Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.

Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is the 8 Stainless Steel Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator.  This is one of those rare reviews for a product I do not actually own.  Yet here is the reason why.  All the way back in 2011 I bought a 9 Tray Excalibur.  That was 15 years ago and it has run long hard hours every year since and it is still going strong.  I recently remarked on a First Tuesday Coffee Chat with Nicole and John that I really want to buy a new dehydrator but my old one just won’t quit.

I also talked about doing a show about dehydrating in that episode and a lot of interest came in about it.  Well it turns out that you can’t even buy the Excalibur 2900ECB I recommended for a decade any more so I thought I would come up with a new recommendation.  Well the newest 8 Stainless Steel Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator gets my primary recommendation for a number of reasons.

1. It is After All an Excalibur.  One thing this company is known for is quality.  Another is backing their product.  If you get a machine with a problem, Excalibur is going to make it right.
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2. Stainless Steel Trays.  The one real downside to the model I have is the trays are plastic and lined with a silicone stye mesh so food does not fall though.  They are a pain in the butt to clean after things like jerky.  Steel trays clean easy and can even go right in the dishwasher if you want.
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3. The Price.  While you can save money buying an off brand anything close to this size is only going to save you 20-40 bucks and this is a long term purchase.  You can also spend more with Excalibur with larger and fancier machines.  If you want one great but let me tell you the number of times I fully maxed out my 9 tray dehydrator is very small.  8 trays will be more than enough for most folks.
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4. A Timer and Precision Temperature Adjustment.  Yes you can over dehydrate some items especially jerkey or say mushrooms.  The timer will prevent that because we all forget things.  The temp can be adjusted anywhere between 85-165 degrees.  So you can very gently dry herbs or make great jerkey.  And no matter what anyone tells you 140-145 is the zone for jerky.  I have never run my dehydrator over 140 honestly.  The idea here is to DRY not to cook.
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5. It’s the One I Would Buy.  I always say I can’t provide a better recommendation then to say “this is what I would spend my own money on”.  As I said earlier the only reason I won’t buy one is I have a 15 year old Excalibur that works flawlessly.  If however, I needed a new dehydrator after a lot of research this is what I would personally buy.
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In any event if you want a larger or more feature rich machine you can check out all of Excalibur’s Options here.  But this one really is in the sweet spot.  All stainless steel and glass where the food sits, plenty of capacity, glass doors and you get all this for well under 200 bucks.  You can also go a bit cheaper, just search for “dehydrators” on Amazon and take your pick.  But start reading reviews of the ones that are similar to Excalibur’s 9 Stainless Steel Tray machine and you will see that saving a few bucks likely is not worth it.

Remember one of Jacks Laws is, “always be frugal, never be cheap”.

So check out the 8 Stainless Steel Tray Excalibur Food Dehydrator today and tune into today’s episode which will be 3883 when it drops today to learn a ton of ways to use a dehydrator for your prepping and honestly your every day kitchen activities.

Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com

P.S. – Many vegetables like peppers and tomatoes can simply be sliced and put into your dehydrator, others require blanching which is a short duration steaming them or boiling them.  If you are new to dehydrating I recommend Tammy Gangloff’s YouTube channel called Dehydrate2Store.  She stopped posting videos about 3 years ago but it is still the best how to dehydrate resource on the internet in my view, akin to a free ecourse in it.  Tammy also appeared on TSP all the way back in 2010 on Episode 367, so you may want to give that a listen.

P.S.S. – Want a great use for your dehydrated veggies, take some like say tomato, sweet pepper, a bit of hot pepper and spinach, toss them in your trusty Coffee/Spice grinder, make up some Yogurt Cheese with this powder mixed in, it is amazing and a tip I picked up from my buddy David last year.  And hey for a final note you can actually use your dehydrator to make yogurt!