Nesco FD-1018A Gardenmaster Pro Food Dehydrator - Stainless Steel White, Perfect for Making Beef Jerky, Dried Fruits, Herbs & Healthy Snacks - Ideal for Home Kitchen, Camping & Food Preservation

Really thought I wanted a box-shaped steel tray dehydrator, but wow they are expensive! Decided to go for this one after it went on sale and I had other discounts, making it very affordable. I’ve been pleasantly surprised! I can dehydrate apple slices and get over a half-gallon jar packed full of those tasty treats if I load the whole thing up. Very helpful to have all 8 clean-a-screens and 8 fruit roll inserts. It’s versatile, adjustable, not soo loud to be obnoxious, and dehydrates beautifully!I got this about 10 days ago and have been putting it through its paces. I have dried sweet corn, peas, peas and carrots mix, green beans (both cut and french style), mushrooms, strawberries, apples, bananas, pineapple, celery, and hash brown potatoes. Today I am going to try butternut squash (grated --- and blanched --- to make it dry faster, and I use it to make a pureed soup so I don't need chunks), mango, and kiwi, and don't expect any problems.I am so glad I got this model because it comes with things I didn't know I would need. I would have either had to buy the accessories, or I would have just not has as good an experience drying food. First if all, when I run it, I love that I have 8 trays so I can fill the thing up. The 8 mesh liner things are something I would not have thought of, but now I use them with every time. When drying corn or peas, the food shrinks down so small that it would fall through the tray slats if I didn't use the mesh liners. With fruit, the food doesn't stick as bad when using the mesh liners (tip: flip the fruit over after about an hour and that helps as well). Lastly, the mesh liners are so much easier to clean than the trays themselves, so I just use the liners over the tray and it saves clean-up effort.The machine itself is a great design. The design of the air flow means that you don't have to rotate trays --- unlike my old one. The heat is pretty true as well. I set it for 135, and stuck a temperature probe down the center hole and it was spot on. The machine is bigger than my old unheated one (that I gave away) and holds a lot. It dries really quickly, and the food shrinks down insanely small. I figure I could dry at least 50 of the 12 oz bags of frozen corn, peas, or pea/carrot dice blend and they would fit in a dozen wide mouth quart jars. (Beans and hash brown potatoes would not shrink down as small.) I have reconstituted every vegetable I have dried to see if it is worth it, and so far the only one that isn't a great success is celery (2 bunches shrunk down to about 1 cup!), but I figure I use that as the base with onions when I make soup, and I can just pulverize the dried stuff into powder so I still get the flavor. Just remember to blanch the things that need to be blanched (most vegetables) or save yourself some effort and buy frozen vegetables (which are already blanched).The only criticism I have is that the fan is rather noisy. Annoyingly so. I can't have it running in the kitchen because we have an open concept and it is too loud to be running while we are doing anything in the living room. I run it in the laundry room, and that is my work around. Some people don't like that it doesn't have a timer, but I have several plug in timers we use when we go in vacation so I just pulled one out to use when I want to let the machine run for awhile (but not all night) after I go to bed. Since I already have a timer, it wasn't worth the extra cost to buy a machine with one built in. The machine is certainly more expensive than Nesco's base model, but with the extra trays, mesh liners, and fruit leather trays, the price evens out and it is nice to just get it all in one shot. The plus in that is that everything fits in the box for storage, so I don't have extra trays that don't fit in the box. It's a big box though...it certainly isn't going to fit under any bed!Ordered a warehouse unit and it came new as far as I could tell. However the fruit roll up sheets were yellowed and warped. I couldn't pour anything on them without it spilling. Asked for a replacement and Amazon delivered. The replacement had the same issue. Instead of trying again I submitted a Nesco customer service request on their site and less than an hour later Sally from Nesco emailed me. They just requested my proof of purchase and this morning I have an order number for replacement sheets.I bought this because I'd used it before on loan from a friend and loved the temp control and size. It's nice to know that the company has fantastic customer service as well.The trays didn't fit to the base, but after an email to customer support, they suggested I run the dehydrator for about 40-60 minutes on the highest setting to help relax the trays. Since there's high demand, sometimes the trays haven't fully cooled before being put into the box and may be slightly off.This fixed the problem within an hour and it sits PERFECTLY with just four trays. Noise level is tolerable (I run a 3D printer so it's about the same to me), everything else seems to work just fine.If I run into any other issues I'll update later. :)I bought this in 2021. Used it all summer....Loved it! This year it's over heating. Even at the lowest setting the food is almost burnt and the trays are too hot to handle.Update: Great customer service. Responded to my email within a couple hours. Took care of the issue.When it arrived, the trays didn't fit onto the base like they were supposed to (it left a big gap between the bottom tray and the base). I thought maybe they had shipped the wrong trays. I searched online and found *many* people with the same complaint. I wrote to customer service, and here is what they said: "We generally tell people when this happens that you should stack all the trays on the base and run it at 160 degrees for 1 hour. This will help the plastic to relax and the trays will settle onto the base. It is normal to have about a ¼ inch gap as that helps with airflow." I ran it for an hour at 160 and all seems well now. It's new, so I don't know how well it works overall, but the trays not fitting is not a problem after all.with this product, you don't need to turn or readjust your drying foodfirst time, set the timer for 2 hours, then every hour to see progress and keep track of temp and time for futureeasy peasyps didn't know i like turnip till i dried itoriginally bought this so i could make yam treats for my dog instead of paying so much for them, now i am not sure i want to shareenjoyThis dehydrator worked great for the first four months until it just quit working we only used it once a week and I can't find any Avenue to return it or replace it even though it still under warranty I would imagineWe're very picky ppl and have been lookign for one for year, this genuiely fit the bill. Price is a bit higher, but you get 8ish tray plus covers to make your own fruit roll-ups, has been great for dryingout fruit slices, herbs, vegtables. It does the job in a good amount of time, cant be too quick as then the drying process isnt proper and this machine does it right.A suggestion to those who liek to dry their herb though- if you wish to keep the colour of your herbs dry them regularyl and not in this- the colour fades.In end- product worth it, have been using it for a while and can say that you if you are looking ofr a long term good quality drier- this is it.You are probably thinking... will this thing really work? There are those smaller ones for $50-$75 and they do the same thing right? They do not. Most of the cheaper ones don't have enough power to dry food in a reasonable amount of time. If you have to wait 12-16hrs for things to happen you will become discouraged and it will be in your next garage sale from lack of use. The Nesco is very simple, expandable and drys much things in half the time plus it's fairly easy to clean. The only slightly negative thing I can think to say is that it does take up a fair amount of counter space.