NESCO FD-75A Snackmaster Pro Food Dehydrator Review

Nesco FD-75‑A dehy­dra­tor is a dehy­dra­tion prod­uct from the Nesco Lim­it­ed Com­pa­ny, which belongs to the Met­al Ware Cor­po­ra­tion. This com­pa­ny ven­tures into man­u­fac­tur­ing dehy­dra­tors and oth­er kitchen appliances.

The Nesco FD-75A dehy­dra­tor mod­el has var­i­ous dehy­drat­ing fea­tures that make it very com­mon in the dry­er world. For exam­ple, an effi­cient dry­ing sys­tem allows qual­i­ty and effi­cient dry­ing of food ingre­di­ents. In addi­tion, the pres­ence of an adjustable ther­mo­stat that ranges from 95ᵒ Fahren­heit- to 160ᵒ Fahren­heit makes it flex­i­ble to achieve the dehy­dra­tion of sev­er­al forms of food ingre­di­ents. It also comes with some extra dehy­drat­ing acces­sories, mak­ing food dehy­dra­tion simpler.

Fea­tures and more infor­ma­tion about this mod­el are dis­cussed at length.

Will you con­sid­er an alter­na­tive food dehy­dra­tor? Check out the arti­cle — 7 Best Food Dehy­dra­tors for Healthy Kitchen.

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Design and Technology

Con­ver­ga-flow sys­tem: Notably, the air­flow design of this dehy­dra­tor con­tributes sig­nif­i­cant­ly to increas­ing its dry­ing effi­cien­cy. Dur­ing dehy­dra­tion, you will notice the pres­ence of a patent­ed design known as the Con­ver­ga-flow sys­tem. Here, the hot air that orig­i­nates from the top of the unit is forced down­wards via the out­er shell. After­ward, the warm air moves hor­i­zon­tal­ly across the trays’ food ingre­di­ents, caus­ing even heat dis­tri­b­u­tion through­out the unit. This Con­ver­ga-flow design elim­i­nates all the mois­ture dry­ing food uni­form­ly, even if it does not specif­i­cal­ly have a hor­i­zon­tal air­flow design.

Vita-save Tech­nol­o­gy: It is known that expo­sure to dehy­drat­ing food to atmos­pher­ic light and air might affect food qual­i­ty. Both light and air will cause the degra­da­tion of nutri­ents in it.

The NESCO FD-75A dehy­dra­tor man­u­fac­tur­er has respond­ed to this fact and used a vita-save tech­nol­o­gy for the out­er shell of this dehy­dra­tor. As a result, your food ingre­di­ents will no longer be put at risk for these two fac­tors. In addi­tion, the vita-save shel­l’s pres­ence means that every­one can use this dehy­dra­tor mod­el in a prop­er­ly lit room, whether in the liv­ing room, kitchen, or din­ing room, with no issues.

Exterior Design and Wattage

Gen­er­al­ly, this device has a con­tem­po­rary design and per­fect­ly fits any kitchen inte­ri­or scene.

You will receive five trays from the man­u­fac­tur­er that accom­pa­ny the dehy­dra­tor mod­el. How­ev­er, this kitchen device is stack­able, depend­ing on the quan­ti­ty of food you want to dry. You can decide to expand the dry­ing space and stack up to 12 trays. Many trays are also essen­tial since they reduce the num­ber of trips you need to dry cer­tain types of food ingre­di­ents, enabling you to save time. When dehy­drat­ing a small amount of food­stuff, you can also elim­i­nate the trays which might not require.

This dehy­dra­tor mod­el has a fan mount­ed at the top of the unit. With the help of its motor, the fan ini­ti­ates air­flow. Par­tic­u­lar­ly, it has a 600 watts motor, which pro­vides enough pow­er to enable the gen­er­a­tion of heat.

Trays

The five trays that come with this unit have a diam­e­ter of 13 ½ inch­es. All these trays are made from stur­dy and health-safe BPA-Free plas­tic. Besides, each tray has a 0.8 sq. ft. of dry­ing sur­face area, and five trays – 4.5 sq. ft. Although the unit’s capac­i­ty can be added to make them 12 trays with 10 sq. ft. of dry­ing surface.

Apart from trays, oth­er addi­tion­al acces­sories accom­pa­ny this dehy­dra­tor mod­el that is also imper­a­tive dur­ing dry­ing. For exam­ple, two mesh (clean-a-screens) are put on the tray to pre­vent small food ingre­di­ents from falling. They are essen­tial when dry­ing some food­stuff like blue­ber­ries and herbs. These mesh screens are also flex­i­ble; hence, they are nec­es­sary for dehy­drat­ing most sticky food like pieces of bananas.

Addi­tion­al­ly, there are two oth­er sol­id-fruits roll sheets that the user can use to dry liq­uids to come up with fruit leather. How­ev­er, only two sheets of each kind accom­pa­ny the dehy­dra­tor; if you require more of such sheets, you need to pay for the extra ones.

Control Panel

The top of the Nesco dehy­dra­tor fea­tures the con­trol pan­el. In fact, it has only tem­per­a­ture controls.

Ther­mo­stat: The con­trol pan­el of this device has tem­per­a­ture set­tings, which are quite nec­es­sary when dry­ing vary­ing types of food ingre­di­ents. An adjustable ther­mo­stat dial has a tem­per­a­ture range of (95ᵒF-160ᵒF), fur­ther divid­ed into sev­en vary­ing lev­els – 95ᵒF, 105ᵒF,115ᵒF, 125ᵒF, 135ᵒF, 145ᵒF, and 160ᵒF. All you need to do is uti­lize the recipe book that accom­pa­nies this dehy­dra­tor to know the tem­per­a­ture at which a par­tic­u­lar food type should be dried. After­ward, you can set the ther­mo­stat at a suit­able tem­per­a­ture depend­ing on your choice’s food ingredient.

Timer: Most dehy­dra­tor users would like to dry meat and oth­er food ingre­di­ents that take a long time to dry at night. They would like to load the food in the device and retire to bed, hav­ing set a timer to enable the device to switch off itself auto­mat­i­cal­ly. How­ev­er, the Nesco FD-75A dehy­dra­tor does not have a timer. There­fore, you will need to switch off the device after com­plete dehy­dra­tion when­ev­er you require to dry cer­tain food­stuffs. Here, you got to be extra care­ful or end up dam­ag­ing your favorite food­stuff by over­heat­ing.  Alter­na­tive­ly, you might need to buy your tim­ing device if you want to inte­grate an auto­mat­ic shut-off fea­ture. 

ON/Off switch: It lacks the ON/OF switch, although this device’s pow­er sys­tem works effi­cient­ly. It would be wise to note this fea­ture before decid­ing to pur­chase this brand so as not to find it odd. If you need to start it, you need to plug the cord into the pow­er sock­et. When you are done with dehy­dra­tion, unplug the pow­er cord, and the device will auto­mat­i­cal­ly turn off.

Food Preparation and Functionality

That means you can com­fort­ably dry your fruits, herbs, fish, berries, jerky, nuts, veg­gies, and oth­er food ingre­di­ents like skim milk. When dry­ing, you need to prop­er­ly set your ther­mo­stat for the com­plete dry­ing of a par­tic­u­lar food type.

Any food type that requires food prepa­ra­tion should go through this food prep before dehy­dra­tion. In most cas­es, meat and fruits require prepa­ra­tion to retain their fla­vor and tex­ture. Since this dehy­dra­tor mod­el has even cir­cu­la­tion of warm air, it requires no tray rotation.

It is worth know­ing that the Snack­Mas­ter can do more than food dehy­dra­tion. It can take the role of a humid­i­fi­er and can also be used for aromatherapy.

Using and Cleaning

Using this dehy­drat­ing mod­el is a bit eas­i­er since not much is required for one to oper­ate it. Thus, both the young and the old mem­bers of the fam­i­ly can use it with not much effort.

Some­times you may need to speed up the dehy­drat­ing process, most­ly if you have lim­it­ed time, bear­ing in mind that this kitchen appli­ance lacks a timer. If you need to dry your favorite food ingre­di­ents a bit faster, you can opt to start the dehy­dra­tion process at a high­er tem­per­a­ture for a short time. For instance, fruits dehy­drate cor­rect­ly at a tem­per­a­ture range of 130ᵒ F to 140ᵒ F. To speed up this dry­ing peri­od, you can decide to start dehy­drat­ing them at 160ᵒF with­in the first hour.

Clean­ing: In all hon­esty, to clean the trays, you can use warm soapy water and a soft-bris­tle brush for remov­ing small food par­ti­cles. The man­u­fac­tur­er also rec­om­mends you load the trays on the top rack if you are to use a dish­wash­er. Remem­ber to remove the trays before the dry­ing process since the high heat might dam­age them. Then, spread these trays out to dry. Clean­ing the blow­er is best done by wip­ing it using a damp cloth, so nev­er put it in a dishwasher.

Dimensions

Nesco Snack­mas­ter has an approx­i­mate weight of 9 pounds and has a dimen­sion of 14″ by 22″ by 14″. These mea­sure­ments show that most dehy­drat­ing enthu­si­asts can store it in their ordi­nary kitchen with­out allo­cat­ing a device’s large counter or stor­age space. Its weight will also enable most users to move it with ease with­in the countertops.

Set Includes

• Dehy­dra­tor unit with 5 trays;
• Two (2) Fruit Roll Sheets,
• Two (2) Clean-A-Screens meshed screens,
• 3 packs of Jerky Sea­son­ing & Cure samples,
• A 52-page recipe & instruc­tion book.

Optional Accessories

If you are going to dry larg­er quan­ti­ties of food, you have an option to buy extra sev­en (7) Nesco trays to expand it up to twelve (12), and it will total an addi­tion­al 12 sq. ft. of dry­ing space. But, again, these Nesco trays are avail­able at a very afford­able price.

You can also buy addi­tion­al Fruit Roll Sheets and Clean-A-Screens meshed screens.

Special Features

Col­or: It is avail­able in com­bi­na­tion with the white and gray fin­ish only.

Oper­a­tion out­side of USA/Canada:  The Nesco FD-75A dehy­dra­tor mod­el sold in the USA only comes with a 110–120 volt­age sys­tem, which is not suit­able for regions with a 220–240 volt­age sys­tem. Although the device could be oper­at­ed via a volt­age trans­former in the coun­tries with a 220–240 Volts sys­tem, it is not advis­able as it may underperform.

Noise

NESCO FD-75A Snack­mas­ter Pro is a very qui­et device and one of the qui­etest among avail­able dehy­dra­tors. It will emit approx­i­mate­ly 55–60 dB while working.

Warranty

This dehy­dra­tor is equipped with a 1‑year Lim­it­ed War­ran­ty, which includes defects in mate­ri­als and workmanship.

The device is man­u­fac­tured in the USA by Nesco/American Har­vest Com­pa­ny, with the motor pro­duced in Chi­na. Nev­er­the­less, cus­tomer ser­vice is pro­vid­ed by the USA-based Nesco Company.

Pro and Cons

Pros:

• Shows effi­cient per­for­mance and even food dry­ing that does not require tray rotation;
• Very com­pact and will not occu­py much of the counter space;
• Can expand up to the 12 trays;
• The adjustable ther­mo­stat allows var­i­ous ingre­di­ents for effec­tive drying;
• Easy to clean;
• Low noise emission;
• Afford­able;

Cons:

• Comes with­out timer;
• Lack of ON/OFF switch.

Price

If you are look­ing for good qual­i­ty and inex­pen­sive dehy­dra­tor that is well-built and does its job very well, then the Nesco FD-75A dehy­dra­tor is a great val­ue for mon­ey option.

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Summary

Despite oth­er dehy­dra­tor mod­els, the Nesco FD-75A Pro food dehy­dra­tor is a very pop­u­lar machine since it has most of the essen­tial fea­tures that most users require. It can dry most of the food­stuff in your home since it pro­vides a wide tem­per­a­ture range that guar­an­tees easy dry­ing of foods like herbs and jerky. For you to dry large vol­umes of food ingre­di­ents with­in a short time, this dehy­dra­tor mod­el comes with 5 trays though the user can opt to add 7 more and expand it up to 12 trays. So, you can also dry a large amount of food­stuff at a go with­in a short period.

This dehy­dra­tor has a vita-save shell to retain the nutri­tion­al val­ue dur­ing dry­ing. The clean­ing of this mod­el is also made sim­pler by the top-mount­ed fan. This fea­ture also increas­es the fan’s dura­bil­i­ty since no food drip­pings fall on the air­flow sys­tem. In addi­tion, the mesh screens of this mod­el improve clean­abil­i­ty by pre­vent­ing the stick­ing of food on the trays.  How­ev­er, the mod­el also lacks some crit­i­cal fea­tures that some cus­tomers pre­fer. These include a timer and the ON/OFF button.

Will you con­sid­er an alter­na­tive food dehy­dra­tor? Check out the arti­cle — 7 Best Food Dehy­dra­tors for Healthy Kitchen.