Hunting & Fishing Meat dehydrator help

[Mavrykk]

I currently have a cabelas 10 tray stack dehydrator but its getting annoying.
Middle racks dry 3x faster than others, rear of the machine hashot spots.
Although i enjoy its capacity and shape.
As I can squeeze 10lbs into it everytime with the jerky gun. For 10 perfect strips per tray.

Any other recommendations out there? Preferably square shaped design.

 

[paulwardd]

Do you rotate your trays every hour or so? It's what I do and I think it's always a good idea as temp is never going to be consistent throughout the racks no matter what dehydrator you have

 

[LuvDog]

I've borrowed and used this one. I didn't need to rotate trays when I used it.

FD-75PR (5 Tray) Snackmaster® Pro Food Dehydrator | NESCO®

The Snackmaster® Pro is one of the newest dehydrators in the Nesco®/American Harvest® product line. It's sleek, contemporary design In grey and marble color features a top mounted fan, 600 watts of drying power, and generates maximum speed and quality for dehydrating fruits, vegetables, beef...

www.nesco.com

They make a couple of square units too, but I haven't used them

FD-85 Square Food & Jerky Dehydrator – NESCO

700 watts of drying power provides even heat distribution Adjustable temperature control (95°F - 160°F) (6) BPA Free trays with 1.2 sq. ft. of drying area per tray - Expandable to 8 trays Proudly made in the USA of global and domestic components Includes (1) Jerky Gun with three tip...

www.nesco.com

 

[WizManBooks]

My Excalibur dehydrator 9 tray with timer is over 10 years old and going strong. I love it !

 

[Mavrykk]

Do you rotate your trays every hour or so? It's what I do and I think it's always a good idea as temp is never going to be consistent throughout the racks no matter what dehydrator you have

Yes I.have to or else half of the trays will be crispy and brittle.

 

[Rocky59]

I have the Cabela's 80L model I've had it for a few years now. It's about 2' cubed, so it's big, but you can get about 10 lbs of jerky in it. I'm very happy with it

 

[Campguy308]

Ive used a Nesco for a long time and it dries fairly evenly. I do rotate trays though

 

[Sean the Nailer]

FWIW, we have a few different methods of dehydrating here. Depends on what we're doing, for which direction we choose. Regarding our 'round' dehydrator, the cycling (bottom-to-top) as well as rotating (90-degree turn) of the trays every hour makes a HUGE difference in the performance.

The oven we have has a 'dehydrate' setting, and the convection fan definitely helps. The trays inside though, also need rotation every hour or so.

Lastly, the cold-smoker we have here also works great as a dehydrator, but is only viable for firing up big/huge batches. (it is considerably larger than the average fridge).

 

[shootom]

We have a dehydrator, and there is no doubt it is a hassle free way to make jerky. But quite honestly, jerky from a dehydrator taste horrible compared to cutting strips and letting them hang in a smokehouse on a cold night. If you live in town, I get it, it's not very feasible. If you live in the country, try building a smokehouse, or just a small tinned building (we took a horse stall and just put a sheet of tin around it to close it in) and you will be shocked at the quality of jerky you get. We always did smokehouse growing up and the first time I had jerky out of a dehydrator I was thrown a major curve ball. The two are not even comparable.

 

[Marbles]

I have an Excalibur 9 tray, it works well and the trays don't need to be rotated. If I look, there is a very slight difference between the middle shelf and the top or bottom, but it is so small that if I mixed the contents together I could not pick out which came from which shelf.

 

[Jigstick]

Wife dehydrates my meat perfectly every time