Ronco Food Dehydrator, Yogurt Maker and Beef Jerky Machine

Other Ronco Inventions products

Product Features

• Dehydrates foods for snacks, camping, hiking
• Operates silently with convection air flow; no motorized fan
• Includes five trays for drying fruits, vegetables, jerky
• Fruit rollup trays and herb/flower screens sold separately
• Makes yogurt in eight hours

Product Details

Supplementary Guide [428kb PDF]

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Product Manual [467kb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 13.4 x 13.2 x 11.6 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000059L4A
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #82,916 in Kitchen & Dining (See Bestsellers in Kitchen & Dining)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #18 in	Kitchen & Dining > Small Appliances > Specialty Appliances > Yogurt Makers
  #42 in	Kitchen & Dining > Small Appliances > Specialty Appliances > Dehydrators

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

This Ronco dehydrator dries everything from fruits and vegetables to meats and seafood to flowers and herbs to flour-and-water dough for crafts. It makes beef jerky (and other jerkies) and, with the aid of a little unpasturized yogurt as a starter, it also makes yogurt. This 5-tray model is a medium-size convection-air dehydrator, as opposed to the 10- and 15-tray models that use motorized fans, and runs silently. It can take a day or two to dry apple slices, which may be longer than a motorized-fan unit. Up to five trays can be stacked on the base, and then the unit plugs into a wall socket. The included trays are 12-1/2 inches in diameter, the unit is 12-3/4 inches high, and instruction/recipe booklets come with it. For fruit rollups and dried herbs and flowers, special trays and screens can be ordered separately. --Fred Brack

Product Description

It's a good time to be jerky! Beef, fish or turkey jerky that is! Make your own with this Ronco Food Dehydrator! SAVE BIG! Now you can make your own delicious jerky right at home and save money doing it! Also make healthy dried fruit, yogurt and fruit roll-ups with no additives or preservatives. Dehydrated food can be preserved for longer periods without refrigeration and has far less weight and bulk... great for backpackers, hikers, campers, boaters! Easy to use: Comes with 5 dishwasher-safe trays; Built to last with powerful heat coil and convection air flow; No noisy fan with a motor to break down; No temperature settings to worry about... it runs at 133 degree; 23" cord, UL-listed; 12 3/4" diam. x 12 1/2" h., 4 lbs., 5 ozs. Don't get jerked around by lesser brands... order ONLINE today! Ronco Food Dehydrator

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

102 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Inferior product, October 10, 2005

By	Nathan Eady (Galion, Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

Executive summary: spend ten dollars more and get the Snackmaster model instead. I've got a Snackmaster FD-50 that I bought a year or so ago, and more recently my sister picked up a Ronco FD5, so I've had a chance to compare the two, side-by-side. Buy the FD-50, not the FD5. Details follow.

First, the Ronco FD5 is slower. It takes up to twice as long to dry food as the Snackmaster. This may not seem like a big deal, but it's the difference between being able to dry three batches of apple slices in a single day off, versus only one batch.

Second, and more important, the Ronco FD5 does not dry evenly. This is probably because it doesn't have a fan, but it's very annoying. For one thing, it means you need to rotate trays. Regularly. It's no good to set the thing going and then go do other things for four hours; you have to stay close enough that you can monitor it and rotate the trays every hour or so; otherwise the bottom trays get dry, and the top ones don't. Additionally and worse, there is no consistency in dryness from piece to piece within the same tray. One piece of fruit will be dry while the piece right next to it is still wet on the surface, let alone in the middle. Not only does this necessitate removing some pieces early and letting others dry longer, but, worse, it also means checking each piece for dryness (by tearing to see if there are moisture droplets inside) before removing it from the dryer. With my Snackmaster 50, I can just tear one or two of the thickest pieces on any tray, and if they are dry, I know all the fruit is dry on all the trays, and there is no need to rotate trays.

Finally (and this is a smaller issue), the bottom of the Ronco model is open to the coil, so that when (not if) you're rotating the trays or removing dry pieces and some pieces drop through the trays by mistake, getting them out means reaching past the heating coil, which is a minor annoyance but one that you will encounter frequently. The Snackmaster's base is covered, except for the central fan area, making this largely a non-issue.

All told, you will spend a lot more time babysitting the Ronco; the Snackmaster is a much more hands-off proposition. The ten dollar price difference does not in my opinion justify the extra aggravation and time investment required to use the FD5.

127 of 130 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gardener's friend, March 8, 2001

By	Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (VINE VOICE)

If you garden and raise fruit of any kind, this is a useful device. It's also good if you have kids. Here's why:

You can take apples, peaches, strawberries or other fruits and make candy-like healthy snacks. It's a nice alternative to canning, which uses a lot of sugar. So you can preserve your crop rather easily. All you need to do is slice the peeled or unpeeled fruit. To prevent browning due to an enzymatic reaction, you can dip each slice into a solution of ascorbic acid (available at the pharmacy) or in lemon juice. You can also make yogurt in this, using the gentle heat as the incubator to keep the milk with yogurt starter warm in jars overnight.

The trays feel a bit flimsy; this is a lightweight device and it is a bit large. So you'll probably have to find a place to pack it away unless you have a lot of counter space and use it all the time.

109 of 111 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Dehydrator, May 30, 2002

By	Monica S. Holmes "Monica" (La Mesa, CA USA) - See all my reviews

A nice inexpensive dehydrator great for those of you on a budget, in school, or just a newbie to dehydrating. I have owned one for at least 3 yrs and love it. However, after these wonderful yrs of daily or weekly consistent use, the trays have now begun to break up. My only drawback is that cost of the replacement trays are looking to cost as much as the actual dehydrator. So now, I am wondering do I buy a different one.

I like the Ronco dehydrator because it makes jerky fast. You don't need to use preservatives when making pet treat jerky as long as you properly dehydrator the food. It is a silent easy to learn dehydrator.

The only real pain was rotating and switching the trays other than that it pretty much runs itself. You can safely run it 24/7 and you not overly worry about something going wrong in the household.

I recommend this product to everyone. Once you get experienced with dehydrating and wear it out. Easily replace it like I am going to do with the same brand or get a more sophisticated one. But I will be buying another Ronco dehydrator in the months to come!