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Rahz
Alive Again
Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,285
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In the market for a dehydrator - advice
#8933457 - 09/15/08 01:33 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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So my old Snackmaster died on me. I had a full tray of shrooms and another batch waiting. I check Target, and they have none in stock, though they are listed on the website. I bow my head and go to Walmart. They have one Nesco model, $35 bucks. I think to myself, it's probably cheap, but what the heck, it's just an element and a fan right?
The unit weighed about 5 lbs. The plastic was flimsy. The element is now located on the top, and regardless of efficiency, it certainly allows them to minimize the material used. I bring it home, load up the trays and turn it on. 20 minutes later, it's dead!
So I get my money back, and start looking around online. Nesco makes several other models, the Snackmaster Pro (about $80) and the Gardenmaster Pro (just over $100). Both have variable temp control, but I've got to ask myself, if their lower model is now a cheap piece of junk, what am I going to get for more money? Another unit I'm curious about is the Excalibur 2900, which runs just over $200. Price isn't that big a deal, I just want something that's half decent and won't die on me in short order.
So, if you've got a recently purchased Nesco dehydrator, or an Excalibur dehydrator, I'm very curious about how they perform. Any other brands? Help me out please!
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." - Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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Damion5050
Mush Doctor
Registered: 05/01/08
Posts: 12,493
Loc: Lost In Translation !
Last seen: 3 years, 1 month
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: Rahz]
#8933473 - 09/15/08 01:36 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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Rahz
Alive Again
Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,285
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: Damion5050]
#8933485 - 09/15/08 01:39 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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So the Snackmaster Pro is still quality?
That's good to know.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." - Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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noobieshroomie
Back again
Registered: 07/18/08
Posts: 12,769
Loc: Not Too Sure
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: Damion5050]
#8933488 - 09/15/08 01:39 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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take your old racks turn a fan so it blows up stick the racks on it ,thats what i do works great for me but thats my opinon
-------------------- AMU Best Thread Ever CapZilla said: not sure what GE and FAE are but i should probably get some. Citric said: Your signature is wrong on colonization temps! GOOD JUDGMENT COMES FROM EXPERIENCE EXPERIENCE COMES FROM BAD JUDGMENT ROOM TEMP 70-75 IS BEST FOR COLONIZATION Thank you mycochef
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Rahz
Alive Again
Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,285
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: noobieshroomie]
#8933509 - 09/15/08 01:45 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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I was just sitting here devising a plan to hold me over. I was thinking fan + cardboard box.
Thanks for the tip.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." - Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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ar393
old timer
Registered: 01/26/00
Posts: 702
Loc: VT
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: Rahz]
#8933738 - 09/15/08 02:31 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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the FD-60/61/70 from Nesco are all good IMHO (I have abused a FD60 for a long time and it continues to work for me)
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Boris
Viking Warrior, of Valour
Registered: 08/28/08
Posts: 2,225
Loc: TX.
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: ar393]
#8933756 - 09/15/08 02:36 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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I got the one from Wal-mart you said died on you. Use it allot (Not just on shrooms) and its still working for me. Perhaps you just got a rare bad one... ? <Shrug>
-------------------- AMU Terence McKenna Said: "We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world."
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FUPAking
Stranger
Registered: 09/12/08
Posts: 28
Last seen: 15 years, 3 months
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: Boris]
#8933785 - 09/15/08 02:44 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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Dont dehydrators take away the potency?
-The King of Fupa
Edited by FUPAking (09/15/08 02:44 PM)
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Rahz
Alive Again
Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,285
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: FUPAking]
#8933850 - 09/15/08 02:56 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
FUPAking said: Dont dehydrators take away the potency?
-The King of Fupa
That was conventional wisdom at one time, but a lot of people have questioned it. Mushroom tea is boiled at 212 and is still potent. I measured temps in my old dehydrator at 150F, and it didn't produce weak shrooms. Still, I would guess that heat has some effect accelerating the breakdown process, though not as pronounced as people once believed.
I just ordered the Snackmaster Pro, with a variable thermostat. I'll keep temps down since I can.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." - Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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misos
A wandering soul
Registered: 03/23/06
Posts: 2,014
Loc: Elsewhere.
Last seen: 12 years, 10 months
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: Rahz]
#8933907 - 09/15/08 03:09 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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Just use a fan. I get mine CRACKER dry in a couple days.A dehydrator is nice, but not worth the money when I have free air movement.
-------------------- "If I had a single wish, I would have every single human on this planet see this natural world the way I see it; the beauty in such simple things such as a fallen tree that is covered in moss and that has new trees growing from it. To some, fallen trees are ugly. But in reality, it is the circle of life at its finest. This is a beautiful world, its time that we recognize that before its all gone."
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The Cake Guy
Bad Ass
Registered: 09/05/08
Posts: 44
Loc: WHERE IN THE WORLD IS THE...
Last seen: 15 years, 4 months
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: misos]
#8934023 - 09/15/08 03:29 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
That was conventional wisdom at one time, but a lot of people have questioned it. Mushroom tea is boiled at 212 and is still potent. I measured temps in my old dehydrator at 150F, and it didn't produce weak shrooms. Still, I would guess that heat has some effect accelerating the breakdown process, though not as pronounced as people once believed.
I just ordered the Snackmaster Pro, with a variable thermostat. I'll keep temps down since I can.
Where did you get it and how much was it?? Also how many trays does it hold? If you would post how it works for you once you do use it I would appreciate it.
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CosmicFunGuy
ॐconsciousnessॐ
Registered: 06/08/06
Posts: 2,127
Loc: ∞
Last seen: 1 year, 3 months
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: Rahz]
#8934366 - 09/15/08 04:25 PM (15 years, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
Rahz said:
Quote:
FUPAking said: Dont dehydrators take away the potency?
-The King of Fupa
That was conventional wisdom at one time, but a lot of people have questioned it. Mushroom tea is boiled at 212 and is still potent. I measured temps in my old dehydrator at 150F, and it didn't produce weak shrooms. Still, I would guess that heat has some effect accelerating the breakdown process, though not as pronounced as people once believed.
I just ordered the Snackmaster Pro, with a variable thermostat. I'll keep temps down since I can.
EDIT: i'm retarded i never read the original question. just posted a pro-dehydrator usage rant.... now that i have read the actual question at hand... i have no experience with other brands, but a friend recently bought a brand new nesco probably 2 months ago and it's been getting some solid usage without hangups. i think you just got a random dud.
Quote:
my original reply:
been using nescos for 2 years now, since i started mine has since grown to handle 24 trays with both top and bottom units. the old models had the fan and temp control on bottom, while most of the newer ones are on top. both have a 12 tray capacity. with mine however, i do 24 trays stacked between the two and set it in a corner on an old milk crate. I did cut slits in the side of a few trays to have a vent for the hot air to escape as with the bottom controlled units the top has a vent and vice versa for the top controlled ones. i obviously adjust the size according to the harvest. I always keep both controls at 95 degrees. my setup is rather large and impractical for most, but a single 4 tray nesco works just as well... it's what convinced me on how well they work.
I can't come close to listing everything my dehydrator is used for to show you how often it's used, but just for an idea of how frequently mine gets used....
i use my dehydrator for things like peppers from my garden. Herbs from my garden and the wild work great with a few exceptions. I dry extra morels that i can't eat in the spring. Trametes versicolor (turkey tail) I dehydrate, grind and save for teas. With all 24 trays packed to the brim with psilocybin containing mushrooms ( I've tried with cubes, pan subbs, pan cyans, psi cyans, azures, and caerulipes) it'll dry the load cracker dry in 36-48 hours (a little longer if you have some monsters). each tray holds about 300 grams wet (usually about a dry oz, with the exception of the big ones) making mine easily capable of drying a lb and a half every 2 days (more if i condense them once they've dried for a day and shrunk a little.) obviously you'd be crazy to need this kind of constant capabilities for cubes. but there has been a few times i've filled it with unexpected suprises that have kindly supplied me with abundance, giving me more time to focus on my gardens, edibles and exotics.
it works great never noticed a difference in potency, not even between the same isolations compared between the dehydrator, desiccant drying and old fashioned room temperature fan drying on a screen or flat surface. this was determined with many uses, by a select group of experienced psychonauts.
as i've said both units i've purchased used and have been used extremely heavily, yet they work great. i do take the dehydrator units apart every month or so and clean it with some electronic duster as it gathers a ton of dust.
my advice - try it for yourself, if you dislike it or stop growing sell me the dehydrator for super cheap
-------------------- ♫ ♪ In the garden of many fields, there is no me or you. There is no right or wrong. There is no up or down. There is no black or white. Everyone is the plow man. Everyone is the seed. Everyone harvests and everyone yields. In the garden of many fields, everyone is one with one love and one love is one with everyone. ♪ ♫ lyrics from: Transglobal Underground - Eyeway Souljah (from Psychic Karaoke)
Edited by CosmicFunGuy (09/15/08 04:33 PM)
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Rahz
Alive Again
Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,285
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Re: In the market for a dehydrator - advice [Re: CosmicFunGuy]
#8967792 - 09/22/08 11:33 AM (15 years, 5 months ago) |
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OK, so I bought the Snackmaster Pro and it just arrived.
They trays from the old unit still fit perfectly. I also bought 2 regular trays, and two "detachable" trays, so now I've got 13 trays! The detachable trays, the mesh can be removed from the ring, so those monster shrooms could be dehydrated without popping the caps off.
Anyway, the unit looks solid, the trays are built well, motor unit is heavy. Temp setting goes from 95-160. Seems like a good purchase.
Edit: Unit was purchased from Nesco.com for $80. The 2 pack add on trays were $15 each.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." - Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Edited by Rahz (09/22/08 12:05 PM)
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