Dehydrator power consumption?

Arkansasoffgrid

Has anyone checked power using a KILL A WATT meter on a residential grade meat/vegg/fruit dehydrator?
Would like to get one, just wondering about "actual" power consumption.

westbranch

have you got a particular make/model in mind ?

Photowhit

They are all over the place, some push 1500 watts, but most are in the 400-660watt range.

I have a 5 tray Excalibur and it uses @400 watts, I believe the 9 tray uses 660. I have a 9 tray harvest maid and it is listed as 440 watts as well. These units all have fans as well as heating units.

The small round jobs run 200-300 watts. I consider them trial units, to see if you like dehydrating. My 5 tray (15"x15") Excalibur likely holds 3 times the amount of a 5 tray little round job (Harbor Freight sells one for $25-30)

BB.

What about DIY solar dehydrators? Lots of different plans/examples out there.

http://theselfsufficientliving.com/8-free-diy-or-homemade-solar-food-dehydrator-making-plans/

-Bill

animatt

I have NO EXPERIENCE making dehydrators. But was something I was looking into several years back. I believe I ran across something stating that it is best if the sun DOES NOT strike the actual thing being dehydrated. I can not remember if it was for growth of stuff on the food, or to actually dry food with the air not directly heating via the sun. With air more drying and less cooking. Also important to keep temps of air in check as well to not cook the items.

I could be very wrong. Just can't remember.

Photowhit

DIY dryer work well for some things, but not so well for others, and you are correct that keeping the items out of direct sunlight is important for most things. If you have a large garden and are around often... I would certainly want to use natural drying methods for large quantities commodities, beans, peas,... look for designs with a thermostatically controlled fan, that helps keep the drying temps in a good range.

Dried about 80 lbs of apples last year, opened the last mason jar about a month ago. No canning, but putting in an air tight container with an oxygen depleter like iron filings, helps keep bad things from happening to them.

lkruper

Arkansasoffgrid wrote: »

Has anyone checked power using a KILL A WATT meter on a residential grade meat/vegg/fruit dehydrator?
Would like to get one, just wondering about "actual" power consumption.

I got a dehydrator at Costco, one of the round ones with low-med-hi settings. I used it to break in my generator and also used my kill-o-watt meter. I think it was about 750w and used about 1/2 the output of my 1600w inverter generator.

Resistance heating takes LOTS of power.