Is this a good one?

[lovinthislife]

I googled American Harvest dehydrator and found this... www.nesco.com/product_db21f85c8f63/session_8f6a7afd5758/ can you tell me if this is a good deal or not. Thank you for looking

[CoM]

I googled American Harvest dehydrator and found this... www.nesco.com/product_db21f85c8f63/session_8f6a7afd5758/ can you tell me if this is a good deal or not. Thank you for looking

 

Hi Lovin:

 

I have this Nesco & love it. It's called the Nesco/American Harvest-Garden Master PRO - FD-1018P. It is more powerful than most with 1000 watts & can be expanded up to 30 trays. I did alot of research before I bought this one. This site also gives you 8 trays, 8 screens & 8 fruit roll up trays. Most other sites don't. It has a fan so you don't have to rotate trays & you can set different temps for different types of food.

 

I have used it about a doz times so far and love the results!

 

http://shop.simplylivingsmart.com/Dehydrat...1018P_p_31.html

 

Scroll down for videos & description.

 

Good luck.

[Canned Nerd]

The NESCO FD-60 that you referenced is a good one. It has the airflow on the top whereas my older model, FD-50, has it on the bottom where juices tend to fall in to. Fortunately I've learned how to clean it over the years. It's a work horse and the original white trays are now yellow. I use about 5-10 trays when I'm dehydrating things.

 

[lovinthislife]

I bought the American Harvest 500watt, 5 drying trays. It has one constant temperature but it does have the heat at the top of the machine and the fan. I got it for $39.95 instead of $59.95 online. It's not the top of the line, but I figure this one hopefully I can tell if I'm going to like using or not before I buy the better one for $169.00 We'll see. I also got the jerky gun holds a 1 lb. to go with it. But, silly me, I just got 6 lbs. of ground chuck last night and already browned it all up. So, I'll have to wait to buy more hamburger to try the jerky. I've never eaten jerky, but my sons love it. Thanks for the input guys.

[Violet]

I didn't know American Harvest made one without an adjustable thermostat.

Sorry to tell you this, but making jerky with ground meat is no longer considered safe to do. Only jerky from lean meats, and the newest guidelines require either a vinegar pretreatment or bringing the brine to a boil and heating the meat to 160 before drying it.

 

[lovinthislife]

On that video posted above it looks like ground beef. I have some extra lean ground chuck. It says 97/3 on it.

[Violet]

It used to be included in making jerky, however, ground meats have thousands of surface areas. Those ground up pieces of meat lend to a much greater risk of food borne illnesses than a solid piece of meat . The ground meat is not recommended any more by USDA due to the risks of using it. Only lean cuts of slice meats are recommended for jerky. You will find the recipes for ground jerky on many websites still, but check the date on them, most are from around 1999 or 2000 or so, not current dates.

It is a safety issue in using ground meats. Instructions for ground meat jerky have been removed from our current USDA/extension guidelines here . If you do use ground meat, just realize you are willing to take the risks involved.

Also, I don't know how hot your dehydrator is. It needs to be at least 145 degrees in order to safely dry jerky. Place an instant read thermometer between your trays to see what the actual temperature is.

 

[lovinthislife]

thank you Violet. I'll check and see what the temp in it is, thanks again.