Nesco FD-1018A Gardenmaster Pro Food Dehydrator, for Beef Jerky, Fruit, Herbs, and Snacks, 8 Trays, White

Kinda new to dehydrating so this is what happened. Reading reviews and trying to get into this reasonably cheap, not knowing if the kids (twin B/G 16 & 13 year old daughter) would even eat it. Snackmaster seemed to be the best choice. I also bought 6 more trays along with the mesh liners. After doing several batches testing how long it took, how much yield, how many minutes it took the kids (and myself) to devour the 11 trays of banana chips, one dehydrator was not going to cut it. Ordered the Gardenmaster within a week along with 6 more trays and screens. The inch or so larger trays do make a difference, along with being able to stack 30 trays??? Has anyone done that? Love it, I use both now. The Gardenmaster is a lot noisier, but with the 8 trays it comes with, is a lot shorter drying time. It's loud like you don't want to be on the phone next to it. It is more convenient loading, no motor to pick up. Counter space, yeah, a little more. The snackmaster is very quiet and still does the job, just takes longer. 600w vs 1000 w gardenmaster. The Gardenmaster is one the left with just 7 of the trays on it, the Snackmaster on right with 11 trays. Wish I'd started with the gardenmaster now, I have yet to get any stockpile of fruits or jerky, it's gone by nightfall it seems. Update 9/23/20 Been using 20 trays for fruits and jerky the past year. Still going strong, no problems. Still no headway on stockpile. I do not find the noise an issue, will order another ten trays for fruits. I don't think I'd try jerky with 30 trays, don't feel its hot enough. Love the unit. Update: still using after 3 years. One thing I do, with jerky is rotate the trays through, each one has 30 minutes or so near the highest heat at the bottom I’ve taken the temperature at the top of 10 trays and it was only 140*. 3/4/22 Ordered more trays, apparently they changed them, the “new” trays are a bit concave vs a slight cone on the originals. The new ones have a “castle” center ring. You cannot use these as the first tray, they do not fit the gardenmaster. 3/8/22 Nesco had this to say; New trays do need to be heated so the plastic relaxes and the crowns would point up just as when you open a new dehydrator we recommend heating the unit for an hour to relax the plastic same applies to new trays. Stack 4 and let the new trays heat. Please try this as this usually fixes the problem. “Usually” mine must not be usual. Nesco lost a customer, sad, I loved the unit, just wanted more “useable” trays.

I got this about 10 days ago and have been putting it through its paces. I have dried sweet corn, peas, peas and carrots mix, green beans (both cut and french style), mushrooms, strawberries, apples, bananas, pineapple, celery, and hash brown potatoes. Today I am going to try butternut squash (grated --- and blanched --- to make it dry faster, and I use it to make a pureed soup so I don't need chunks), mango, and kiwi, and don't expect any problems. I am so glad I got this model because it comes with things I didn't know I would need. I would have either had to buy the accessories, or I would have just not has as good an experience drying food. First if all, when I run it, I love that I have 8 trays so I can fill the thing up. The 8 mesh liner things are something I would not have thought of, but now I use them with every time. When drying corn or peas, the food shrinks down so small that it would fall through the tray slats if I didn't use the mesh liners. With fruit, the food doesn't stick as bad when using the mesh liners (tip: flip the fruit over after about an hour and that helps as well). Lastly, the mesh liners are so much easier to clean than the trays themselves, so I just use the liners over the tray and it saves clean-up effort. The machine itself is a great design. The design of the air flow means that you don't have to rotate trays --- unlike my old one. The heat is pretty true as well. I set it for 135, and stuck a temperature probe down the center hole and it was spot on. The machine is bigger than my old unheated one (that I gave away) and holds a lot. It dries really quickly, and the food shrinks down insanely small. I figure I could dry at least 50 of the 12 oz bags of frozen corn, peas, or pea/carrot dice blend and they would fit in a dozen wide mouth quart jars. (Beans and hash brown potatoes would not shrink down as small.) I have reconstituted every vegetable I have dried to see if it is worth it, and so far the only one that isn't a great success is celery (2 bunches shrunk down to about 1 cup!), but I figure I use that as the base with onions when I make soup, and I can just pulverize the dried stuff into powder so I still get the flavor. Just remember to blanch the things that need to be blanched (most vegetables) or save yourself some effort and buy frozen vegetables (which are already blanched). The only criticism I have is that the fan is rather noisy. Annoyingly so. I can't have it running in the kitchen because we have an open concept and it is too loud to be running while we are doing anything in the living room. I run it in the laundry room, and that is my work around. Some people don't like that it doesn't have a timer, but I have several plug in timers we use when we go in vacation so I just pulled one out to use when I want to let the machine run for awhile (but not all night) after I go to bed. Since I already have a timer, it wasn't worth the extra cost to buy a machine with one built in. The machine is certainly more expensive than Nesco's base model, but with the extra trays, mesh liners, and fruit leather trays, the price evens out and it is nice to just get it all in one shot. The plus in that is that everything fits in the box for storage, so I don't have extra trays that don't fit in the box. It's a big box though...it certainly isn't going to fit under any bed!

The Nesco Garden Pro Master Dehydrator with 8 trays works great ,a lot of room drying time is fast and easy comes with 8 fruit leather trays and have been using it quite a lot lately ,is not very loud ,set it in mud room or spare room and you can’t even hear it and if sitting in same room the noise is very minimal can still listen to radio or watch TV with no problem.

I bought this dehydrator to dehydrate the mass of amount of lemons I get from my trees. I made dried lemon slices, candied lemon slices, and lemon zest powder. I made the best teriyaki beef jerky ever. The machine is extremely easy to use. The trays are easy to clean. I looked up how long to leave the food in and at what temperature on Google. Everything turned out perfectly. This machine does not have an automatic shutoff so you need to make a note of when it needs turned off. It’s a large machine and I’m struggling to figure out where to store it when it’s not in use.

Excelente producto

I was hesitant to buy this Nesco dehydrator after reading many reviews about the trays not fitting the base properly and that the machine was very loud. I placed the 8 trays on the base and let the dehydrator run for 1 hour. Everything was perfect. The noise is a little more than my Hamilton Beach. Comes 8 fruit leather trays and 8 fine mesh. So overall, this is a great value, great machine at a great price. No regrets at all. Works very well, dehydrates fast and no need to rotate the trays. If you are still hesitating, don't!

I grow paste tomatoes and these plants produce a lot of them. This dehydrator did a fine job at dehydrating them all. Lots of capacity. As well inserts are included that are solid for fruit roll ups and a finer mesh inserts for dehydrating fine herbs like thyme. Well thought out. I am very pleased with this unit for home use.

Está máquina viene de mala calidad ya los discos no traen el mismo grosor y resistencia que las anteriores que he comprado ya están igual de frágiles como la de marca mexicana que es pésima en durabilidad

We're very picky ppl and have been lookign for one for year, this genuiely fit the bill. Price is a bit higher, but you get 8ish tray plus covers to make your own fruit roll-ups, has been great for dryingout fruit slices, herbs, vegtables. It does the job in a good amount of time, cant be too quick as then the drying process isnt proper and this machine does it right. A suggestion to those who liek to dry their herb though- if you wish to keep the colour of your herbs dry them regularyl and not in this- the colour fades. In end- product worth it, have been using it for a while and can say that you if you are looking ofr a long term good quality drier- this is it.