NESCO FD-75A Snackmaster Pro Food Dehydrator, For Snacks, Fruit, Beef Jerky, Gray

I bought this dehydrator mainly to make beef jerky, and after seven months of use we have not been disappointed. So far we have made the following: - beef jerky - orange slices - grapefruit slices - apple slices - banana slices - green beans There are many recipes for beef jerky, but I would recommend the one on allrecipes.com which is a good, hearty, all-around tasty jerky. The Nesco came with packets of jerky spices, but I haven't used them, nor have I used the Nesco recipe. Just slice your beef (an electric knife is best), marinate overnight in a mixture of Worcester, soy sauce, pepper, garlic, onion, cayenne, and pepper flakes, then dehydrate them on high for 8-10 hours. Delicious! The jerky can be tough to chew. They recommend slicing against the grain, to minimize the length of fibers, which does help a bit. I've tried pounding the beef with a 48-blade tenderizer to make the jerky less tough, but it doesn't really make much difference for all of that work, though it does help with marinading more thoroughly. The best solution I've found is simply to take smaller bites, and it's just easier to chew up! Lasts longer, too. The other success story is apple slices. I don't bother with their special fruit tray. Just core and slice the apples (we have one of these old fashioned "Johnny Apple Peeler" hand cranked models that does a whole apple in 10 seconds, a must-have if you do a lot of apples), stick them on the regular trays, and give it about 8 hours on the fruit setting. I freeze the slices afterwards to maximize longevity. I bought a 6-pack of mealy, mediocre apples off the local supermarket discount cart for $1.29 and dehydrated them -- and they turned out sweet and delicious. Then, after a month or two in the freezer, in a freezer bag, they became apple crisps! I would also recommend trying orange slices. Give it a good 12 hours because there's a lot of liquid to evaporate. They come out sort of like orange crackers. They're crunchy and delicious, peel and all. It's not for everyone, perhaps, but a great trail food along with dried apples and beef jerky. The green beans came out unappetizing. Note that one side effect of dehydration is to concentrate the flavor. The grapefruit came out rather bitter. Still not too bad but don't expect it to be a hit with the kids. Some people use it to dehydrate herbs and spices from the garden. We haven't tried this yet but for this, you probably do want to use the provided special tray that has smaller gaps. The product is assembled in the U.S. from domestic and foreign components. That's OK with me; a little is better than nothing. At least they have a factory here. The important thing is that the company make a good quality product that lasts a long time, and so far, there have been zero problems with this unit. If anything goes wrong, I'll update this review. One deficit is the lack of a built-in timer. However, this problem is easily solved with a $5 lamp timer you can get from the hardware store or online. You just set it to turn off at a certain time, and then you can go to bed or go to work with no worries. It's handy when you have prepared a 10-hour batch of beef jerky and it's only 4pm; you can rest assured it will run the required amount of time and shut off at 2am. Jerky is designed to last for weeks at room temperature, so it will be fine to leave it in the machine for a few hours. The salt is a preservative, but without sulfites or other preservatives, it's a good idea to freeze the jerky and it will last you for weeks or months. This is a great appliance that is very easy to use. We love using it, it's not too noisy, and the main problem has been finding a spot to keep it in between uses, in our crowded kitchen. I have just ordered two more trays, to be able to make larger quantities; they just stack right in and add a couple of inches to the height of the unit, no big deal.

** Update June 2019 - I've been using this dehydrator about every 2-3 weeks to dry fruits (mostly apples) and for making beef jerky. I soon realized that 5 trays was not enough to keep up with how fast my kids devour the dried apples and how fast I go through the jerky, so I've bought 4 additional trays since my initial purchase to increase the capacity. One thing I've noticed is that when I added the 4 additional trays (for a total of 9), the drying time increased by about an hour for jerky and about 1.5 hrs for the apples. It still doesn't dehydrate evenly (never did from the beginning), so I'm still rotating the trays at the halfway point to get even drying. This dehydrator is rated to use 12 trays, but given how the drying time increased and how it currently functions with just 9 trays, I'm not confident that this dehydrator can truly handle 12 trays, so I'm not going to be buying any more trays. However, that being said, the dehydrator is a workhorse and I haven't had any issues with the motor or the heater shutting off or any nonsense like that. Still very happy with this unit!! ** I was a little wary of buying this model because it didn't have an on/off switch. I'm not sure why that was going to bother me so much, probably because everything else seems to have one. But since i don't plan on leaving this dehydrator plugged in at all times (like my toaster or coffeemaker), I've realized that I really don't need an on/off switch for the dehydrator. I was also wondering if I should spend some more money and get one with a digital temperature selection and wondering if I needed to step up from a simple dial control. After having used this dehydrator for the past month or so, I realized that the digital temperature control would have done really nothing other than add cost to the dehydrator. The dehydrator itself works great. it's straightforward and easy, but there are a few things: 1. The dehydrator touts it's ability to provide even and equal airflow throughout the entire space so that you don't have to rotate trays. Well, that doesn't seem to work exactly as they hoped. I find that the trays closest to the heating and fan element (top) dries out much quicker than the tray on the bottom. It took me a few runs to figure this out, so now about half way through the drying process I swap the trays and put the top on the bottom and vice versa. 2. The trays stack well, but it is very difficult to get them perfectly aligned to satisfy my inner OCD. I'm not sure if they are designed to have as much wiggle room as they have, and I'm not sure how much it affects drying time and efficiency of the dehydrator, but it's annoying that the sides are not always flush fit. 3. The trays are a bit of a pain to clean due to all the nooks and crannies where the food juices get stuck and dry out. Nothing a little water, soap, brush, and elbow grease can't scrub out, but when there's about a 100 or so crevices in each tray, it gets very annoying. i guess i could throw the trays in the dish washer, but I'm always a bit wary about throwing delicate looking plastic things in the dish washer. Otherwise, the machine works great and I've been able to make beef jerky at home to satisfy my cravings at a fraction of the cost of buying them at the grocery store, with the option to make the jerky as spicy or sweet or savory as i want. I've also used it to dry mangos and kiwis and this dehydrator has worked great. I've soon found out, as many others have, that I definitely need more than the 5 trays that come with it.

This dehydrator is worth every penny if you are into preserving food. I've gone through two other dehydrators. One was an old model with a bottom fan and the other was newish, though smaller volume. I can see how the efficient design, space, and modular features help in getting things done.

I imported this Nesco 75PR dehydrator to Brazil, so I can tell you how it behaves in very humid climates like we have here, where we get normally 90% air humidity, specially in the summer. I bought a power consumption measuring device to attach between the dehydrator and my power source to check how much power it drains. I guess this data possibly may interest you. Many people say the power consumption is not high, but how high/low it is? I have done some tests and I think I have the answer for different situations. Energy in Brazil is not cheap so this is an important topic for us to discuss. And, of course, nobody likes to shred money and the environment, regardless of energy taxes. First, lets talk about performance: Only in a few ocasions I could dry something with less than 12 hours using a moderate temperature and thin slices. This is why I give this product a 4 instead of a 5 stars. But a 4,5 or 4,7 stars would be more fair, since this dehydrator has a lot of good points and we live in a very humid area, in the sea coast. And, the manual covers the "worst drying period possible" as being coincident to ours. In other words, they are not lying when they affirm that something can dry between "6 and 18 hours". We sit right in the 18 hours extreme. Be aware that this may be your case. Evaluate this point before buying a unit. Fruits: unsliced bananas can take 24-30 hours to dry to a flexible texture (we call this "banana passa" in Brazil, that are made in an industrial scale using gas dehydrators and constant 70 Celsius). The drying temperature is between 60 and 70 Celsius. Thin apple slices can take between 12 and 18 hours to get a leathery texture. Maybe if you let it more time it can eventually be crunchy, but be very aware that crunchiness is NOT an easy thing to achieve using dehydrators, because commercial fruit chips normally are made using fried fruits in coconut oil. I also had the fantasy of making homemade banana chips. Well, they get to a chewy point and taste quite good, anyway. (If that serves as a solace...). Meat: Didn't try it yet. Peppers: dried Jalapeños got an undesirable brownish color. I think the temperature cicles got some peaks that cooked the pepper instead of only drying its remaining water. I think if you are willing to put some peppers in a dehydrator, you should use very low temperatures, those used to dry herbs and other fragile stuff. I followed the 135F and it was a bit high, possibly. Now, about the sound and physical attributes: This unit is QUIET. VERY quiet. I can not believe some people say this dehydrator makes some undesirable noise to the point that they need to put them in a room far from their bedroom otherwise they couldn't sleep! I am VERY sound sensitive and I can assure you, the sound will not bother you. I can even watch TV close to the dehydrator and I only hear its noise if I mute the TV. Not an exaggeration. A fact. Weight, appearance, height: Very discreet. Very light. Did I say VERY light? The gray and white marble finish fits incredibly well in any room, like it's camouflaged, hard to explain. It just looks like another generic thing or pan or tupperware that you have in the kitchen, not a thing that a boring friend or neighbor will come and say "WOW, WHAT'S THAT THING?" You know how boring is that kind of people, but they won't bother you, I assure you. I bought 4 more trays (9 in total) and it still feels light. I can carry it with 9 trays full of bananas with ease. (if that matters: 67 bananas). Cleaning: easy to clean. Dehydrated fruits leave virtually no residue, they stick very lightly to the trays and can be easily pulled out. Not a single banana or any other fruit like apples got stuck in the trays to the point that they couldnt be removed easily with the fingers, and entire, not in fragments. Power consumption: Ok, here we go. (Room temperature: 28 Celsius) With 9 trays full of fruits: 1st hour: 650 Watts (average). 2nd to 5th hour: 380 watts (average). After 6 hours: 360 Watts (average). Total consumption per run long: 31 hours, 7,16 KWH (average: 231 watts). Temperature set: 145F (63 Celsius). With 5 trays full of fruits and/or fruit rolls, in a temperature set of 135F: 1st hour: 301 Watts (average). After a few hours, it dropped to below 200 watts average. Explanation: the first hours take more power because the machine is heating the trays so the thermostat rarely turns off. After a few hours, the thermostat only activates ocasionally to refresh the temperature, since the trays are already heated and only need a maintenance to keep the warm air flow. When the electric resistance turns off, the measure of wattage reads 28 watts, that's the power consumption of the fan (negligible). Conclusion: the shorter the run, less efficient it will be, because whenever it warms up the trays, you are removing the foods from them. Long runs are more efficient, so I guess its better to make a full charged dehydrator rather than little runs with little quantity of food. Just an opinion without any scientific claim. I can not say anything about durability of this Nesco dehydrator, since I bought it recently. I will update this review if anything unexpected occurs, or if I have any important thing to add, like new food experiences, et cetera. To finish this review, I'd like to apologize for my awful English, I had a hard time writting this because I am not a native speaker, so tell me if something sounds odd or particularly unusual, I can clarify your questions in the comments section. I hope this humble review can be useful for you. Thank you very much for the attention.

I have now had my dehydrator for 3 whole years. Wow! I thought it was time it deserved a review, considering its' longevity. When I first purchased this, I used it for fruits, onions, jalapenos, tomatoes, the like. We had a big garden at our last property and many fruit trees. This little snackmaster was excellent to help me preserve the extra food. We moved onto more land a few years ago and I am more recently using it to make powdered whey (leftover from cheese making) and powdered eggs. For both of those, it is working excellently. I put them on about 135* - 140* and dehydrate them for at least 10 hours, but sometimes it takes longer, like 12 to 16 hours. I really think drying times has to do with your own humidity and other factors. We live in Northeast Texas, and presently, have 62% humidity in our house. Things take a wee longer to dry. I do not worry too much about time nor temperature. To me, they are all guidelines and I just cook them until they are done. This comes with two fruit roll type trays, and those are what I used for milk and eggs. This also comes with other slotted plastic trays. Really, you know all this from reading other people's reviews and the listing. I do not wish to be redundant. I just wish to convey that I, personally, have not had any problems with my machine. It functions as it should, as it has for the last 3 years. I attached a short video of my current project. The dehydrator actually is a quieter than the it comes through on the video. I have two dehydrators running currently to fulfill my egg & milk project for the winter. Oh! I should mention this ==> this dries from the top. To me, after also owning a bottom dryer, the top dryer is preferable. When you have spill overs, and you will, you can easily wash the bottom of this model. It is more difficult for me to wash the bottom of my other one since it houses the electronics. You may not have thought about this, but to me, it is important. And another mention ==> I wash my trays in my dishwasher, no problem. Top rack and no heated dry. Dishwashers run hotter than this baby, it is pretty common sense that without proper positioning, you will warp your trays. I have never done so. So if you do, be smart and be careful! A con to mention. There is no bonafide on and off switch. You just have to plug and unplug it. That to me is weird. Enjoy whatever model you buy! Happy drying!!

I'm a food dehydrating beginner. My mother did it a lot when I was growing up, but this is the first one I have purchased for myself. I have a digestive problem that requires me to eat small meals/snacks very frequently or get uncomfortable abdominal pains. Commercial snacks are expensive and unhealthy, and commercially dried fruits are also really expensive and frequently have sugar added. So I decided to start drying my own snacks. I didn't want to spend very much so I did a lot of research for suggestions on inexpensive dryers and most reviews had this one in the top three so I decided to give it a try. After my first couple of rounds of food drying, I decided to add two more trays (total of 7) to get a little more food out of each drying session. With 7 trays in, and when drying particularly wet fruits like pineapple or pears, I rotate the trays once about halfway through the drying time, exactly reversing the order of the trays so the middle levels stay in the middle and the top and bottom trays swap positions. So far this single tray rotation has resulted in pretty much perfectly even drying throughout the entire batch, which I really like. It's a definite improvement over the food dryers that my Mom had, where the trays all had to be rotated every hour or the food would not dry properly! So far I have dried lots of bananas (we like to pull them out when they are still slightly chewy which makes them vastly better than store-bought banana chips that are hard and crunchy and almost flavorless), peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries, pears, apples, and pineapple (family favorite). We've also made fruit leather with most of these fruits, and found that bottles of store bought applesauce (store brand when on sale cheap) work amazingly well and for a significantly lower price (and a lot less work) than buying and smashing raw apples. The first batch of fruit leather turned out pretty bad since the fruit would not separate from the trays until it was badly overcooked. Then we realized that if we spray the smooth trays with a little bit of cooking spray first, the leather just slides off when it is dry enough, and results in very soft, chewy, and great tasting fruit leather just like you can buy at high end deli shops (for a lot more money). The dryer isn't as quiet as I had hoped based on the reviews, but it is still a lot quieter than the ones that my mother has used, and the steady hum isn't annoying at all. Overall I highly recommend this dryer if you are just getting into the 'hobby', or even if you are a food drying veteran, and you don't want to spend a lot of money. The one star I took off for ease of cleaning is because the trays cannot be washed in a dishwasher, even on low temperature mode. They melt and warp. And the trays are slightly too big to fit in my larger than average kitchen sink so it's a bit of a challenge to clean them properly. But food particles come off easily when the trays are washed so it's not a difficult process or a significant negative.

Works great to make chicken and beef jerky.

As I researched dehydrators, every instinct said get the ‘all metal’ type. A friend has one of those, and loves it. But I wasn’t sure I’d use mine much, and space was another issue. So, I decided to buy the Nesco. The trays can be removed so the storage height isn’t as much (but you do need to store those extra trays somewhere!). And it's less costly… I’ve had this 3-1/2 weeks now, have used it over 12 times, and can’t believe how much we love it! I would strongly recommend the use of a mandolin with any dehydrator. We prefer our fruit crisp, like a chip, rather than like a fruit leather. That means the thinnest slices possible unless you with to wait extra hours. Our favorite is apple, super-thin sliced (.75mm), peel left on, dehydrated at highest heat (yeah, the info says lower heat, which is great if you have 8 hours) for 4 hours (allow the fruit to cool a bit before checking crispness – you can always start it back up and add an hour). The apples are like a super-sweet chip! Sometimes I sprinkle a bit of cinnamon on half of them. On the next slice level up (1.5mm) I’ve dehydrated grapes, green and gold kiwi, pears, strawberries, bananas, oranges, lemons, and limes. For the juicier fruit (everything but apple) I put a bit of avocado oil on a paper towel and lightly rub each tray (helps keep the thin slices from sticking). The juicier fruits take me 6 hours at highest heat. I love the mixed fruit, and break apple rings up to bite size, keeping them in a large, air-tight container. Storing all in screw-top jars keeps them crisp for me. I do not pre-soak them in anything, and they do not discolor. Banana tends to break up so I hold the mandolin over the tray while slicing. Any leftover bits end up in a bowl and I enjoy that for a nice snack. The oranges are fantastic in hot teas, and my spouse loves them in his bourbon and coke. I also put lemons in my teas, and the dried lime slices are lovely in a gin and tonic. The flavor of dried fruits is intense, as it ups both the sugar and flavor level when removing the moisture. I ordered 2 extra trays, and found that I needed to add 1-2 hours to my dry times with those in place, but I get more done at once. Keep in mind, you will want to unplug this unit and rotate the trays (I do it once, maybe twice, every 2 hours at most, and have never had anything darken or burn). Also, there are to vent slits – when you first start up the unit, moisture will come out of those – so place it away from any wood it items you do not want wet! I put a couple towels beneath those two areas for the first hour. The trays are easy to clean, and if food get stuck on, just soak those trays. I don’t plan to upgrade – I love this unit. It’s a keeper!

鶏むね肉やササミを味付け乾燥させて、成長期の子供のおやつを作ると大喜び。 酒の肴にも最適です。 ほか、パセリを小分けにして乾燥し、料理の盛り付け時にクラッシュすると風味も良く パセリ苦手な事も達も喜んで食べてくれます。 鶏皮乾燥させて油で揚げると、最高の皮煎餅になりますが トレーに大量の脂がしたたり、手入れが大変！！ 風呂場のシャワー最高温度で流してます。

muy bueno el deshidratador para un nivel de casa, excelente y un muy buen precio

So far I am very glad I chose this dehydrator. I like the motor and fan on top, you lift all the working parts clean off to attend to the trays. This unit has a broad, adjustable temperature range from 95 deg to 160F. Important for drying scoby's and kefir grains and herbs. No light gets in, it doesn't have a huge footprint, and I thought it ran very quiet. It comes with a set of screens and trays which makes this a very versatile and useable unit right out of the box without buying extras right away. This is my first dehydrator and I'm very happy with it. There was a bit of a plastic smell the first time I fired it up. I would recommend running it to dry the trays after you first get it, and get the smells over with before putting food into it. The smell was brief and not too intense, but I knew it was the 'new' burning off the element or something.

Minha mãe gostou muito

Working fine with 220v to 110v converter.