Customer Reviews

Excalibur 3900 Deluxe Series 9 Tray Food Dehydrator - Black

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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'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.

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.

This is my second dehydrator. The first one I saved a little money and bought the Nesco FD-80 American Harvest Square-Shaped Dehydrator it works but if you are serious about dehydrating then you want to get an Excalibur. It is amazing the difference in how much more efficient the dryer is with the fan blowing across the food instead of like my first dehydrator that pushed the air vertically through the food. The Excalibur is noisier than the Nesco I had. But with it being better at drying I don't have to run it as long. It does not bother me that there is no timer. You can't really over dehydrate if it ends up running a few hours longer than needed because you are sleeping. I would not want it to shut off in the middle of the night sitting there until I woke up. If you leave dehydrated food out in the room air for long it will absorb moisture from the room air. If you want some good information on how to dehydrate the excalibur website has free instructional videos. [...].

Bought the 9 tray dehydrator with timer from the factory. I have gone through 2 fans. the first fan stopped working about 16 hours into operation. The second fan stopped working about 1 hour into operation. The second fan was really noisy and didnt sound right from the start. I am now waiting for a whole new back assembly with a new fan and heating element and all. What a joke I bought this Dehydrator because i couldnt find any negative reviews on it. I will wait to see if this new piece will fix the dehydrator or not if now im going to throw the thing into heavy traffic. when it was working it worked great i made some darn good jerky with it. Customer service has been good. I am thinking i just got a bad dehydrator but if this replacement doesnt work i will move my rating to a 1 star. If it does work i will move it to a 3 star. I always try to do alot of research before i buy a product and try to buy the best on the market for the money. So it was a real kick in the nuts to have this supposedly great product take 2 dumps on me. not too happy right now but will update when the replacement parts come in.

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**UPDATE**
Excalibur sent me a whole new back piece to the dehydrator no questions asked. I put the replacement part on and let it run on high heat for 16 hours. No problems. I made some beef jerky and the dehydrator was used for 8 hours on high heat. Beef jerky turned out great. Once I removed the Jerky from the unit I tried turning the unit back on. The heating coils got red hot but no fan for the third time.

The other comments say it.

Pros:

- Good dehydrator
- Good parts
- Dries faster than others
- Good customer service.
- Square trays.

Cons:

- Makes a bit of noise (like a constant fan, no more than a dishwasher)
- No built-in timer. (They have a much more expensive model for that, but an outlet timer is cheaper)
- Trays dry unevenly: Back half dries well before front half. (Have to turn around in the middle.)
- Trays dry unevenly: Top and bottom tray dry well (as in hours) after the other trays. (Switch in middle to end at same time.)
- Trays dry unevenly: Middle trays dry fastest. (Feel air flow with hand to figure that out.)
- Trays/mesh sheets not easily cleaned in sink. (Use bathtub to clean quickly.)
- Machine is hard to clean: Fruits drop juice that dries on floor. (Put foil/plastic on floor or bottom tray.)
- Machine is hard to clean:Grooves for trays are harder to clean, and do not come apart easily. (Wet rag and a flashlight helps.)
- Feels cheap and not worth money. (For dehydrators, this is normal.)

Final thoughts:

- Overall, this is a good dehydrator.
- It is expensive, but the cheap ones don't do such a great job.
- There are a number of cons, but there are workarounds, and the pros far outweigh them.
- There is much room for improvement, but those machines seems cost much, much more.


After replacing my cracking Nesco with this one, i would never go back to a cheaper model. Not that Nesco doesn't do the job. But, this one is so much better. For serious home dehydrating, don't buy a cheap one. Buy this one (and a timer).

The fan on the dehydrator 3900 did not work when first tested immediately after shipment. I called the company immediately and they shipped a replacement fan which I installed, and everything works fine now. The problem?? I had to pay the $9.50 shipping charge before the company would ship the part. I complained and tried to convince them that after paying $220 for their product (a product that is not sold locally); I deserve to have one that works. They said that I had to pay if I wanted the fan.

This may seem to be an unjustified complaint as the money is so little. However, a "good" business would have immediately sent the replacement fan and paid the shipping. I would NEVER buy from this company again. I prefer to reward only businesses that operate with integrity and guarantee their product.

I was very excited about ordering what appears to be the best dehydrator on the market for home use. I had seen the review about the fan stopping after a few hours of use, but didn't really think it would happen to me. Fortunately, for the first trial run I just put in some frozen corn and frozen mixed vegetables, which at least didn't take long to prepare. Sure enough, after a couple of hours the fan stopped working. I was glad that I had ordered it from Amazon which made it easy to return. I have since ordered another one and plan to use it as much as possible during the first 30 days so that I can return it if the fan is again faulty. I'm a little concerned at this point that the "best" dehydrator may not be that good.

Just as others before, the fan stopped working about two hours after use. I AM SO FRUSTRATED. Over $200 and rated "the best", and yet they can't make a fan that works for more than two hours? Excuse me excalibur, but this is unacceptable.

I got this product for my husband for Christmas and he loves it. He's already broken it in. It's so much bigger and you can really put alot more into it than the others. If you want to have things in bulk this dehydrator is for you. It is really easy to clean up too, just put the shelves in the dishwasher. Oh and it dehydrates faster than the smaller ones. I would highly recommend this product to others.