Brod & Taylor SAHARA Folding Food Dehydrator with Non-Stick Polypropylene Shelves - Perfect for Drying Fruits, Vegetables, Herbs, and Making Jerky at Home

Overall: I like the dehydrator and am glad I purchased this model over some of the other models I was considering, mainly due to the folding ability and currently having limited storage. While I have some complaints it works reliably well for multiple things I’ve tried, and has considerable capacity. It’s worth noting my other dehydrator before this was an “All-in-one” unit that started me looking for a dedicated unit, but I don’t have enough experience to compare this product to other similarly priced items.Temperature: See attached images. My testing method was placing my temperature probe in the emptyunit on the middle rack, setting it to the specified temperature, giving it a few minutes to stabilize and then resetting the high/low values. Unfortunately I don’t have something that could log the temperature and give an average, but I would guess the temperature is ~2.5 F below the set temperature averaged over time. It’s also worth noting that the temperature will be more stable when food is in the dehydrator and brought up to temperature.Controls: The controls are easy to use and intuitive. Only has a few buttons, and the wheel to select the time/temperature is a nice touch. Temperature can be adjusted by 1F and time is in 15 minute increments. The functionality of dual temperature/times is a nice feature, but the user manual provides no guidance as to exact settings for different foods. Since a lot of dehydrators don’t have this functionality I couldn’t find much online either. I’ve tried it with apple chips to speed up the initial heat up, but without a test between 2 settings it’s hard to say how helpful it actually is as well as how much time it potentially saves.Usability: As stated in the ‘controls’ section the UI for temp/time selection is straight forward. Folding of the unit works well, it’s fairly straight forward and I don’t have any complaints. The knobs on the glass door feel a bit undersized in that they are a hard to grip, but I haven’t had any real problems with them. I assume their size is due to the fact that they have to fold into the unit so couldn’t be larger. The plastic tray at the bottom meant to catch drips from food in the unit works well, and is fairly easy to clean but I have a few complaints. The tray itself is a bit flimsy, and it feels like if you were letting it dry and let something kind of heavy against it you would have a risk of bending it. Additionally, it doesn’t actually cover the entire bottom of the dehydrator. This isn’t a huge deal to me, since you probably won’t put anything right on the edge anyway, but it is a bit inconvenient. I assume it is a limit of the folding design and storing it inside the unit when it is folded away. It would be nice if there was a light in the unit, but given how fast it comes back to temperature if you really need to look into it while it is being used opening the door and shining a flashlight in isn’t the end of the world.Food racks: I went with the stainless steel version. They fit just fine in the included carrying case, and the benefit is they work with the Brod & Taylor silicone ‘large’ style sheets (vs only ‘regular’ on the plastic trays) as well as whatever reservations you had about the plastic in the other version being gone (though most of the unit in the heating chamber is plastic anyway). Overall these are my biggest complaint about the unit. They work well for the dehydration process, but the metal running between the horizontal/vertical edges is very thin. This leaves me with 2 complaints:• The racks themselves feel flimsy, I haven’t noticeably bent them but it feels like you have to be careful with them way more than I would expect having to with metal racks.• They are difficult to clean. I’ve tried scrubbing them with a sponge after a few dehydration sessions and I’ve always noticed food built up where “connections” of metal meet. You really have to soak them or put them in the dishwasher to clean them adequately.Pricing: This kind of annoys me. The stainless steel shelves when I bought it as part of the unit cost another $100, but on their website they cost ~$90 and the plastic “Poly Shelves” cost ~$60. So, it would have been cheaper to buy the unit with the plastic shelves and then buy the Stainless Steel shelves separately from their website, and I would have had both sets of shelves.Accessories: (I didn’t consider this in my rating as you don’t get these items when purchasing the unit, but I wanted to put them here in case people were interested). I bought the carrying case and a few silicone sheets with the unit. The carrying case works well, it holds the unit and the bag with the food racks all in one. I also have the spare air filter and the user manuals with it as well. My biggest complaint with the setup is that it doesn’t have straps to secure the food trays in the case like it does for the main unit, not a huge deal but for the price I would have hoped for a better setup. It also doesn’t have any smaller outside pockets for auxillary items (air filters, user manuals) that I was hoping for. Overall it’s not bad, but for the price it wasn’t as good as I was hoping for. If you have the space to put the unit in a cabinet or something and not in a closet like I have I don’t necessarily think the case is worth it.The silicone sheets work well. They are a lot thinner than other silicone sheets you will find, I assume by design so they allow more heat transfer to the bottom of whatever food is on top of them. Makes them kind of a pain to clean,