NescoGardenmaster Pro Food Dehydrator, 8 Trays, White

I just purchased this dehydrator a little over a week ago. So I can't say how long this will last. However, what I have seen from this machine so far has been amazing! I love it so much. I used it almost every day last week, and like 4 times this week. So far I have made dehydrated strawberry slices (cut to 1/4 in. Dehydrate until dry and plyable or crispy) i have made fruit leather- my fav was strawberry. (I filled up my blender with defrosted frozen strawberries, a splash of water to get it going, little squeeze of lemon juice so the color stays nice and red, and about 3tbsp of sugar, mix and pour on the fruit leather tray after you have sprayed it with a tiny bit of pam spray. Dehydrate until it feels dry to the touch. Delicious! I have dehydrated jellied cranberry sauce too! Sliced thin ofcourse! And my husband's favorite- jerky! To be honest, I had huge doubts that jerky in a dehydrator (vs. Smoker) was actually gonna make jerky how its supposed to taste. Oh boy I was wrong! This stuff is so flavorful and dehydrated perfectly. You can stop it any time to check on your food. For example, sometimes when I make the jerky, some slices are cut a little thinner than others, therefore they get done quicker, I just pull those off and continue cooking the thicker stuff. This thing does not get very hot, so if you have little ones, there's really no need to worry about their little hands getting burnt if the touch it on the counter. And gosh, the snacks you can make your kids with this thing are so yummy and so healthy. The noise level- best thing I can compare it to is the same noise your fan over your oven makes. If it was set to the low setting. On my first day of use, I walked into the kitchen a couple times thinking my fan was on over the stove. Lol. It's not loud at all. The video the guy posted with it being really loud- his was broken. For sure! Haha it is not that loud. I run mine and we can watch t.v. talk etc. I can even hear my kiddo talking to her friends in the other room still. Not bad. The trays are great quality- but huge. Lol this is a very large machine. (Bigger than my 8 qt. Instant pot) so I have been storing it away while not in use. However I have used it so much, I may just leave it out. As far as the fruit leather trays and the clean a screens goes- they are a must have!!! I bought this exact dehydrator because it comes with 8 of each. While the other dehydrators did not. I use the clean a screens for my berry slices so they won't stick to the trays, and they work great. Anyway, as far as how much stuff you can fit on it... I can easily fit 6- 1lb containers of strawberry slices. 6 pounds of strawberries!!! Lol. And as far as jerky goes- I just did about 8lbs of raw jerky meat on all 8 trays. (Shrinks down after cooked) then the fruit leather- I usually buy the 6 lb bags of frozen strawberries from Costco, probably 3/4 of the bag will fill up 8 trays. Give or take. Im going to make Cinnamon apple chips soon : ) this thing is great and seems to run strong. Doesn't use a bunch of power it seems like, and does not over heat or anything. Love it! So glad I finally bought it. Great purchase. Ps: I tried to take pics but I can't find the way to upload them anymore to Amazon. Sry!

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 9/23/20Been 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*.3/4/22Ordered 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.3/8/22Nesco 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.

Works great. Easy to use. We bought an apple corer to speed up preparing, now we have mason jars full of dried apples. Make sure you have enough counter space - this runs for several hours to dry a load of fruit.