Customer Reviews

Nesco American Harvest 5-Tray FD-35 425-Watt Snackmaster Dehydrator

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I chose a top-element dehydrator as it's easier to clean (no drips onto the bottom element.) This dehydrator has sturdy, slightly flexible plastic trays. It's a bit noisy; when the heat goes on there is a whine I don't like, and the fan of course is noisy too. So making dehydrated foods (takes hours) needs a separate room, maybe the cellar.

The price is right on this dehydrator, but you need sheets for making jerky and fruit leathers. They aren't included (that's the minus-a-star) but you can pick them up at kitchen supply stores.

Got the FD35 for Christmas last year and am very happy with it. It consistantly dries things in about half of the time listed in "The Dehydrator Cookbook". Clean up is great; usually I just wipe the trays off, but when they need it everything except the heater/fan unit itself goes in the dishwasher.

My recommendations:
- Get the FD35, put it a few rooms away from the main living area as it is a little bit noisy.
- Get extra trays from Nesco's web site. The trays Amazon carries (at this time) are for the FD50 and _DO NOT_ work on the 35.
- Get the fruit leather trays and the clean screens
- Skip the cook books. Ive found online info and recipes much more useful than what is in the cookbooks.
- Experiment. Ive found that tiny marshmellows are great, but Ive never seen it in the cookbooks or online stuff.

I do have one problem that will not be an issue for most people.
The unit generates a lot of electomagnetic interference which causes a problem for my remote control extender. The remote control extender is a pyrimid-shaped device that allows me to use a remote in one room to control a device in another room. The dehydrator causes so much interference that it essentially "jams" the extender making it unusable. Ive moved the dehydrator several rooms away without any improvement. Now I dont get to watch satellite from the bedroom when the dehydrator is running....Oh Well.

There are debates if the heating element of a dehydrator should be on the top of the unit or underneath. (Heat rises, but fans blow down...hmm.)

Whatever the physics of it, the Nesco is reasonably priced, made of slightly flexible plastic that is not prone to breaking easily and makes fine dried fruits. We've tried dried apples, dried crackers of a tomato-onion-flax base and all came out wonderfully well. While there are more advanced dehydrators, this one is priced well and will make your jerky, fruit leather, preserved produce and other dried foods just fine. Recommend you get teflon sheets for making jerky--they are not included with the unit and you need donut-shaped ones. The sheets allow you to pour liquid batter onto the dehydrator and get leathers, jerkies and my favorite, dried flax crackers. I personally think they should come with the unit as it is a special shape and the sheets are an important feature, so I dinged the unit a star. Also the SAME star is dinged because the unit is loud. LOUD. LLLLLOOOOOOUUUUUUUUD. Did I say LOUD? Yes. Run it in the cellar, on the sunporch, in a distant bedroom. OR the garage. Because it is loud.

We've had this food dryer for about 3 weeks and are loving every minute of it. The trays are relatively easy to clean (just soak a little first,) and the dryer works well and circulates the air really well. We noticed that the trays on the bottom dry a LITTLE faster than on the top, but nothing that makes the fruit get over dryed or anything. It's good anyway because it's good to have a slight variation in the texture of each chip.

We love doing bananas, and this dryer does them really well. Incidently we also got the fruit roll up trays, and those work really well. The recipe tells you to put oil on the trays, but you really don't need it. You can just bend the trays and the fruit peels right off.

I highly recommend this dryer, and am even going to buy one for my parents as a gift. They are trying to replace more of their diet with raw food just like I am - this thing is just perfect for when you get the desire for snacks, or even to have as part of a meal.

Don't be afraid of this unit - it's an excellent one, at an excellent value.

I bought this inexpensive dehydrator soon after adopting a raw food diet. After experimenting with different recipes, I became aware that my dehydrator seemed to dehydrate things in a fraction of the time suggested by the recipes.
This little nesco has no temperature control. It operates at one temerature -- one that felt pretty hot to me!! No where in the manual does it tell us what temperature.
With my raw food diet, I cannot heat things over 116 degrees. I spoke with the representatives at Nesco, and they told me that this dehydrator is permanently set to operate at 135 degrees, but can reach up to 160 degrees as the items dry.
So with that said, I've never had any problems with this dehydrator (I've had it for about a month). It's efficient, yes, noisy, but seems sturdy enough. It is, however, "cooking" your food so to speak, and not for people whose main priority is preserving the enzymes of raw fruits and vegetables -- dehyrating under 116 degrees.

I received this machine for Christmas 2000 and have used it regularly ever since. It dries evenly and the big asset is that the trays do not have to be rotated manually! The jerky and fruit roll-ups have been a big family hit. I will be purchasing this as a gift for others this Christmas.

My garden produces lots of veggies and herbs! Usually, it's more than we can eat, and all at once we're inundated with good things that will go to waste if we don't act to save them. Because dried onions and tomatoes are so good, and so expensive, I decided to try drying them myself. Hence, my first foray into the world of food dehydration.

Our onions are bolting, so onions initiated this dehydrator. Pretty good for a first try! Here's what I found, what I liked, and what I am not so fond of:

Food should be sliced very evenly. If you're a skilled chef, this may not be a problem. Otherwise, get yourself a mandolin to insure even drying.

The machine does not distribute heat evenly throughout the drying trays, so food on the two bottom layers was browned as well as dried.

The machine gets hot. I should have realized that it would, but next time, I'll place it somewhere other than the kitchen counter.

The machine is noisy. I started it at night so I thought I wouldn't notice the noise. Wrong!

My onions turned out crispy after about nine hours. Even though some were browner than I prefer, the overall product appeared to be very good. I vacuum-packed them and stored them for winter use.

On the whole, I am pleased with the dehydrator, with the exceptions I've listed. I expect that, over time, I'll get better at drying produce and will save money and have better products than I could have purchased at our local grocery.

Three and one-half stars!

I needed an easier way to make beef jerky, got this due to the fact that it has the heater/fan on top and is cheap. It works great, DOES NOT have variable temps. but cooks jerky perfectly. GREAT VALUE and I HIGHLY suggest. One more thing, if you want to make jerky from ground meat dont even waste the 15$ for a jerky gun, I just use meat, season it, and press between wax paper and cut it

I wanted to dabble into making some homemade Beef Jerky.. but I didn't want to spend a whole lot of money on a dehydrator because I wasn't sure of the outcome..
Well this dehydrator has exceeded all my expectations. It's easy to use.. it's an affordable appliance, and it's economical because I can make better tasting Jerky than I can buy in the store for far less $$$ ... it works FANTASTIC!!
The fan at the top of the unit prevents you from having to rotate the trays versus the types that have heating coils at the bottom. This also makes the unit & trays much easier to clean.
My experimentation into the Jerky world has been a successful one. I would definately recommend this unit.

I opened the box as soon as I got it and cut some lemons, limes and oranges very thin to dry. I then cut some bananas on the same cutting board; the leftover citrus juice prevented the bananas from browning. I recommend using a mandoline for uniform thin cuts, and I also sprinkled the bananas lightly with a cinnamon sugar mixture. Approximately 5 hours later I had some of the crispiest, most delicious banana chips imaginable! The citrus was intended to add to my own spice mixtures, but they were delicious right out of hand (with a crisp texture and tangy aftertaste).
Also, I read the review that said the tray liners offered at Amazon don't fit the FD-35, but after researching the Nesco site, I found that the product code is exactly the same. I haven't received them yet, but I am betting they will fit. Amazon was less expensive and free shipping.
P.S. The dryer is a bit noisy-put it in a spare room. I also gave the dryer 4 stars because I feel the liners should be included.
I can't wait to see what I can do with some sliced tenderloin...