent, and Jonagold are good. I want to do Grimes Golden, but I couldn't find any this year; maybe next year.
There's just one problem: at the thickness I've been slicing them, it takes about six hours for a batch of apples to dry. This produces one Ziploc freezer bag full of dried apples, which my family proceeds to eat in about an hour. They then look at me with greedy eyes: "When are you going to dry more apples, Nathan?" Well, let's see... if I put some more in right away, I'd have to stay up till about 3am to get them out. I have a feeling my family would be okay with that: they could then have dried apples for breakfast.
Since I wrote the above paragraph, I now have a four more trays (total of eight), which helps a lot. The book says that I can use up to twelve trays with this model. The four trays it comes with are enough for experimenting, but not enough for the sort of mass production my family wants me to undertake. (I keep pondering when the novelty will wear off. I'm not holding my breath: dried apples are _good_.)
My first batch of bananas was a little disappointing: I expected to get the crunchy hard banana chips like you buy for two limbs at bulk food stores. For whatever reason, the ones I did did not turn out that way. I left them in for way longer than the book said bananas would take, and they were still chewy. I first tried fully ripe bananas, then tried some mildly underripe ones next time thinking that might be the difference; it was not. Also, the book didn't say anything about needing to treat bananas, so I didn't the first time, and they turned brown. I should have anticipated that (they're *bananas*, after all, of *course* they would turn brown). I treated the next batch with pineapple juice, and they didn't turn brown.
The book says use ripe fruit. It's not kidding. Results with under-ripe fruit are disappointing at best. Results with ripe fruit are always good.
We tried jerky, and it works if you're into that sort of thing. (Personally, I'm not a big jerky fan.) I want to try carrots and other vegitables.
The book says watermelon comes out like candy, so I tried it. As would be expected, it takes a lot longer to dry than apples, but the results are good. They're not like what you'd expect, but they're good. Dried watermelon does not taste nearly as much like fresh watermelon as most people expect, but once you get over the difference, it does have a good flavour. It reminds my mom of pumpkin, but you can taste the watermelon in it if you're paying attention. It's an acquired taste, but after a couple of pieces you don't want to stop eating it.
Dried peaches and pears are fantastic. I still want to know how to make crunchy dried banana chips, though.
This is fun, and tasty.
*** Addendum: I have now had a chance to compare this model and the (cheaper) Ronco FD5 in action side-by-side, and the Snackmaster FD-50 is easily worth the extra ten bucks. For reasons why, see my review of the FD5.
Five stars. Five words: Buy one of these things.
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I bought this dehydrator on the recommendations of all the reviewers and I have been totally pleased with it. I have tried tomotoes, mangos, bananas and jerky. The only drawback to this is the fact that drying food is more an art than a science. I have done 3 batches of jerky, and each time it gets better, but still too dry. I am narrowing the drying times down to within a few hours, but still not quite perfect. Other than the On-the-job-training in drying times, this works quite well. I am please with it and would recommend it to anyone. The plus is that I have even found accesories for it at Wal-Mart!
