I have owned this dehydrator for almost six months now.
I've used it to make organic dried fruits nectarines (wow), peaches (Holy Cr_p!), apples, bananas, pineapples, kiwi.
IT WILL MAKE YOUR HOUSE SMELL AWESOME!!!
The recipe books it comes with are very good and informative.
I've made organic blueberry and grape raisins to varying degrees of success.
I've made organic fruit roll-ups using flavored apple sauces. (ridiculously awesome)
Next year I'm planning on using mostly all my own home grown or fresh picked fruits.
I haven't even tapped into the potential for making taffy or jerky yet!
With 15 Square feet, you have plenty of drying surface. It's just enough that you don't get sick of trying to fill it.
Pouring a set of roll-ups takes about 30-40 minutes depending on how adept you become on smoothing them out. They take ~4 jars and ~5 hours to dry. Fruit slices take a little more prep time depending on what you're slicing, method, etc.
The trays are dishwasher safe, but stay pretty clean if you use parchment paper. They are also quite large. You might have to remove the upper dish rack or lay them flat.
There is plenty of volume inside this machine; which makes it very versatile. There are a whole bunch of people who have made their own drying racks for the inside to hang meats in different configurations.
As far as the fan volume... you can hear it. You wouldn't necessarily want it sitting next to you while you study. I had it in my kitchen temporarily, it wasn't that bad. Now it's in a spare room near the back door so I can release the heat if needed during the summer; and enter a nice warm room in the winter. But it's an oven; it runs; it has a fan; it generates heat. It also generates heavenly aromas! Who needs potpourri?
The only real disappointments:
I was trying to avoid plastic entirely and this unit does have plastic on the interior. But at least it is not on my drying surface.
The trays stick just a tiny bit when you're trying to insert them, every now and then; so they could have given a little more leeway on the angle tolerances there.
Otherwise an absolutely fantastic device!
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