Nesco FD-75PR 700-Watt Food Dehydrator
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Nesco FD-75PR 700-Watt Food Dehydrator
Customer Review: A great machine, but.....
Summary: 3 Stars
I read all the Amszon reviews and felt fairly confident in purchasing this particular machine. While it was working, it was great. The temperature settings are the best feature by far, but... I used this just under a month and was so pleased with everything I had dehydrated to that point. I make my own chicken & beef strip dog treats from local animals, so I know they are safe for my dogs. The FD-75PR 700-watt did an awesome job on the jerky as well as fruits, vegetables, and herbs. On the 28th day of use, I loaded 6 trays with meat strips, turned the temperature to 160 degrees and it ran for 5 minutes and quit. Thinking I popped a circuit, I moved the machine to another outlet as well as testing the previous outlet. Outlet worked, machine didn't. I immediately called Nesco/American Harvest for advice and the nice lady noticed that this was a relatively new machine. So, she told me to send the "head" back and they would replace it. I asked how long the exchange would take and she said given that I was in Indiana and she in Wisconsin, the turnaround should be a matter of days. I tracked my package and they received it in 24 hours. That was three weeks ago. When I call I get the same nice lady and I ask when I will get my replacement. On Monday of last week it was "in the distribution center". On Monday of this week it was "in Chicago" and I should receive it in the next day or so. I live 3 hours from the farthest part of Chicago and as of Thursday I have not received the replacement. I am so disappointed as I still have lots of end-of-season vegetables and fruits that I wanted to dehydrate. Doing it in the oven is not as effective as this neat little machine was. So, bottom line, I really liked the FD-75PR but am heartbroken that it died so quickly. And, I am extremely disappointed that I didn't get that replacement in a timely manner too. Customer Service is a bit weak at Nesco. Would I buy another one? Maybe. I think the Nesco brand is the best on the market and hopefully I just got a lemon. Whenever, I get my replacement and use it, I will follow-up this review.Customer Review: Excellent choice
Summary: 5 Stars
I just got this for a Christmas gift for my husband and son, they got it early as my husband got an 8 pt the last day of KY season. We've just done one batch of deer jerky and am very very pleased with this dehydrator. I researched alot of dehydrators before purchasing this specific one. I have read on some different sites about some of the cons being, too noisy, no on/off switch. As for the noise... I thought it was extremely quiet, I think my dishwasher is much louder, it was on the kitchen counter and the noise was no bother at all. There is no on/off switch but to me it is not a big deal, just unplug it. We were very pleased with our results also. We made strips and stick jerky. In 3 hours it was done! The strips were actually overdone and the sticks were perfect! The strips don't take as long as the sticks because they are not as thick, we'll know next time to adjust how long the strips are on there. I chose this one because it was 700watt compared to 350 or 500 so I assumed the drying time would be much less and I was right! I am so thrilled with this product and look forward to doing many other things as well. It also came with a recipe booklet and you can dry flowers and things for crafts, there are cat and dog treat recipes~ I'm anxious to try these out!, as well as marinades for your jerky instead of using the spice packets. I also didn't realize that with wild game it says to freeze the meat for 60 days before you dehydrate to kill any parasites, we didn't although after we took it off the dehydrator we put it in the oven for 30 minutes on 200* to hopefully kill anything. We also used the jerky gun kit... that kit is awesome! makes for making jerky a breeze. The spice packs are really good as well! It has 5 large trays, 2 liners for like fruit roll-ups and 2 screens for sticky foods, a recipe booklet and several spice and cure packets. Definitely a good buy. As much as my jerky lovin family eats jerky it'll pay for itself in no time flat! I will close with.... if your in the neighborhood for a great dehydrator... look no more~~~this is all you'll need!Customer Review: Works Great!
Summary: 5 Stars
OK, this is my first dehydrator so I can't compare this to other units but so far I'm truly impressed! I made my first batch of beef jerky in about four hours and it was delicious! I also made some chicken jerky for my boxer (one of the main reasons I got this unit) and it works great for that as well. I can't wait to try some new stuff!
I've seen a few comments concerned about power consumption so I figured I'd post my findings. This is a 700 Watt unit but remember that appliances controlled by thermostat don't run at peak power the whole time. I tested mine for 4 hours at 160 degrees and it used 1.68 kWh or an average consumption of 420 Watts per hour. Current cost of power where I live is around 10 cents per kWh so this unit costs me a little over 4 cents per hour. If I run it 10 hours a week, I'm looking at around $1.82 per month. I saved more than that making my first 1 lb of jerky!
As others have said, clean-up is a piece of cake especially with the clean-a-screens - I recommend going ahead and getting enough of these to cover each tray. I didn't have to do any rotation and the jerky was done evenly throughout. The fan is quiet - like white noise and the unit puts off a little heat but only right around where it is sitting (where else is the air passing around the food at 160F going to go?).
I guess a timer would be nice but I can pick up a timer at the hardware store. It even helps dog-sit as my boy wouldn't leave the kitchen the whole time it was going...
January 2011 - I've now had this dehydrator 2 1/2 years and it is still going strong. I really don't use the clean-a-screens anymore, I just use the dishwasher to clean the tray's and bottom - you just have to make sure you select "air dry" so the trays don't get damaged. I'm up to 9 trays and for me that's as many as I'll probably ever need. It is nice to know I could add 3 more if I needed to and I have no doubt it would work perfectly with 12 racks. This thing has paid for itself many times over and continues to produce great tasting treats!
Customer Review: It works, but...
Summary: 3 Stars
It's so slow and so unpractical for raw cookies , crackers and other raw food items, that I just can't really recommend it.
If you set it to 95 degrees, which I think is a good temperature for raw foods to dehydrate at, it takes days and days (no kidding, unfortunately) to make a batch of pizza crust, crackers or anything harder to dehydrate then kale chips. Those are pretty much done in about a day.
So, the Excalibur does cost four times as much. Now I can see why. This baby has no timer, but it does not even matter, because everything takes forever anyways. If your primary purpose is to make jerky or fruit leather and you don't care about using higher temperatures, go for it, this is an economical little machine that seems to work just fine, even though it's shape is pretty funny too, it's round so it takes up a lot of space in a small kitchen, and it has a hole in the middle, which does not matter, unless you are trying to make raw ravioli, and it's been three days, it's time to cut them up, except you'll never be able to get the right shapes with these round, hole in the middle trays.
At least it dries even, and it is a pretty sweet deal.It is also easy to clean. And it isn't just raw foodies who buy these , and I suspect that this is a fine machine for making jerky and such, and it even comes with instructions and jerky flavoring and salt, so it has it's plus side, and if I did crank it up, I am sure it would work faster, but then I might as well cook the food,right? Just to give you an example of how long this takes, I have a batch of raw cookies in there, that have been sitting in there for 3 days and the recipe called for 10-12 hours in the Excalibur. If you are a raw foodist , and you can't get anything better, this is definitely worth the money, just get ready for long days of dehydrating and creative slicing...
But Christmas is just around the corner, and boy, I am ready to uprgrade.
Customer Review: Great Dehydrator --CLEAN UP IS A PAIN
Summary: 3 Stars
PRO:
Dehydrator is exceptional works great
CON:
Clean up of the shelve grids took 20 minutes, for 5 grid shelves even after soaking in hot soapy water for an hour.
You will need a very stiff brush with parallel straight brush lines DO NOT USE CIRCULAR, sponge no, fiber no, it took a stiff brush with 1 inch stiff bristles in a straight line in five rows, and that still took 20 minutes to get them really clean and there were still residue sections in the corners. The manufacturer did not seem to address this aspect of the dehyrating lifecycle. They should make a special cleaning brush with the bristles wide enough to fit in the openings but tight enough to scrape and clean the surface. You will see what I mean when you get it, this is not enough wrong to cause you not to buy one.
Apples were ok, jerky took a long time to clean up, so you have to make a trade off, either mop up excess marinade off of surface of meat before putting in hydrator (which takes away flavor) or plan on a long clean up afterwords.
You should be ok if you use a dry jerky rub mixture.
I cut the meat thick over a quarter of an inch thick by 1 inch wide, like thick bacon, it is ready in 4-6 hours depending on how dry you like it.
I prefer it a little chewy and soft, so that would be about 5 hours for five very very full trays.
6 or more will give you shoe leather tough if that is what you like.
Other than hard to clean girds the product is great.
The lack of a switch is not an issue, also I did not see that much difference in rotating up the trays in the vertical stack, I load and forget about it, it will take care of itself. I can do about 7 pounds of beef or turkey in one load, even when thick.