Andrew James 6 Tray Digital Food Dehydrator with 6 Trays - Black

Great piece of kitchen kit

I have a dog with an auto-immune condition and cannot give him commercially-made dog food or treats so I have to make my own. I have tried drying mini meatballs in my oven but regulating the humidity and very low temperatures needed to do this is problematic and results in cooking the meat. For those of you that don't know, dogs can only absorb about 1/3 of the nutritional value in cooked meat so drying is an effective way of retaining most of the nutritional value for your pooch.

I was a little sceptical about how effective a food-dehydrator would be at drying products such as minced lamb, fish and duck but was I surprised at the results! Within 4 hrs I have trays of moist, not fully dried, meatballs that my dog loves. After 8hrs or so I can have little biscuit-like discs of dried meat and dried meatballs that look like kibble, and after 14 hrs or so, jerky made of lamb liver and heart.

I use my dehydrator at least twice a week to make dog-treats so I am definitely getting use out of it!

The dehydrator is cheap to run (about 3-4 pence an hour and is easy to clean.

It is quite bulky so you need a big space in your cupboard to store it.

It would have been good to have a tray or two with slightly smaller gaps but you can put greaseproof paper or baking paper on the trays if you are worried bout fat dripping (I use very lean meat so this isn't a problem for me so far).

There are a lot of very expensive dehydrators out there but this one at £40 is excellent value for money.Read full review

Disappointed with the dehydrator

I have to say that I am disappointed with the length of time the dehydrator needs to be on for relatively small pieces of fruit. I find it quite noisy too, which constantly reminds me of the fact it is on and using my electricity.Read full review

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Easy to use

This is my second dehumidifier and there is no comparison to my first one. This machine does what it says, and is so easy to use, just load set the temperature and time then wait for excellent results.Read full review

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Good product for vegan intro

I use it with tomatoes, beetroots, and bananas and i found that is simply and easy to use. I'm not sure about power consumption. The only issue until now is that is not easy to clean it. Overall is a good dehydrator for a intro userRead full review

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Good, but more specific timing instructions required

As with many of the other reviews, my main criticism of this is the vague instructions with regard to timings. Please Andrew James, update this product's accompanying literature!! We have used it a lot already, but the booklet is so unhelpful that dehydrating different foods correctly is pure guesswork.
That said, we are loving our healthy fruit snacks, when we finally get it the way we want!Read full review

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Good dehydrator.

It could be made better but not by much, certainly for the price. Works well, isn't noisy, which was a concern and not something easily checked without hearing it, so bit of a gamble there but no, it's as quiet as could be expected. I thought the intricate moulding of the shelves would make them hard to clean but I've just washed them having made some teriyaki beef jerky and the dried marinade came off easily with a brush and some warm water. Also dried some apple and banana - good. Lacking onion and garlic powder for another recipe I dried some of this years crop and ground it up - excellent (though probably not cost effective give the cost of buying it). All in all a good buy at the price. I'm very happy with it. Recommended.Read full review

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Excellent

Never used one of these before and we are very pleasantly surprised by this one. Easy to use and easy to clean afterwards. The main reason we bought it was to dry mango slices, and it does this perfectly. We also did dessert apples, and while the end result was not as good as the mango, they were also very acceptable. Good value for money and highly recommended.Read full review

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Excellent

Lightweight, good value for money, easy to use and to store. Have used it for a range of vegetables, fruits and herbs. The only negative is that the markings to indicate 'tall' and 'short' (on the sides of the trays, so you can arrange them for stacking small/large produce) are difficult to read. I've got around this by painting a dot to indicate the 'short' side, so it's hardly a problem.Read full review

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Doesn't last long enough.

Easy to use, could do with silicone sheets being provided as standard as the base is difficult to clean.

I do like these, but they don't last long, I've had three in about 5 years. There's only one moving part so cant see why they just give up the ghost.Read full review

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Great for the the price

Works really well. Have made beef jerky and biltong. Bought the vacuum packer as well which compliments the drier. Can also buy extra shelves to expand

Verified purchase:  Yes • Condition: new • Sold by: andrewjamesdirect