Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I love this thing. The trays and screens are currently soaking in my tub with some soap so I can dry my latest round of backpacking food for the summer. I bought this product for a month-long backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada. I'd previously eaten freeze-dried food, but honestly - the stuff isn't that good, is expensive, and there's never enough. On this trip I ate home-dried fresh fruit (it's hard to find good dried bananas, pears, and pineapple - but easy now!), spaghetti with delicious meat sauce, chicken alfredo, rice and beef and beans, and Thai yellow curry (including homemade yellow curry sauce!) - all due to the dehydrator. I've dried meat (fresh and canned - just cook the fresh first), fruit, vegetables, sauces, beans, pasta, and more on this handy little device, all without a hitch and with delicious results. My meals received major compliments from other hikers, envious of my dehydrator. I've found it great for buying bulk produce from the farmer's market and having dried peaches for months (or weeks, depending on how fast we eat them!), dried herbs, and more. The device is easy to use - a temperature gauge (which requires a little adjustment since it doesn't go all the way in one direction, but trivial to work around) makes food drying easy and safe - especially for meat. The two solid trays are great for sauces and beans and beef; you can fake more with saran wrap and the other trays. The screens aren't that useful for keeping the dehydrator clean, but are great for smaller things (dried frozen vegetables, smaller dried fruit) and are indeed easy to clean. My only complaint is that the trays themselves are hard to clean; they take up a lot of dishwasher space and are annoying to scrub in the sink, but signs show that the latest technique of tub washing is easy and effective. The fact that the heating element is on the top prevents it from getting dirty (don't want to soak the motor!) and it distributes heat evenly (although you may want to rotate the trays occasionally for best results). The bottom solid tray is washable too. And, as an added bonus, it still fits in the original box, which has gone through two moves safely! Haven't tried the jerky gun, but it looks fun.