Excalibur EPD60W EZDRY Review

Every day thousands of new customers decide that it’s time for them to finally enter the exciting world of food dehydration. Food trends may come and go, but dehydration is a nutritional and preservational gift from the food gods that will outlast us all. It’s easy to see why people are constantly making the leap into dehydrating their own culinary treats at home. However, the biggest challenge that any potential customer must face before entering this exciting world is choosing their first dehydrator. There are so many options available. So many machines with so many strengths. How could anyone possibly choose? Well, fortunately there is one company that makes it easy.

Whether you need a sword that will give you mystical rites over a kingdom or one of the finest food dehydrators on the market, always choose Excalibur. The name is appropriate. This company is known for producing food dehydrators that people dream and fantasize about. The Excalibur EPD60W EZDRY Food Dehydrator is no exception. However, this is a more cost effective and stripped down option from Excalibur. It might not offer the bells, whistles, and sleek aesthetics of the company’s most luxurious dehydrators, but the machine works like a charm for a very impressive price. That makes it an ideal first dehydrator for anyone looking to make the leap into this exciting food world. So, why does the Excalibur EPD60w EZDRY deserve such hype? Keep scrolling through this review and all of the answers will be revealed!

Product Description

First of all, you can expect this machine to do so much work for you. This Excalibur unit contains 6 trays, so it will always dry a substantial amount of food at once. Thankfully, it’s also designed not to buckle under the pressure of large scale dehydration sessions. Its open airflow design allows the heat to be distributed evenly, so you will never experience parts of your food dehydrating and others not. Despite those impressive specs, the price is also right. This machine will cost you about $40, which is on the cheaper end of food dehydrators.

One other notable feature is the clear lid on top of the Excalibur. This allows users to monitor their food while it is drying. This allows you to monitor the process and dehydrate to your preference—without any unwelcome surprises at the end of a session.

First Impressions

I have to admit that I was taken aback by the sheer size of this unit when I took it out of the box. At 480 square inches, this machine may not be right for anyone working in cramped kitchens or small apartments. It is a serious dehydrator for serious foodies. Thankfully despite it’s scale, the unit seemed to be well-packaged and was shipped to me without any issues.

I also noticed that the trays seemed rather small, which sort of defeats the purpose of having 6 trays, in my opinion. Worse yet, there were dividers within the trays. I was concerned about how much more difficult that would make drying large amounts of food. Of course, these were all just fleeting early observations.

Function

While I was generally quite impressed by this machine, it is worth noting that this machine gets rather warm while it’s dehydrating. How warm? We’re talking “leave the room” levels of warm here. Then when I looked at the specifications, I wasn’t surprised. This machine runs on 350 watts of electricity! If you have a large, open kitchen you probably won’t notice. But this will heat up a room quite quickly if you have a small kitchen or apartment.

I decided to test out this unit by drying out some bananas to make banana chips. I sliced them up, stuck them in, and came back seven hours later to find them completely dehydrated. Hooray, it works! Since then, I’ve used it on apples and jerky and it has yet to give me any problems. While this might be a large machine that generates a lot of heat, there’s no denying that it still dehydrates like a champ. While I was taken aback at first, the design issues at least don’t affect the machine’s functionality. This is an impressive dehydrator that gets the job done. It’s just also a machine that won’t fit into every kitchen. And as for those divided trays that had me worried? They actually held quite large quantities of food and dehydrated it all evenly and effectively. Sure, the trays can be a bit of a hassle to clean, but they’re dishwasher safe. So that’s an easy fix as long as you have a dishwasher handy.

Final Verdict

The Excalibur EPD60W EZDRY definitely isn’t the most luxurious food dehydrator on the market, but if you’re looking for a cheaper option, this can fit your needs well. Of course, that’s assuming you have a way to deal with the heat, because boy does this thing get hot! Then there are the trays. I can appreciate Excalibur trying to make it easier to organize things on the trays, but it does make the process a little trickier for large batches. Still, this isn’t the biggest obstacle. I recognize that I’m being a bit nitpicky here. Certainly there are more luxurious Excalibur machines out there that don’t have this problem. This is a bargain-priced, entry level dehydrator.

There’s no denying that despite my minor quibbles with some of the design choices, this is an impressive dehydrator that does what it is supposed to. It dries out your food evenly and leaves it ready to be stored. For $40, you definitely get your money’s worth for this product, just not more. This isn’t a machine designed for dehydration experts looking to push the unit to its limits. Nope, this is an ideal dehydrator for someone who is just starting to dry their food and doesn’t want to commit too much financially. There are certainly better models on the market for the veterans, especially under the Excalibur brand. However, for anyone looking to dip their toes into the wonderful pond of food dehydration, the Excalibur EPD60W EZDRY is a strong entry level model that is sold at a very impressive price.