Yes Vinny, that's the why to do it. It's a great way to preserve food without having to cook it. It also takes up so much less space which is really convenient for people who live frugally (like me!) without rows and rows of shelves for jars or a giant fridge and freezer or a lovely winter greenhouse. There are only so many ways to make living in a cold winter climate doable. This is one.

I'm in the market for a dehydrator as well. I think I'd like to get the Sedona 9 tray, the design has me sold. Since black Friday is almost upon us, anyone know where I would most likely be able to get this baby? Has Tribest done black Friday deals on their products before?

Order placed for the Sedona. Got an additional $10 off with the youtube promotion code. Kinda neat since the promotion does not apply to the Excalibur and other big ticket items. The only thing that creeps me out is the warning about dehydrating meat, but I don't see myself dehydrating meat often, if ever. I'll take my chances and give this a try.

Apparently the Excalibur heat fluctuates from 10-15 degrees hotter than the temperature you set it at, Excalibur actually states this like it's a feature since it is supposed to dry the internals of fruit faster & uniformly.

The Sedona temperature was consistently 10 degrees below set temperature in John Kohler's Kale Chips test. The Sedona uses a little more power overall (if using both zones) since it's powering two separate fans two separate heating elements, and the computerized display/electronics.

I basically got the Sedona because I felt like it had more of what I wanted in terms of out of the box functionality and day-to-day usage. I'm under the impression that the Excalibur does a better job dehydrating but you don't get the bells and whistles, and it's noisier. When John Kohler did the kale chip test it took 22 hours, and it still needed some more time in there for some of the trays (for both dehydrators). So you might want to re-consider getting the Excalibur unit which is only offered on the manufacturer's website, the timer is limited to 26 hours..

Anyways I'm not really bringing anything new to the table, this is just stuff I've gleaned off of John Kohler's videos, check out his channel rawfoods on youtube. Keep scrolling down through the videos and hitting the "show more" button, and you should be able to find all the videos related to the dehydrators. They were on the second page for me.

Uh oh...Why do there have to be so many choices???? I may have to hold out for the Sedona