Presto 06300 Dehydro Electric

Coming from a family of beef jerky lovers, dehydrated foods were always on the cards. Trouble arose when I could not find the time to lay out the foods in the sun for natural drying. Not being accustomed to using any dehydrator, I took recourse to friends’ opinions and food dehydrator reviews. While options were many, the fact that I often had to travel meant that I could not go in for anything that was bulky. Thus, my options were reduced to one—the Presto 06300 Dehydro Electric. However, I am happy to say that my lack of options proved to be a boon in disguise. Having used the product for over a year and purchased two more for convenience, I will share my experiences regarding the great, and a single less than great, features of the dehydrator. So, keep reading, because at the end of this review you’re liking to bring out your card and place an order for yourself.

Good Capacity

The Presto 06300 Dehydro Electric comes equipped with 4 trays for dehydrating foods. While it’s not a lot of drying capacity, and definitely not enough for commercial purposes, it is good enough to meet the needs of a small family. It’s especially enough if you’re just starting out on your food dehydration journey and are more in experimental phase than a hardcore dried food enthusiast. Of course, should you evolve to that level, you can expand the trays to 8. The double capacity should be more than enough for your new adventures. You can also buy additional fruit roll sheets, non-stick mesh screens, jerky seasoning, and jerky gun should you want to broaden your horizons further and try your hands dehydrating purees and meats.

Extremely Light and Portable

Weighing just 7.2 pounds, the Presto 06300 Dehydro Electric ensures that I can take the product even when I’m travelling by air. Further improving the dimensional dynamics is the provision for storing the power cord inside the base. Last but not least, the drying trays stack up on each other in a nested fashion when not in use, thereby reducing the height of the product considerably and making it easy to store. While this seems particularly alluring to me because I travel, I’m sure its a good feature to have even if you’re someone who wants to permanently place this dehydrator on your kitchen shelf, or for that matter, store it in one of your kitchen cabinets.

See-Through Cover

The cover is made of durable transparent polycarbonate that allows the user to view the dehydration process inside. Keeping the more heat sensitive foodstuffs at the top, I could monitor the drying without removing the cover again and again without releasing the heat. If you like to stay on top of your culinary adventures with close monitoring, you too will appreciate this benefit.

Bottom Mounted Powerful Fan and Heating Element

Following the more traditional bottom mounted fan design, the product nevertheless manages to heat all racks equally courtesy of Presto’s extremely compact design and the wide range of temperature that the heating element is capable of producing. This implies that rack/tray rotation when using stackable type food dehydrators is not necessary.

Excellent Wattage Offered with Immersible Racks

Though compact and small, the Presto 06300 Dehydro Electric comes with a 600-watts power setup. This power setup allows the product to handle extremely moist or thick products with relative ease.

Ease of Operation

This dehydrator is not complicated to use at all. Plus it also has a power light that switches on once you’ve plugged it in to indicate that the machine is now dehydrating your food.

Easy to Clean

Last but not least, the product comes with parts that are for the most part dishwasher safe, thus saving you the trouble of cleaning the racks, etc. by hand. If you stay away from other-than-usual kitchen appliances because you worry about the clean up, you’ll find that this dehydrator isn’t one of those complicated machines to clean. Even the parts that aren’t dishwasher safe and easy be cleaned with warm soapy water. It’s truly that simple!

One small problem

Being an entry level food dehydrator, the Presto 06300 Dehydro Electric does not come with a temperature or time control. While most drying typically occurs in a mean temperature range of 160°, knowing the exact metrics could help avoid over-dried foods to a great extent. Similarly, the availability of a timer could give greater flexibility during night time or Sunday afternoon when one does not want to monitor the dehydrator at regular intervals. I for one, sure don’t.

Another thing to note is that this food dehydrator has a 1 year limited warranty. While it’s not the best out there (some go up to 10 years), it’s also not the worst, and since the quality of this machine is pretty good, the limited warranty time did not concern me much.

Conclusion

The food dehydrator reviews that I had read prior to making the purchase of the Presto 06300 Dehydro Electric Food Dehydrator suggested that the dehydrator combined portability and efficiency in equal measure. Despite not having the somewhat important temperature and time controllers, the product manages to produce large quantities of beef jerky, apple crisps, and kale chips. that are delicious. Hence, if you are regularly shifting home, have a really small house, or would like to carry your dehydrator with you, this product from Presto can easily be one of your favourite travel mates.