NESCO Food and Jerky Dehydrator: Preserve and Enjoy Fruits, Vegetables and Meats with Ease

BettyH: Pros: I've only used it for a short while but so far it works as expected and is satisfactory for my needs. I love the knob feature for selecting the temperature, much quicker and easier than digital.
Cons: The plastic screens in the trays are thin and look delicate, so I clean them very gently, for fear they'll break. It would have been great if the unit had an on/off button so we didn't have to unplug the unit every time we want to check the trays, but it's not a deal breaker for me. I'd recommend this unit for small quantity dehydrating.

Canada on Oct 31, 2023

Susan Bell: I also bought some silicone tray liners. They are pretty necessary to keep tiny bits of drying food from falling through the trays. All in all, the dehydrator met all my expectations.

Canada on Oct 16, 2023

barbara krusen: I live in a Tiny (540 sq ft) House in farming community in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Winters can seriously hamper and/or disrupt transportation. Electricity can be off for a day or two. My son and his wife said dehydrated food takes up less space than canned or frozen food. It was their suggestion I look at dehydrators, most specifically the NESCO FD-75A Snackmaster Pro since it is not only a workhorse but comes with fruit sheets and extra screens. In fact, some of their trays are from my husband's and my NESCO dehydrator from the 1990's! Thought the screens are yellow (due to age) they're still going strong.
After reading reviews I decided to purchase the NESCO FD-80A Square Shaped Food Dehydrator due to its square shape. Utilizing every bit of space is essential in a Tiny House. Though my house is on the large side for a Tiny House, space is still at a premium. When not in use my NESCO FD-80A Square Shaped Food Dehydrator sit atop my refrigerator. with other small appliances. When in use it is on the counter or kitchen table. This little dynamo worked great right out of the box! I've dehydrated apple slices from a local orchard. Tomatoes are next, as...

United States on Sep 25, 2023

Amazon Customer: We got end of march an ordered dehydrator brand Nesco Model FD-80. Unfortunally the transformer which has been sent was to week. It had only 250 W instead the needed 700W. This transformer would have been burned immediately. We have send it back to the adress Amazon gave us. Color Paper in Maharashtra
. Three times now...after explaining in detail what we need, they seem not to understand and have sent us twice a stabilizer. Once it was already broken when it arrived. The screws were not fixed and all was a mess. Several telephoneconversations and whattsupps have been exchanged. We explained in detail what is needed to run an american product here in India where we are having 220V, the american machine runs on 110. So a transformer is needed, not a converter. It was my birthdaypresent and I am in the meanwhile totally embarassed. I really looked foreward to use my dehydrator and now it is more than 2 month standing unused in my kitchen. Please, help us and get back to us. Thank you Agnes and Bernd Theilmann

India on Jun 04, 2021

Elena Asgar: The appliance burned after 1 minute of working. Black smoke coming out of the upper panel

India on Mar 17, 2021

Marc Bissonnette: I am *very* pleased with this dehydrator!
It is trivially easy to use, easy to clean and runs super quiet. I have not noticed any significant spike in electricity costs, even when it is run all day.
As someone new to dehydrating: I would highly recommend this.

Canada on Nov 09, 2019

J. Clow: This thing is a "Dehydrating MACHINE!" You're saying, "Of course it's a machine...it's made of plastic, has a heating element and an electro-mechanical fan. It definitely fits the definition of machine." I'm saying, "It is a Dehydrating MACHINE!!!" I mean the Terminator of dehydration.

I've had it for just over a week and have been using it daily. I started with strawberries. Other than slicing them too thin (about an 1/8") and them turning into paper after just about eight hours of drying, they turned out awesome. On to some beef jerky.

I bought 4.5 lbs of top round and sliced it to about an 1/8" to a 1/4" thick. I marinated it and started it at about 6:00 pm the following night...just about 24 hours of marinating. I monitored it every hour or so and stopped it after four hours. Mind you I had six of the trays full of marinated beef. The jerky was thoroughly dried, almost too much actually. I took some to work the following day and it was consumed in no time flat. I had some leftover meet from the 4.5 lbs and threw it in the dehydrator the following night (now 48 hours of marinating). I only had one tray of meat, so I dehydrated it for one hour and...

United States on Jun 28, 2014

BF: I have used dehydrators for the last 10 years and after giving away my old one, This model had big improvements over what I had been using:

1) Easy cleanup. My old dehydrator had the fan and motor on the bottom, with flecks of dehydrated food getting into the motor. This model's design is far superior. The fan and motor are on the top and the bottom tray can be easily and fully washed. The top (containing the motor and fan) hardly needs cleaning at all. I like the handle at the top because it makes the top easy to remove to check progress and also the handle lays flat for storage.
2) Square is really good. I found I could load a lot more produce using fewer trays (I bought two extra so used a total of six per batch). Extra trays aren't that expensive, but I enjoy having fewer trays to cleanup and store. I recommend rotating the trays once or twice while dehydrating juicy tomatoes or anything with alot of moisture in it. Otherwise, I haven't found the need to rotate trays to get even drying.
3) Temperature control. Vitamin C can be depleted in fruits (including tomatoes) if they're dehydrated at too high of heat. It's nice to be able to...

United States on Nov 08, 2013