Praise the Lord and Pass the Jerky, Baby Sleeps Like a Rock!
Written: Dec 03 '00 (Updated Dec 13 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: very efficient and easy to clean
Cons: noise? depending upon circumstances
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| roxsax's Full Review: Excalibur Dehydrator |
We own an Excalibur 2900, one step below top-of-the-line (only difference is an on/off timer). It came with 9 trays, 9 liners, 4 fruit roll liners and a recipe booklet. I found it online at several places for 199.99 and some of them had free shipping and handling.
As I write this I am eating some jerky we made in our dehydrator (if you want to write a good review, you must become one with the product). This machine is advertised as "The Cadillac of Food Dehydrators" and they are as good as their word. It has an attractive appearance, is about 18" square and about 13" tall, and is well made and smooth in operation of all of its parts.
We live on a farm and raise beef and hunt deer so we have no shortage of meat to make into jerky. As a matter of fact, IT HELPS FREE UP ROOM IN OUR FREEZER when we have too many animals going to the butcher at once. I can fit 9 pounds of round roast (cut into strips) into it at one time, more if I wanted thicker, chewier jerky.
It takes about 6 hours to dry a full load of jerky and it comes out perfectly! This machine's special advantage is that it thoroughly circulates fresh air throughout the chamber with a fan, continuously removing the moisture drawn from whatever's inside. Once I started drying it I did not have to mess with the food again until it was done; no flipping or rotating, etc. Every piece was done at the same time and evenly dried throughout.
I haven't tried fruit rolls yet but I can't wait until fruit's in season again as we have two small children who need lots of healthy snacks and we have more fruit growing in our orchard than we can eat, canned, in a year. This gives us more options. We also hunt morel mushrooms big time and this will make drying them a breeze (no pun intended).
It's slightly noisy, but in a nice way. Imagine if you will sleeping in an apartment in summer near a shut window and being able to hear the neighbor's air conditioner running through the window; a soothing, white noise like waves or a breeze.
I was washing dishes one day while drying some meat and I fell asleep and had a dream...when I woke I had an idea! How about putting this thing in the room with my baby to see if it made her fall asleep? I soaked another batch of meat, got the baby ready for bed then set her in her room and plugged the dehydrator in on the dresser and WOW!! She fell asleep in minutes and STAYED asleep all night long from 9:30 until 8 am! Usually she didn't go to sleep for good until 1 am. It worked several nights in a row and then it seemed she was "trained" to the new bedtime and didn't need it anymore. Of course, since I didn't buy the model with the on/off timer I had to get up at 3 am to turn it off but hey, small price to pay, eh?
Cleanup is a snap. The tray liners keep the trays clean (if the meat's not real fatty, otherwise there would be some grease on them) so all you have to wash are the liners and MAYBE the trays. They are an easy size to handle at the sink.
Our kitchen is the coldest room in our old farmhouse so I was hoping it would put out some heat into the room as a side bonus but I guess that would mean that it wasn't drying very efficiently then, wouldn't it? Heat escape is negligible. Only the back plate, which is metal, comes close to being too hot to touch.
If you hunt or grow fruit and berries (or vegetables, but I don't have much use for dried veggies) in any significant amount, your money will be well invested in buying this product. You will probably save more of your food because in many cases drying it is easier than canning it and on hot, humid days it's also much more comfortable. The part about the sleep aid is put in for humor but is TRUE, a nice extra something for your dollar.
Ha Ha--If you have a kid or kids (or yourself, for that matter) who don't sleep well and DON'T hunt or DON'T grow fruit, well, heck, dry your fine washables in it, or SOMETHING and with all the energy from the extra sleep you'll get you could take up those hobbies and then you'd be all set!
PS--12# meat, 3/8", approximately 9 hours is max load for jerky. 12# is pre-dried weight, after slicing and trimming.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
roxsax
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Member: Roxanne Saxton
Location: Morrice, MI
Reviews written: 32
Trusted by: 6 members
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