Bulbs & Fittings Ideas

I’ve used virtually every dehydrator on the market and even a few home-made versions. Trust me when I say that this dehydrator is the best you can get for the money.

The round tower-type dehydrators are inexpensive for a good reason: they aren’t worth it.
-The trays are flimsy and crack too easily.
-The holes on these trays are too big to use with herbs or diced foods, so you must use the mesh inserts.
-You only have about 1/2″ of space between trays, so you cannot dry bulky items–like flowers or granola.
-When it comes to fruit leather, the only thing more inefficient than the round shape is the hole in the middle. Yes, I know they come with fruit leather trays, but have you ever tried to store fruit leather pealed off of the tray and rolled up? A shredded mess to begin with and a sticky mess once they’ve stored for a while.
-With the motor on the bottom any food or juices that fall through the cracks shortens the life of the machine.
-The drying process in these tower-types is not uniform–the bottom trays dry quicker than the top trays, the center dries quicker than the edges.
-Some models have only recently started adding temp controls. Still, it does little good because there is more heat on the bottom than the top.
-The motor is loud–I had one model I had to run on the porch because it was so loud.
The two round models I bought died within a year and a half of use.

The next best dehydrator on the market is the L’Eqip. It is much quieter, comes with a healthy 10yr warranty and has temperature controls. But it is a hybrid with many of the faults of the round models and few of the benefits of the square-shaped Excalibur. It still has a hole in the middle. It still dries unevenly. It has deeper trays but you still can’t dry flowers. It still has a motor on the bottom. I have a friend who dried berries in her L’Equip. They leaked on the motor and it died the first summer of use. Now granted, the folks at L’Equip stood by their machine and replaced it for her with no hassle, but how many times do you want your summer-time dehydrating held up while you wait for your replacement to come?

The Excalibur is perfect for anyone who is serious about dehydrating. Here are the features that I like:
-Heat source and fan are in the back, forcing air to distribute evenly throughout the chamber. Other than the way you place the food, there is no reason for uneven drying spots.
-Love the timer. I can set it and leave. It’ll turn off automatically whether or not I’m there. That means ’round the clock drying during the height of your summer harvest. Put the food in when you go to bed, wake up to dried food and put another batch in.
-Temp control lets you choose low heats for herbs and flowers, higher temps for fruits and jerky.
-Love the square trays. For fruit leather I line the trays with plastic wrap and spread the fruit puree out. When it’s dry I cut the leather into 2″ wide strips, roll them up and secure with the tail end of the plastic wrap. The plastic peels off easily when it’s time to eat.
-BIG trays–you can pack a LOT of food into this. This is especially important at the height of the summer harvest when there’s a non-stop stream of food that needs drying. (This is also the one single thing that is in my negative column–the trays don’t fit flat in my kitchen sink, making them a little hard to wash. I solve this by washing them in my outdoor garden sink–old fashioned tubs on a stand. Since I like the big trays, I really shouldn’t complain.)
-Mesh liner on all trays. I can dry herbs, diced onions and finely chopped fruits without having it fall to trays below. No food cross-contamination means I can dehydrate more than one thing at a time.
-Removable trays. If I have bulky items–flowers, herbs, granola, etc–I can just remove every other tray and have another 1/2″ or more room.
-Makes a great proofing box for sourdough. Also good for culturing yogurt, esp if you like to make it in larger containers. For both sourdough and yogurt, make sure it is covered so that the moving air doesn’t dry it out.
-10 yr warranty. I’ve had mine for almost 15 yrs and it’s still going strong. Every year the money I save on herbs alone pays for what it originally cost me. That means this machine has paid for itself 15 times over.

If you’re at all serious about dehydrating, don’t waste your money like I did–get the best from the get go. That’s the Excalibur.
(Written by Ross’ wife. He’s also happy that I like it so well and have gotten so much good use from it. I have more information on dehydrating in general and comparin Excalibur with others in particular: […])

We absolutely love our excalibur dryer – it works so much better than the cheaper, round versions that are out there. However, there are a few things we hadn’t considered prior to buying that we wish we had:

*****This model has no timer, thus no auto-off. If I had it to do over again I’d buy the one with the 26 hour timer for sure! We recently started a recipe only to realize it would be done at 4 a.m. – ugh! not a fun time to get up just to shut off the dryer!!

*****There is no on/off switch, just the plug. I don’t know if the model with the timer has an on off button or not, but I really hate items that don’t offer one. Perhaps this is no biggie to most folks, but it really bugs me.

*****This thing is BIG! We had to do some serious rearranging to make room for it on our counter, and unfortunately the only place it fits is right in the middle so that it’s the first thing you see when looking at our kitchen from the den (we have an open concept floor plan). It is also so big that we cannot fit it in any of our kitchen cabinets or drawers. So, we either have to leave it out on the counter all the time (and it aint’ pretty – just a big black box) or we have to carry it into the garage.

*****If you don’t get a deal that offers the teflex and plastic mesh sheet liners with it (enough for every tray) than be sure to buy them – you will need them for most recipes.

*****If you’re not going fully raw or making massive quantities for a large family you may want to consider the smaller ones so that the size doesn’t become a big issue for you as it has for us.

All-in-all this dryer is the top in dehydrators for good reason and you’d be doing yourself a disservice to buy a different brand. However, consider the issues I listed above to help you get the best set up for your situation.

NOTE: Some folks have posted good solutions to the timer issue in the comments – take a look.

I’ve had my Excalibur for a while now and use it on a regular basis. Before purchasing it, I tried several of the round type, including the Gardenmaster. This dehydrator beats the round variety as it has the side fan and adjustable thermostat. The side fan means you very rarely have to rotate trays and it cuts the drying time. The Excalibur is also much easier to clean than the round dehydrators. Besides using it for drying food, I take the trays out and use it to raise bread and make yogurt. Don’t bother with the 5 tray version – you’ll wish you had went for the 9 tray instead. The added height inside the 9 tray makes it easy to use for raising a bowl of bread dough.