VonShef 5 Tier Food Dehydrator with Adjustable Temperature Control

Excellent Biltong Maker

The heat is too high (even on the lowest setting) to make tender biltong (which is what you want) and turns out very hard (cooked meat is much tougher than raw, even when cooked at a very low temp). I was advised by my Afrikaans brother in law (Afrikaans people invented biltong and many of them make it themselves) to turn the heat off altogether which i did (apparently you dont need any heat at all). After doing so it turned out perfect and tender, and suprisingly removing the heat did not stop the meat drying in the slightest. All you have to do is open the top unit (unscrew it) and literally pull out the plug leading to the heater element (just follow the wire to the element to be sure it's the right one as there are two next to one another, there is a clip that holds the plug in place underneath it). Dead simple to do (you warranty will be void afterwards but you'd have to be an absolute idiot to screw this up). This machine ventilates VERY well, better than an actual biltong maker and even without heat you've got biltong in 24hrs. Its fairly large but not too large, just right, and allows you to make about 3kg of biltong at a time and with no heat the running costs will be very low too.Read full review

A little disappointed

I use dehydrators a lot for my dogs food. I liked the idea of this one as the motor is at the top so if food drips, there is no risk to the motor this way. So I really like the drip tray function at the base.
However it's not so easy to access to alternate the trays around. So it's a case of what is more beneficial to you I guess. It also doesn't seem to be as quick as my last machine, both max temp was 70 degrees.
The main problem though is how noisy it is! The noise level just seems way too high, so much so that we can have it going overnight. I always have done so before with other machines.

In summary, it does the job albeit slower it seems and way more noisily!Read full review

Verified purchase:  Yes • Condition: refurbished • Sold by: house-of-apparel

Disappointed

I have used this 2 times, and already the motor is struggling, all I'm drying is herbs!! And although the user manual has a setting for drying herbs, there isn't a setting on the actual machine, so I set it to it's lowest setting, 4 hours later the herbs had not even dehydrated much, I am very disappointed, I trying fruit today, it's been on for an hour and the motor is really struggling!Read full review

Verified purchase:  Yes • Condition: new • Sold by: domu-uk

very poor doesn't dry food

This product looks as if it would do the job and easy enough to use but very poor at drying. Was on for 28 hours trying to dry bananas and strawberries. Drying was never achieved. Tried again with rasberries and they didn't dry. Rather rubbish.Read full review

Verified purchase:  Yes • Condition: new • Sold by: domu-uk

Vonshef

Does the job but it's very noisy and takes forever to dry meat out for jerky but I can live with that.!!!

Verified purchase:  Yes • Condition: new • Sold by: domu-uk

Cheap and not cheerful

Wanted to try a dehydrator but didn’t want to pay a huge amount in case I didn’t like the results - sadly I am still none the wiser as the product worked for a few hours and has now stopped completely and despite following all instructions before, during and after use the product has failed.Read full review

Verified purchase:  Yes • Condition: new • Sold by: domu-uk

Ideal Product

As well as drying herbs we use this to make biltong and dry word, works really well and easy to use.

Verified purchase:  Yes • Condition: new • Sold by: domu-uk

Food dryer

Excellent very easy to use and for me very helpfull

Verified purchase:  Yes • Condition: new • Sold by: domu-uk

good cheap machine

Excellent for making jerky

Good and effective

Pleased with it, I've dehydrated nuts, lavender and herbs out of the garden. No complaints.