Well, honestly - - because of PTSD, I have not yet been able to use this. No! Come to think of it I did use it once to dry out some paper. Oh yes, a friend of mine used it to dehydrate Doritos that she had dropped in the sink and they got wet. Worked like a real champ! I cannot wait until I threw things in there like bananas or tomatoes or some good flank steak. My goal when I bought it was to learn how to make good teriyaki sweet jerky!

This is a great dehydrator! Works great love the time and temp settings. It does need to run in another room due to loud fan. Worth it though.

Dehydrator was a gift and was broken upon arrival. Contacted manufacturer for warranty since return window already passed. Asked to pay for a shipping label and never answered back. Terrible product and customer service

Bought this to use with my royal icing sugar cookies and upon using it for the third time it started a smelling like it was burning and just stopped working. Maybe it was just a faulty one but went with a different brand and little more expensive.

Excellent dehydration removes all the unwanted moisture from my herbs

A good dehydrator isn't cheap, and a cheap dehydrator isn't good. This Weston model excels in both value & performance. In my extensive experience, you can't do any better (without spending 5x more). This machine is the SWEET SPOT.Weston is a highly respected name in food processing equipment. I've used a number of their other products, and they've all been high-performance and exceptionally durable. This dehydrator is no exception. It's absolutely a Cadillac.Upon opening the item, there were no "small parts" and thus nothing to lose. Major plus. Initial hand washing was quick, with no difficulty, or hard to reach spots. The operation was strait forward, and absolutely elementary. You don't need a manual, but I gave it a look anyway.This dehydrator is quiet in operation, heats quickly, moves a significant amount of air (critical in proper dehydration), and is built with quality materials by a trusted and reliable brand. This is my go-to from here on out. No more searching for "the best".Some might say, "only 4-trays"... well, you can only release so much vapor over a certain surface area without creating a sauna. This is the perfect ratio to get swift and through dehydration without a puddle on your countertop or peeling the paint in your kitchen with untold humidity. Trust me when I say, this machine has an optimal capacity with great uniformity. It will produce superior results, with faster drying times than those 8-12 tray cabinet-hogging monsters. Again, THIS is the dehydrator you've been searching for.Two minor things of note:1.) There's a plastic-ish odor that emanates from the machine upon initial startup, and for the first 30 minutes of operation. Not unlike many small appliances, it'll dissipate with use... (think, new toaster). I washed, then ran mine for about 40 minutes (on high) before loading my first batch of food. Nothing to be concerned with.2.) According to the user manual, NO PART of this machine is dishwasher safe. In my experience, this is par for the course, but it's my least favorite part about dehydrating food. I've never owned a dehydrator which was safe for the dishwasher. I highly recommend using ONLY the soft side of a sponge... because scratches to the smooth surfaces create opportunity for food to adhere as it drys. Thus, don't use abrasives of any kind. Soak in warm water, and use a soft (vegetable or tooth) brush should the need arise.Last tip: Roasted Hatch Green Chilies (pureed), fresh crushed garlic, lean flank steak (cut with the grain, about 1/4" thick) and Himalayan Pink Salt (has a small amount of naturally occurring curing agents) makes some MIGHTY FINE jerky. Marinade for 3 days, then process. If you want smoke flavor, go-easy, and ONLY use Stubb's Brand liquid smoke (mesquite) for this recipe.Go ahead, click that "Helpful" button below if you enjoyed this review. (Have your friends and family do the same, if they like the results.) Cheers!

[Pros: Compact, Digital controls, glass over door style, Timer, intermediate time and temp options Cons: Blower fan is loud, an adequate but not entirely informative starter guide]The Weston Digital Food Dehydrator was a definite step up for us. I’ve used and destroyed three sets of NESCO Dehydrator units in the last three decades. They were, and are, simple sturdy and very cheap systems. I will tell you that I used them hard, produced a lot of dried fruit, fruit strap, vegetables, and even jerky. But when the last one died I was told we were going to upgrade to something better. This unit is a lot better. With the cheap ones I used to use it was kind of a two day long process. First there was clean and prep of the produce, stacking the trays, setting the fan and placing the entire thing someplace where I wasn’t worried about the heat or the noise – out on a screened deck or in a garage. Then there was the regular opening of the layers to see how they were drying. It was something that you added to a weekend when you knew you were going to be up cooking, canning and working in the garden. But it was always hard to justify getting it out for small batches of produce that you would have.The Weston solves all of those issues. The oven style layering with the dryer fan sitting behind the trays – not above – results in a more uniform drying. The digital temp settings allows you to fine tune your dehydration a bit more than a four phase switch. The digital timer is WONDERFUL! I know most of the ones in this general price class have it, but you need to know if you are still using the cheaper ones – NESCO entry point consumer grade etc – you are chasing pennies and losing dollars. With the Weston I just set the time, I can peek in at the trays through the glass and not lose anytime. With small batches you can set up quickly and clean up quickly. A good sized unit with a relatively small counter space footprint. The only downside is that I feel I must keep it in the house and the fan is loud. About the volume of a bathroom fan. Which isn’t terrible, but if you leave it on at nigh – which I do - you may want to do so somewhere that you can shut a door on it.I’ve given it about a month’s use – with a break for a hurricane – and I can say it handles everything wonderfully. The sheets – which are a food grade nylon/plastic – don’t bend or flex and have a good design to maximize surface area of the food while giving proper support. I’ve also used it as a warming station for fermentations - Yogurt and Milk Kefir – and it has worked well in that capacity.There are better and correspondingly more expensive unit available. Were we running a market garden or anything larger than our immediate basic needs we would move up further and look at the taller cabinet units and maybe even focus on stainless steel trays. But given our needs and this units ability to do what it is doing I believe it is a great fit for us.The only other note is that the old systems I used (NESCO) has a more substantive book/recipe guide. Perhaps that is because it is assumed that anyone buying at this price is already experienced with dehydrating and all the associated prep. If you aren’t already familiar with dehydrating food you will find some information in the provided book with this unit, but you will want to consider getting some more reading material so that you can get the best you can out of this unit.