Ivation 6 Tray Food Dehydrator

I recommend you purchase one of the Ivation brand dehydrators. It’s sleek look will complement most any kitchen. My spouse and I originally purchased ours to dehydrate vegetables and herbs we grow in our garden and it works great for that. For spices/herbs you can put them on the highest temp setting for 4 hours then use an herb stripper on Rosemary for example and place it in a food processor, mince, and vacuum seal it them 4 oz. mason jars using a Foodsaver and a jar sealer. Later on thinking about kindness not just to myself but to all others I starting thinking about my consumption of dairy products and how I could do my best to lower it without suffering. I am a vegetarian for ethical reasons but do consume some dairy products. One of them is yogurt. Non-fat Greek yogurt makes an excellent substitute for sour cream in a dip or on a Boston style vegetarian chili. Well you can make Greek Yogurt using a Ivation dehydrator-the setting is 8 hours on 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Guess what? You can even use it as a seed starter on the lower temperature setting. Plant some seeds, and place the pots in the Ivation dehydrator on the low setting and take them out and mist them daily, keeping them moist. Why did I start making yogurt? See, I kept thinking about the cows. Do cows really like to be milked? Do cows have great living conditions? Do these dairy cows have male spouses (bulls) that they get along with or are they forced to be with other females? Were they forced to breed (raped and impregnated) just to have them produce milk? This upset me so much I decided to switch from drinking organic non-fat milk to organic soy milk. I went through a lot of soy milk containers before I realized that perhaps trees were cut down to make them. Fortunately, I found a workable solution in the form of the GJS Soy Milk Maker available on Amazon. This wonderful device not only makes soy, rice and almond milk but also makes all sorts of things, including tofu-if you get a tofu press. I have even taken fresh tomatoes and made pasta sauce in mine. It comes with just about everything you need to get started, a strainer, and two things to clean the machine with. It also has a self clean function in case you left it sit a long time. You just need to get some 64 ounce Mason jars, Organic Soy Beans from Bob’s Red Mill –available on the Bob’s Red Mill Site, and a Rocco Bormioli funnel (available on Amazon,) a Foodsaver 4980 as well as several large mouth jar sealers, (so if they are dirty and in the dishwasher you always have a clean one handy.) That’s it. You can reseal the Bob’s Red Mill bags with the Foodsaver sealer function and keep them in the refrigerator. Batch up some soy milk then vacuum seal it with the Foodsaver, but if you pour it in the jars right away it is hot enough they will vacuum seal on their own. Before I got Mason jars we were using large glass spaghetti sauce jars and the lids always popped when we opened them. The advantage of the vacuum sealer is you can vacuum seal it after each use so that the soy milk no longer has a short shelf date. It is like you just popped open a fresh box each time you pop open your jar thereby guaranteeing the freshest soy milk ever. UPDATE 12/3/18-several years after using my dehydrator I got so overwhelmed trying to keep up with my yogurt needs I had to admit I could not do it. The small batches of soymilk and the resulting amount of Greek yogurt it produced and the long hours involved were too much. I eat a lot of Greek yogurt and use it as a butter substitute, a cream sauce base, in smoothies, in cheese sauces, in cakes, soups, etc. I am a vegetarian and eat very healthy so I had to go back to purchasing Organic Greek Yogurt, though I still use my dehydrator for making many other things. I look forward to when store bought Greek Yogurt is also available from organic soybeans. I use my yogurt makers for other things also and still make my own soymilk and nut milk rather than drinking dairy. I am certain those that just have a small amount of yogurt for lunch each day or something like that may find dehydrators great for making yogurt, especially if they do not make as many homemade foods as I. THE LATEST AMAZING THING I DISCOVERED IVATION DEHYDRATORS ARE GREAT FOR: I also make fantastic and delicious homemade Mustard Green Chips in just 4 hours. I think these are tastier than kale chips. I grow my own Mustard Greens (very quick growing,) and spray them with extra virgin olive oil and rub some salt on them. Then I place them in the dehydrator for four hours on the highest temperature (158 degrees Fahrenheit.) Easy recipe. MY VEGETARIAN 'TASTES JUST LIKE MEAT JERKY RECIPE': Spray trays with canola oil. Slice one package of vegetarian Smart Dogs VERY THIN, (I slice mine in my deli slicer wearing protective gloves,) coat generously with Sweet and Sour sauce then dehydrate at 158 degrees Fahrenheit for 4-6 hours (depending on how you like the texture of your jerky. Soak the trays in a solution of citric acid and water, then scrub them quickly with a chainmail type scrubber before placing trays the dishwasher. (I found this out after having a tough time cleaning the trays after making veggie jerky. Citric acid and chainmail scrubbers work great!-Julie Sands

Bought this out of my own pocket, so this isn't a Vine review. We wanted a counter top tray type dehydrator that could provide fan driven even heat to make beef jerky and this Ivation Electric Countertop model fits the bill. 6 trays can hold 4 to 5 lbs of meat cut at about 1/8 inch thick (yes we like our beef jerky thicker than the usual blade thin variety). You always do jerky at the highest heat your dehydrator will allow to avoid bacterial growth during the curing process. The Ivation will maintain 158 degrees farenheit and at that temperature our beef jerky after a night of wallowing in my secret marinade took just under 8 hours to properly dry and come out nice and chewy. This unit will dry from 95 degrees to 158 and the fan in the back of the unit puts the air out over all six trays at an even pace. The trays are evenly spaced and they have enough height to do larger cuts of veggies and fruits. The basic unit is plastic as are the trays. Cleaning required soaking the trays overnight in the sink, but no biggie since the marinade and drippings get into all those little corners and nooks that I don't feel like scrubbing with a brush, so an overnight soak starting in hot soapy water and everthing comes right off next morning. The controls are digital and on the top front. There is a vent on the top that works well. The square trays actually allow you to place more food on the trays than the round trays like in the one I had before this. The whole unit is very light weight which works out when you have it loaded with food. It's not too heavy to lift the entire unit when full. I'm very happy with it and I think it'll last awhile, but if not, I'll come back and downgrade the rating right away. For now I heartily recommend.

Love my dehydrator!! Hands down one of the best purchases I have made for my cookie business! Has cut my drying time so much with this gem! The quality of this unit is incredible. It is a lot more quiet than I expected from one this size and consumes virtually no power. It is super easy to use right out of the box and I was able to begin using it from day one! So thankful I decided to purchase. Best decision and such a smart investment as it is really such a time saver!

It works pretty well. I don't know if I like the automatic shut-off yet. If my food isn't dry and I'm not in the same room, I don't like how it shuts off and cools down (and then the humidity rises on the inside of the unit, subsequently being somewhat reabsorbed into the food), then it takes a while to heat back up and dry them back out. But that isn't a terrible deal as I can just add a bunch more time before I left the area. The one thing I do NOT like about it is that the temps are "preset" and doesn't allow for changing. What I mean is that, even though it says temp range of 90-158, there are preset temps within that range, so if your recipe calls for a specific temp, you may or may not be able to attain that (some may be close, but some may be 8 Degrees off). Other than that, I will say that the product does work and works well. I made some banana chips and apple chips the other day and it did the job. But it struggled on my hot peppers. It has way longer than the recipe/instructions that I found said it would. Next time I will prep them more and cut them up as opposed to drying whole. Anyway, it is a good unit and worth the price. Even though there are a couple things I would change, I would recommend this to others.

Very Light Weight and Quiet. The day after receiving I made Chicken Strips for my grand pup by soaking thinly sliced chicken in apple cider vinegar for 10 mins to help it attain a golden colour then seasoned chicken with a sprinkle of turmeric & fresh parsley (less is more). Spread onto a parchment lined baking sheet and baked in oven at 275F for 15 min (internal temp of chicken should be 165F). This kills all the bacteria. Then transferred the chicken onto silicone lined dehydrator trays and put in dehydrator for 6hr at 158F. The dehydrator is VERY quiet. Kind of like white noise. We measured the decibels it was 49-50 decibels. Love how quiet it is!!! While the dehydrator is on I can put and leave my hand on the sides, top and front door, it’s hot but not enough to burn you. Make sure you read the instructions prior to first use that you only need to do once. There are some steps for washing trays and door. Then insert trays back into dehydrator close door and turn on to the 158F (highest temp) for 30 mins. This burns out any smell or smoke. We only noticed a slight smell when it was first turned on that went away after 5 minutes. After the 30 minutes wash trays again, then you are ready to use. Very light to carry and looks gorgeous.

my little woman wanted to this as one of her bday gifts because she wanted to attempt making spicy beef jerky, and while these are pretty basic machines this one worked exactly how it's suposed to easy to set time, and temps, lots of light trays it did what it was ment for so i'm happy with it, if i had to find one complaint i think the little drip tray on bottom needs to be a lil better shaped but it still worked just a lil off. so thanks for item, definilty recomend it if anyone wants to ... well dehydrate lol

Used for vegetables and spices so far have been quite pleased with ease of use and results would buy again if ever needed !

Gets the job done but takes forever

Love this dehydrator. Can fit lots of herbs in and dries them quickly.