If you are at least high-raw and use your dehydrator frequently (at least once a week), I would love to hear from you. I have always wanted to get one but now I am wondering if it's really worth it. Some of the top "gurus" seem to use them for transitioning to all-raw but then just eat simple foods. On the other hand, I could see making crackers, breads, gRAWnolas, and nori rolls with one and it being worth my while. I just don't want to get a device that'll just sit there.

i had the excalibur 3900 .. loved it used it all the time. It got stolen and I replaced it with the Tribest Sedona 9 tray . Its more expensive but has dual zones and runs a bit quieter than the excalibur. Lovin it

often i find some real deals on fruit .. example .. really ripe pineapples were on sale 2 for $1 at this asian market so i bought a small ton of them but they were going to go off long before i could eat them so i froze a bunch , made some dried pineapple snacks, and made some pineapple/blueberry leathers.

i also dry alot of homemade soup mixes for us in it from extra garden stuff. If i have empty trays and nothing to put in them i dry my peelings and stuff that would go to compost wet .. dry compost is more manageable at times than wet compost.

i really do use it alot .. originally thte excalibur replaced a round tray ronco type i had that i used quite often ...

i also get bored easily and love to try new things in the dehydrator sometimes i hit ..sometimes i miss .

Between having the excalibur and waiting for the new one to arrive i really missed having it

heres John Kohlers side by side comparison of the 2. [www.discountjuicers.com]

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2011 10:30PM by Jgunn.

Wow, thanks Jodi! I would like to buy the more expensive one but could you tell me just how loud the Excalibur is? I have been hearing about this for a while and it is a bit of a concern but it might not be so bad and I would be able to buy it sooner.

well its not so loud i can't sleep through it and ima realllllly light sleeper it ends up being more like white background noise .. if that makes sense

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2011 10:54PM by Jgunn.

I finally unpacked ours, it is yet unused lol. I'm going to look for discount fruit and veg all winter and run the D like crazy, might as well double up and heat the house while I'm drying food stuffs! I'm going to dry any groceries we've bought that look like they're going to spoil before we can use them up. I'm determined to create as little waste as possible from here on out, it's an early New Year's resolution since none of the neighbours compost or even recycle :/.

oh yes and thats another plus .. the dehydrator warming your area up .. our kitchen is pretty cool most of the time now due to un-cooking

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

I love my Excalibur. I'm not sure what the model number is, but it is only 4 trays, and was the least expensive, I think. I use it only now and then for kale chips or crackers. Actually, it's been about 2 months now since I've made anything. I've been eating really simply lately. However, I might need to get another batch of chips going now

I don't mind the noise at all. White noise is a good description. It just sort of quietly "hums" in the background. I do have to say that although I go through phases of not using it so much, it is really something that I wouldn't want to be without.

Thanks, Marsh! I don't mind white noise but if it's like a jet liner taking off, of course that would be different. My Vitamix is not as bad as I had read, either. Of course, I don't turn it on at rude hours when my landlord's sleeping, but it's a lot better than another blender I bought and returned.

I think a lot of hte benefits from the lifestyle come from the high water content of the diet. I am happy to make things for others, more gourmet treats, a few times a year, though. Excalibur = great!

also was excellent to use to make sprouted almonds and later on sprouted & dehydrated almond flour for fig bars.

Thanks! I will leave it on my wish list!

I don't have one but my friend does and absolutely loves hers.

She makes all sorts of dehydrated raw crackers, sweets etc.

Powerlifer....SOLD!!! Ding! Ding! I needed to hear that about the crackers because I think they'd pay for themselves at some point. I buy those Revita crackers and I'd like to make my own. One thing about a dehydrator is that even if you're not a raw fooder, it allows you to bake without fear of burning. I know that when I used to make granola, even at 200 degrees the edges of the granola would singe.

Yeah like you say they pay for themselves in the end and you don't have to be a raw fooder to appreciate dehydrated foods which in most cases create healthier alternatives to the food they mimick.

I want an excaliber when the time comes but at the moment sadly i can't justify spending how much they are on a dehydrator especially after my vita-mix purchase which to be fair has been worth the money.

I bought my VM this year, too. It was worth the money...sort of. I think I could have gotten by with an Oster for now and bought an Excalibur at the same time! But I use in frequently and my boyfriend loves it when I make shakes

Well.........
I have an Excalibur 5 tray,and its currently on the basement shelf.
I just never caught on with it.
I would dry squash chips and stuff,and they would eventually go soft again.
I guess I never found it worth the time and electricity to get into it very much.
Now on the other hand if it made things extremely crispy,like potato chips are,I would do it,but nothing really ever got like that,even with the darn thing on for days.

And then there is the shrinkage factor...I would have 5" dia squash slices that would shrink down to 1".

Vinny



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2011 12:09AM by eaglefly.

Vinnie, once dehydrated store things in glass jars. If there is any humidity in the air they will get soft and stale but sealed in glass keeps them crisp. A raw food chef friend used to soak almonds and sunflower seeds then marinate in tamari, spices, etc and dehydrate ~ OMG delicious and crunchy just like roasted! A fave, even my kid who doesn't like raw nuts and seeds would eat those.
Also, sprouted buckwheat crackers get very light and crunchy like the baked kind, those I don't find bitter like ones made with sprouted grains. You can used carrot pulp to make amazing breads and wrap skins too. I hear good things about raw corn chips, it's on my list to try.
Check out the sunny raw blog recipe index for dehydrated yummies, she's amazing.

does anybody know or can thin of any design ideas to make a solar dehydrator that has a self detecting fan thermostat system to keep it under 115F ? because i know these things are energy users

life vs lifelessness

Check out the stats on Excalibur website, it costs something like 4 cents to run the 9 tray unit all day. Not as much of an energy user as you'd think .

Coco, could that be the Canadian price of electricity? Because I have heard that it would cost about $1 to run the thing for a day. That kind of concerned me because even though I don't pay for my energy directly, I don't want to use it, say, three times a week and have an increase of $12 each month!

Ah, sorry, it's 4-5 cents/hour. This is from the site


"How much electricity does the Excalibur consume?
The average cost of electricity used by the Excalibur is about 4 - 5ΒΆ an hour. Dry a full load of fruits or vegetables for less than a quarter!"

It takes between 6-12 hours to dry most stuff so .30-.60, but some things take much longer.

Thick bready things, burgers, totally pureed fruit for leathers, crackers etc can take a longer time, it depends on what you want to dry. I'm just going to do plain fruits and veggies and make powders and soup mixes. I got a 9 tray so that I could rearrange stuff as it was shrinking up and add more things to dry halfway through. I haven't dried anything yet because I plan to do a huge run with my friend and cousin and just dry the world out, lol. I'm waiting for it to get colder out too so it can do double duty heating the apartment as it makes our fancy snax.

Do we need to dry the vegetables, the raw water in them is the most important nutrient. So much effort, time, and electricity for little benefit, there no way to improve on a raw veggie by drying it



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/13/2011 02:10AM by madinah.

Coco, if I was making veggie burgers with garlic, other spices and "cooked" it in the same batch as fruit (of course on different trays), does flavor transfer? I don't want garlic banana chips!

You'd get garlic banana chips for SURE lol!
Best to do savory with savory and sweet with sweet. This isn't too hard when things are in season and cheap. I don't know about you but I am always so bummed when I see boxes of fresh local produce that's on for a great sale price because it's at the peak of ripeness and won't keep and I can't take advantage of it because using that much food up is impossible for my small family. Growing food in a garden yields too much food for us too, even growing herbs on the window sill or sprouting goes to waste sometimes. It's either take up canning and find space to store endless jars or dry things in their whole raw state and have locally grown, ripe, nutrient intact produce to use during the winter months especially but also for quick meals for the kids.

It's strange because I have heard that you can mix foods in a dehydrator but it never seemed plausible to me. Do you ever do banana chips? I am not a huge fan of them when I have bought them. I prefer nice, ripe bananas. I am wondering if perhaps strawberries would be great cut up in little pieces to use in grawnolas, etc.

Dried strawberries are SO GOOD! But bananas, ugh, I hate them. The kids don't like those crispy banana chips (they aren't dehydrated but freeze dried or something else) but I bet they'd like some homemade chewy banana bits.

i havent noticed any marked increase in our hydro bill but then my hubby is notorious for leaving lights on all over the place which drives me looney in itself. In a few weeeks im investing in automatic shut off switches that turn off after a short period of time as thus far nagging hasnt helped

heres what they look like .. [www.greenandmore.com] i will be replacing the worst offending rooms first lol

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Thanks coco for the tip.
I was storing things in plastic bags,so will try the glass jars.

Isnt the whole idea of dehydrating to preserve the food,while also preserving the nutrients?
Vinny