Snackmaster PRO! If you're hard core about snacking, here's the food dehydrator for you!

A few years ago, we received a food dehydrator. It’s been a vital tool in our kitchen. 

The Snackmaster Pro is one of the newest dehydrators in the NESCO/American Harvest product line. It's sleek, contemporary design In grey and marble color features a top mounted fan, 600 watts of drying power, and generates maximum speed and quality for dehydrating fruits, vegetables, beef jerky, and venison jerky. Helps dry food in hours, not days like ordinary food dehydrators.
Makes delicious Beef Jerky even turkey jerky, and fish jerky. Make trail mix, homemade yogurt, apple snacks, banana chips, dried soup mixes, dried tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, mangoes, papaya and other dried fruits at a fraction of the cost. Make dried herbs and spices; also make potpourri and dried flowers for any occasion. 

Features
Adjustable Thermostat allows you to dry different foods at proper temperatures (95º-160º F), providing the flexibility to produce the best drying results.
New-Powerful Top Mounted Fan has 600 watts of drying power generate maximum speed and quality for dehydrating fruits, vegetables, and jerky. Helps dry food in hours, not days like other food dehydrators.
Expandable unit comes with 5 trays, but is expandable to 12 trays with optional Add-A-Trays.
Opaque Vita-Save exterior helps block harmful light which destroys nutritional content of food being dehydrated.

Drying Time
Because of the unique design of the patented Converga-Flow system of your NESCO/American Harvest dehydrator, you’ll be surprised at how quickly most foods dry. Drying times may vary, depending on the type and amount of food, thickness and evenness of the slices, percentage of water in the food, humidity, temperature of air, altitude and the model of NESCO/American Harvest dehydrator you are using. Drying times may also vary greatly from one area to another and from day to day, depending on the climatic conditions. Keep records to help you predict drying times for specific foods.
Drying Temperature
Fruits, fruit rolls and vegetables should be dried at 130ºF to 140ºF (55º to 60ºC). By drying foods in this temperature range you will minimize the loss of heat-sensitive vitamins A and C. All foods sweat when they begin to dry, the temperature may be set higher than 140ºF (60ºC) during the first couple of hours of drying. The actual temperature of the food will remain 15ºF to 20ºF (6º to 8ºC) lower than the air temperature for the first couple of hours.
Meats and fish should be dried on the highest temperature setting of your dehydrator. These temperatures also keep bacteria and other spoilage micro-organisms, common to meat and fish, to a minimum during the first stages of drying.
Nuts and seeds are high in oil, and if higher temperatures are used, they will tend to become rancid, developing off flavors. The best temperature is from 90ºF to 100ºF (30º to 40ºC).
Herbs and spices are most flavorful when they first open and should be harvested while very fresh, before they begin to blossom. Because the aromatic oils are very sensitive, temperatures should be 90ºF to 100ºF (30º to 40ºC) for drying. Take care not to load trays too heavily as this will prolong the drying time.
Dried flowers, herbs and spices used for potpourri should be dried at temperatures ranging from 90ºF to 100ºF (30º to 40ºC) to maintain aroma and color.
Drying Fruit Rolls
Fruit rolls are a favorite snack for young and old alike. It is a chewy fruit product made from puréed fresh fruit, which has been dried and rolled into snack sized pieces. Fruit rolls are easy to make and cost less than those bought at the store.
Almost any fruit will make an excellent fruit roll. Most fruits can also be combined with others. Some fruits, such as apples, are high in pectin and fiber, and have an excellent texture when dried. The combinations are limitless. Use your imagination and have fun!

Almost any fruit will make an excellent fruit roll. Most fruits can also be combined with others. Some fruits, such as apples, are high in pectin and fiber, and have an excellent texture when dried. The combinations are limitless. Use your imagination and have fun!
 
Drying Jerky
Jerky is a favorite snack for school, lunch, on the trail or just about anywhere! It is made by seasoning lean, raw meat in a salt mixture, then drying it without cooking. The finished product is a protein-rich exercise in chewing and ever so delicious! Jerky also makes a savory broth base for soups and stews.
Meat Jerky
Homemade jerky is much less expensive than jerky slices or sticks purchased at a grocery or convenience store. Most lean meats will yield about 1 pound of jerky for 3 pounds of fresh meat.
 

These are extra trays for the nesco dehydrator. Adding these gives you more space to work with so you can make a larger batch at once. I advise turning the temperature up a little since more trays means more food to dry at once.

This screen is another accessory to the nesco food dehydrator. It is placed on top of the regular tray for smaller items such as herbs. It works great for drying herbs for either cooking or for making potpourri! 

These 12-3/4-inch screens (a set of two) can be inserted into the trays of Nesco American Harvest's FD-27 and FD-50 food dehydrators to prevent foods such as sugary fruits from sticking during the drying process. The fine-mesh screens are flexible, so they can be curled and foods simply peeled off. The screens are also useful for preventing small items such as herbs and spices from falling through the dehydrators' trays. As a bonus, they're dishwasher-safe

All in all, we love this dehydrator. It’s made tasty and healthy snacks for us. One thing, which really should be pretty obvious, is that foods with more water inside of them take lot longer to dry than food without as much water in it. Apple slices dry sooooo well. Banana slices dry too, but they’re a little gummy. 

Have you ever tried dehydrating your own food?