Christmas, just over a year ago, my SIL got us a small dehydrator. We’ve LOVED having it in the house, and its been in use pretty much constantly. And I have to say that for what it is I’ve been quite happy with it. After a year of hard use the motor is still running just fine, though the trays are showing definete warping. So after this past Christmas I ordered some new trays for it. And its back in perfect running order again.
But after some additional discussion Husband and I decided we wanted more dehydrator than the little one could provide. Now we’re still using it, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve also been slowly working on building up my stores of dehydrated meat and organs to feed the dogs for travel and SHTF type situations, and for that, well, the little dehydrator was just to slow. So we ordered ourselves the Excalibur 3900 9 tray model dehydrator. I’ve been using it for a couple weeks now and I’m absolutely delighted. The temperature control is just awesome, and it holds SO MUCH MORE of whatever I’m dehydrating. So totally worth the money!
That is pretty much the same thing that I got a couple of years ago. It is amazing how much more it holds than the 7 tray round model I had before that. Really love it – can even dehydrate whole ears of corn if you want; I do that because it makes dehydrating whole kernals of corn easier than trying to cut the kernals off, then dehydrating. Alright, that is pretty much just for bird seed – but I guess I could then grind the corn and make my own cornmeal if I wanted to.
I’m going to try growing corn for popcorn this summer, and I figure I can dry the ears in there. Its awesome!