Ronco Food Dehydrator, Yogurt Maker and Beef Jerky Machine

Ronco Food Dehydrator, Yogurt Maker and Beef Jerky Machine

Gardener's friend
If you garden and raise fruit of any kind, this is a useful device. It's also good if you have kids. Here's why:

You can take apples, peaches, strawberries or other fruits and make candy-like healthy snacks. It's a nice alternative to canning, which uses a lot of sugar. So you can preserve your crop rather easily. All you need to do is slice the peeled or unpeeled fruit. To prevent browning due to an enzymatic reaction, you can dip each slice into a solution of ascorbic acid (available at the pharmacy) or in lemon juice. You can also make yogurt in this, using the gentle heat as the incubator to keep the milk with yogurt starter warm in jars overnight.

The trays feel a bit flimsy; this is a lightweight device and it is a bit large. So you'll probably have to find a place to pack it away unless you have a lot of counter space and use it all the time.

Inferior product
Executive summary: spend ten dollars more and get the Snackmaster model instead. I've got a Snackmaster FD-50 that I bought a year or so ago, and more recently my sister picked up a Ronco FD5, so I've had a chance to compare the two, side-by-side. Buy the FD-50, not the FD5. Details follow.

First, the Ronco FD5 is slower. It takes up to twice as long to dry food as the Snackmaster. This may not seem like a big deal, but it's the difference between being able to dry three batches of apple slices in a single day off, versus only one batch.

Second, and more important, the Ronco FD5 does not dry evenly. This is probably because it doesn't have a fan, but it's very annoying. For one thing, it means you need to rotate trays. Regularly. It's no good to set the thing going and then go do other things for four hours; you have to stay close enough that you can monitor it and rotate the trays every hour or so; otherwise the bottom trays get dry, and the top ones...

Great Dehydrator
A nice inexpensive dehydrator great for those of you on a budget, in school, or just a newbie to dehydrating. I have owned one for at least 3 yrs and love it. However, after these wonderful yrs of daily or weekly consistent use, the trays have now begun to break up. My only drawback is that cost of the replacement trays are looking to cost as much as the actual dehydrator. So now, I am wondering do I buy a different one.

I like the Ronco dehydrator because it makes jerky fast. You don't need to use preservatives when making pet treat jerky as long as you properly dehydrator the food. It is a silent easy to learn dehydrator.

The only real pain was rotating and switching the trays other than that it pretty much runs itself. You can safely run it 24/7 and you not overly worry about something going wrong in the household.

I recommend this product to everyone. Once you get experienced with dehydrating and wear it out. Easily replace it like I am going to do with the same brand or...

As Seen On TV, the deluxe 5-tray electric Ronco Food Dehydrator is also a yogurt maker and beef jerky machine. No fan or motor is used; instead silent, powerful convection airflow dehydrates food. Includes a food dehydrator recipe book. No. 1876. Made in USA. 10-1/2Hx12-3/4Wx12-3/4D".This Ronco dehydrator dries everything from fruits and vegetables to meats and seafood to flowers and herbs to flour-and-water dough for crafts. It makes beef jerky (and other jerkies) and, with the aid of a little unpasturized yogurt as a starter, it also makes yogurt. This 5-tray model is a medium-size convection-air dehydrator, as opposed to the 10- and 15-tray models that use motorized fans, and runs silently. It can take a day or two to dry apple slices, which may be longer than a motorized-fan unit. Up to five trays can be stacked on the base, and then the unit plugs into a wall socket. The included trays are 12-1/2 inches in diameter, the unit is 12-3/4 inches high, and instruction/recipe booklets come with it. For fruit rollups and dried herbs and flowers, special trays and screens can be ordered separately. --Fred Brack

• Dehydrates foods for snacks, camping, hiking
• Operates silently with convection air flow; no motorized fan
• Includes five trays for drying fruits, vegetables, jerky
• Fruit rollup trays and herb/flower screens sold separately
• Makes yogurt in eight hours