Excalibur 9-Tray Dehydrator with Timer, White

This is a review of the Excalibur 3926TW (W for White) 9-tray dehydrator with timer, which I bought for my wife last Christmas (2013). When my wife borrowed a main-stream Nesco brand round-style dehydrator from a co-worker to "test drive" a few months ago, I started researching brands and models, because she was very excited about drying the herbs she grows in a small side garden every year, not to mention all of the fruits and veggies from our back yard. Also, both of my daughters love beef jerky (as do I), but they can't afford it in the quantity they eat it in (nor can I, for them!) - that stuff is $$$! Anyway, the Nesco would have worked fine for spices, but even though it was one of their larger models with many trays, it had way too little "total area" in which to dry decent sized batches of fruits, vegetable or jerky. So, of course, I decided on the Excalibur brand after a lot of research because (as you will certainly find, if you do the same) it is simply in a whole other league than any of the mainstream brands. Moreover, it is very competitive with (and better than most) commercial brands out there at a far less price. Speaking of price (and it is pricey), it is definitely one of those "you get what you pay for" products. High quality, solid construction and a huge amount of space for drying. I went with the white because I thought my wife would prefer it and also because for some reason it is a few dollars less than in black of the same model. Furthermore I purchased it through Amazon because it was $45 less expensive than buying it directly from the Excalibur website, so I paid about $250 (Excalibur does offer free shipping on their site, but I am a Amazon Prime member, so shipping was not a factor in the price). A very important fact to know: it is warranted (at least this model is) for a FULL 10 YEARS if you purchase it directly from Excalibur, whereas only half of that term (5 years) if you buy it from a third party like Amazon. So you will need to make the hard decision (like I did) as to whether it is worth losing a half of a decade of security against the failure of the unit in return for saving about 50 bucks. In the end, I figured that if they where willing to provide customers with 10 years worth of warranty for only $45, then they are pretty confident that most of their units will last at least that long. I would have loved to have purchased one of the stainless steel models (with stainless steel trays) or perhaps a copper models. If I had decided to do so, I would have definitely went with the longer warranty since those models cost a lot more (about twice as much for the SS w/SS trays and $150 more for the copper) and because the percentage of the total price for the "extra warranty" to be included would have been much less overall (about 10% vice 20%). Of course, you must be sure to register your purchase via their website to activate the warranty. The noise level that this unit produces is exactly what I would have expected from any dehydrator and is at the same level of the much, much smaller Nesco. Its about a loud as a fairly quiet bathroom exhaust fan - totally expected from a device that works by blowing hot air over stuff. I can see how it might be annoying if you are using it while you are in the kitchen for a long time. That reminds me of a better analogy... it is about half as quiet as our 1200w Sharp Carousel microwave oven, but microwaves are ran for relatively short periods of time. Although we could easily tolerate the noise if it were used in the kitchen (especially since we usually set it for operation overnight), we have no such concerns because we have it in our study due to the fact that it is not used frequently enough to justify a permanent place on the counter. That reminds me of another point, it is about the size if a large microwave oven. That's definitely a plus in my book, because that is why it can dehydrate such large quantities of stuff with each batch. Conversely it is pretty light in weight, so would be a good candidate for stowage between usage if you have enough space under a counter. On a quality note, the thickness of the plastic walls are about three times that of the Nesco's walls, but seem to me in rigidity and "solidness" to be about 10 times as thick! I don't know if this has to do with the quality of plastic or just because of the properties inherent due to the triple-increased thickness, but it is great. I have done several batches of jerky and am very excited... I must say, it's the best that I have ever tasted (especially when still warm!) and a lot less expensive. The crazy thing is that each batch is done in only about 4 1/2 hours, which is far less time than I would have thought it would take, especially since I have a hard time keeping the thickness of the meat slices to 3/16 of an inch... most of mine are at least 1/4 of an inch thick each (if not more), but the results are superb. Since it is of course still winter here in North Texas, we have only dried one batch of late growing oregano, also with excellent results (my wife chastised me when I crushed a dehydrated leaf cluster to give it the smell test)... apparently you are not supposed to crush the whole leaves of dried spices until you are just about to use them. Who knew?!? All of the little jars in the store are definitely "pre-crushed". Make sense though, to maximize the flavor, huh? Another reason to dry your own. In summary, I do not think that you will have any regrets whatsoever, at all, period, if you buy an Excalibur dehydrator, unless you opt for one that has no timer, because if you are like me (and can burn water while trying to cook something) it will only be a matter of time before you forget that you have something dehydrating only to find that whatever it was before has been transformed into weird looking rocks! Hope this helps, Joe Mac