Dare To Compare Dehydrators - Excalibur vs Nesco and More - Part 2

Comparison Continued...

If they break down. To fix the Excalibur, you have the huge box unit to deal with. If the Nesco breaks down, you have to send in the top or bottom mount only. Always check for warranty or recalls before paying to get your unit fixed or mailing it in. 

The size of the Excalibur is about the size of a microwave. Very large and heavy. It cleans like a microwave after you take out all the trays but sometimes sticky stuff gets into the tracks that hold the trays and it is time consuming to clean. If the trays on the Nesco get dirty, I spray them off with the hose in the sink, let them sit for ten minutes, use a little kitchen brush and they clean up quickly.

If you put something that sticks up a bit like bananas or melons, and you try to put another tray in on the Excalibur, there are NO lips or edges on the trays so it then pushes everything on the tray off or it all ends up on the back of the tray. This has happened to me MANY times even with the melons this week. It is so frustrating that I refuse to use it again. I have lots to dehydrate and I refuse to use it! You take all this time laying the fruit out on the trays only to have one catch as you slide the next tray up in and it pushed all your fruit into a pile! I have put my Excalibur up for sale and don't even want to keep it as a back up.

So, there is NO contest that I like the NESCO better. I have also liked the Magic Mill rectangle dehydrator except the food sticks so much that I lost half of the food and wouldn't use it again. If you make your own fruit trays with plastic canvas I think it would work well and I may pull out my unit and use it instead of the Excalibur this week and make myself some plastic canvas fruit trays and let you know how it goes. The temperature and fans work well on them but I would NEVER use them without the soft plastic trays. I'll have to post how I make the fruit trays this week. I thought I had already posted it but I don't think I have yet. I took the pictures and video but never posted I think.

Ronco was the first dehydrator I used and it didn't have a temp and no fan adjustment, just on and off and the food burned in places, it got hot and melted trays and the food was always brown unless you blanched it. I did blanch it and used that one for years as it was a gift but I would NEVER use one now as the blanching kills off the food before you even dehydrate it. 

I have had some "no name" or other brands over the years that I can't remember their names but I have had many Nesco and Harvest Masters and will continue to get them because even if I have to replace the element unit, I still have all those trays to add to the new unit so I can even dehydrate more trays at a time so I am never losing everything if the unit goes bad. If the Excalibur is unfixable, you can't use the trays with another unit. 

So, I hope you enjoy this comparison. The fruit dried about the same over time with rotating but it was a bit quicker on the smaller Harvest Master as there wasn't as much fruit on it because the trays are smaller. The Nesco was more even dried and a bit quicker than the Excalibur but my unit is older so that may have improved with the new units but all my other arguments are valid even with the new units. 

Happy dehydrating! Just in time for harvest!