BioChef Arizona Sol 6 Tray Food Dehydrator with Digital Display, Stainless Steel Trays, 1 x Non Stick Tray, 1x Mesh Sheet & 1x Drip Tray (Black)

I've used several models of dehydrator and this one is the best. Even and rapid drying, often within hours. Really useful wire shelves and not too noisy in operation. I can churn out more dried food with this than I can eat - excellent build quality and results.

Bought this a few years ago and thought it about time to add a review! This has been used to dry fruit, vegetables and meat and is still going strong. The horizontal air flow means you can mix foods without having to worry about stronger flavours or aromas foods on one shelf affecting other foods on a different shelf, unlike the bottom up or top down dehydrators. If you mix different foods but keep them separated on different shelves it is easy to lift the door and check each and pull out a shelf if finished, without any impact to any other food in there. The key is too remember higher temperature for meat than fruit and veg but to experiment with thickness of cut, temperature and drying time to match your personal preferences. There are a lot of recipes on the web but just remember to adapt to your taste and individual dehydrator performance. We have saved a fortune by drying our own liver, beef, turkey and chicken strips for our dog. Why pay £2-3 for a small packet of dried liver when you can buy sufficient fresh liver to fill the dehydrator trays for less and end up with 2, 3 or 4 times as much dried liver…trust me your dog(s) will love you for it! Using other meats ensures your canine companion gets a good variety as well but just steer clear of fatty cuts or meats. Also makes great jerky strips for the meat eating humans in our family, i.e. me! Make up a marinade of your choice. Marinade the meat, soaking it to taste, I find if drying the meat longer is better and quite often wait for at least 24 or 48 hours. Dry at 70 degrees. Time depends on how thick you cut your meat strips and whether you like chewy or crispy. My personal taste is for chewy, so I cut the strips slightly thicker and find 9 or 10 hours is great for making sure the meat is dry but still slightly chewy. Perfect for a protein boost when out on a long hike or bike ride. Also makes great dried fruit at 50-60 degrees. We experiment with different fruits, thickness and temperatures to find our personal preferences and found a mandolin to slice the fruit thin is idea, (just watch your finger and thumb tips) and then dry at 55 or 60 degrees for anything from 8 to 12 hours. It does vary between fruits, varieties for each type of fruit and personal preferences. We have tried many other recipes and found some we love, others we are not so keen on but that’s the fun of it.

10 days of use and I’m very happy, this is a fantastic dehydrator. Please check the dimensions of this as it’s huge, much like the size of a large microwave, so have a space ready. It also states NOT to run this on an extension cord. I was worried about the noise as I live in an open plan home, but it is much the same as any dehydrator I’ve had and it’s about the sound of a fan oven, or fan heater/air conditioner. I don’t run this at night as I can hear it from my bed, but run it during the day and it’s not that annoying. I would say if you have a garage, utility room, or can close your kitchen door that’s ideal. At first I was also concerned about a plastic smell, but I realised it was the white plastic tray that is supplied to use on the base of the oven to collect drips/crumbs etc. I don’t use this now, as I prefer to avoid as much plastic as possible. If you need to collect drips/crumbs, just use another teflex sheet or some baking paper on a lower rack. Machine is only adjustable on temperatures on 5c increments, so I use 45c for everything to keep enzymes intact, I also use a digital handgun thermometer to check internal and food temperature and it’s never going about 39c inside which is perfect. I tried the ‘Excalibur’s’ method of starting higher 55c, but using the handgun thermometer food was getting too hot and reaching 45-46c, I would say starting on 50c should be ok to get food going if you need to, but try to access the internal temperature. Normally food temperature is 5-10c lower than oven temperature. This is a great machine that has stainless steel racks, but the device is plastic, there is no plastic smell from the machine as long as you remove the white plastic tray. I have also been using ‘baking paper’ the coated grease proof brown baking paper to cook food on and its great, can also reuse it a few times. Machine only comes with one mesh sheet, and one Teflex sheet, so will need to buy more, but I just use baking paper and the food actually cooks much faster on it. Love the timer too, if you are busy and in and out the house it’s essential. I use this for a variety of foods as I am a raw vegan, such as making wraps, crackers, aubergine bacon, pizzas, tacos, etc. also great for warming up dishes, or fermenting. Love it ❤️

I've just started using the dryer over the last but pleased with the results so far. It's easy to use and clean and very quiet. The drying time for fruit varies depending on the thickness of the slices, the thinner the slice the quicker the drying time. The times in the instruction booklet should only be used as a guide. It took roughly 6 hours to dry sliced oranges-3 hours per side. It only comes with 1 mesh sheet so would recommend buying more as it does help with the drying process.

The product itself is really good, food dries very easily and quickly and I like the stainless steel trays, instead of plastic ones. My only issue with product itself is the beeping, honestly you can hear it 3 streets away, its very laud, every time you press the button it makes a horrendous noise and once the machine is finished drying the beeping noise drives me crazy, its a bit overkill. My other worry with it is the warranty, which is one of the reasons I ordered this machine, because they promised longer warranty than any other company, however you have to register it on website provided in manual, but 6 tray machine is not on their list at all, so you have no way of registering it correctly. I tried to contact them through contact details on the website but havent heard from them at all. I did register it as 8 tray machine, but who knows if something goes wrong I dont think anyone will help me with it, considering after several weeks they didnt reply to my first message, which is rather disappointing and I just have to hope that it will work without any issues for many years to come.

I'm using it already for couple months. It is very easy to use. It has a good capacity. My family loves the dried fruits from this dehydrator.

Great product as already have other biochef products and does exactly what it does best

I have had a few cheaper dehydrators which although adequate did not last very long. This one is well worth the extra investment. From the top tray to the bottom tray everything dries at the same rate. The outer is plastic, I kind of expected metal, but it's sturdy enough and makes it lighter if you have to move it around. It is a large unit which will only leave you a few inches on the depth of your worktop. I dried 2.5kg of chicken breast in one go. So glad I opted for the 6 tray rather than the 10. The only thing that I was disappointed about was they could have provided more info on recipes, although they do point you to their website for this. Overall I would highly recommend this machine.