Are the dehydraters any good?

[jerrykr]

I have that American Harvester I got at Walmart a few years ago. It has no adjustments, just On or Off. I've tested it for temp and it runs at 160F. Works well for Jerky IMHO. I ususally cold smoke the jerky for a couple of hours after it comes out of the dehydrator.

 

[scpatterson]

I use the Excailbur 9 trey myself and have been using it for about 8 years and have had teh same one and made no telling how many hundreds of pounds of jerky. That thing works great and gives me no trouble at all...Holds roughly 30#s raw which will yield about 10#s jerky

 

[beer-b-q]

For a cheap dehydrator the RonCo works pretty good... We finally used it this summer to dry some peppers and it did an excellent job...

 

[igolf2]

I smoke first on the GOSM - then into the Ronco dehydrator to finish - works really well.

 

[scubadoo97]

I'm thinking of adding a fan to my MES vent to aid in jerky making



More info to follow

 

[piker]

Recently purchased a Nesco Gardenmaster, 1000 watts with thermostat and it works great. Does 6 full trays in 4 hrs. and I do not have to rotate trays as I did on my old one. Piker

 

[BandCollector]

Dehydrators are a great alternative to a smoker. I use mine for making jerky when I do not have time to pull out the smoker.

 

[phreak]

Has anyone modified a dehydrator to add a smoke pistol or something similar? The Goodwill by my place always has dehydrators, so I was thinking about giving that a go. Being in Florida it's often hard to get a cold smoke working.

 

[jerrykr]

I have an older American Harvester I got at Walmart. It's not heat adjustable, but I've tested it, and it runs at 160F. I have another brand that runs cooler, and it takes forever. It's going on Craigslist soon. I just ordered a second American Harvester adjustable one from Walmart.

I put my marinated jerky meat in it at around 9 PM and pull it out about 5 AM before I go to work. My garage sure smells good all night.

After the jerky is dried, I cold smoke it for about 3 hrs, using the tin can and soldering pencil with smoking sawdust or chips. I guess you could get a smoke pistol or whatever, but the cheapo rig works great.

BTW: for food safety's sake, I highly recommend that you use Morton Tender Quick in their recommended amounts for the salt in your marinade. Even tho the dehydrator runs at 160F, the meat is going to be in the USDA specified "danger zone" of 40F to 140F for a period of time while it is drying.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Factsheets/...Food/index.asp

Avoid creating those nasty buggies that could make you sick.

Jerry

 

[markmcrae]

I love my dehydrator for making jerky. I use it all the time and it does great.

 

[rhino70]

I have an american harvest dehydrator, and it works great for jerky. However, I find that if you use it and want the smoke taste, you need to add liquid smoke, or some kind of granular smoke flavoring if you are doing ground jerky with a jerky shooter. I have a little chief smoker that make jerky in, and on a cool to cold night, I can maintain about 160 in the chamber, and about 5 hours of smoke at 160 gets you some great jerky. so i get home from work and do my prep setting up the smoker at 4:00 or so, smoking by 5, you've got finished jerky by bedtime, plus then you don't have to dirty the smoker AND the dehydrator.

That is my personal preference, but as far as the dehydrators, you can still turn out some great jerky with them, and most of them you can just set and forget. I would advise setting a timer though and checking it a few times towards the end of the dehydration time. Learned that one the hard way. :) Good luck with the jerky regardless of the way you get there!!

 

[twinfallsid]

This $96 Square Dehydrator works better for jerky than the round type:

http://www.beefjerky.com/catalog/dehydrator.html


Cheers!
Greg