Samson“Silent” Stainless Steel, COSORI Premium, and Magic Mill Food Dehydrators Review

This very pop­u­lar stain­less steel dehy­dra­tor comes under the three (3) brands – Sam­son, Cosori, and Mag­ic Mill — and avail­able with a dif­fer­ent num­ber of trays. Even though the dehy­dra­tors are mar­ket­ed under dif­fer­ent names and brands, they have sim­i­lar tech­ni­cal para­me­ters,  exte­ri­or designs and are man­u­fac­tured in Chi­na’s same pro­duc­tion facilities.

So, the tech­ni­cal para­me­ters and the dif­fer­ences between the dehy­dra­tor mod­els are sep­a­rate­ly dis­cussed below.

Dis­clo­sure: As an Ama­zon Asso­ciate we may earn an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion for pur­chas­es you make when using the links on this page.

Horizontal Technology

Notably, the dehy­dra­tor fea­tures a hor­i­zon­tal or par­al­lel air flow cir­cu­la­tion sys­tem. It has a sev­en (7) inch­es fan, and the fan’s heat­ing ele­ment locat­ed at the back of the machine, where the heat­ing coil heats the air, and the fan pulls air through all lev­els of trays. There­fore, pro­mot­ing even dehy­dra­tion of food­stuffs. For safe­ty rea­sons, the dehy­dra­tor fan is sep­a­rat­ed from the cham­ber area by a stain­less steel grid guard.

The par­al­lel air­flow tech­nol­o­gy is present only in hor­i­zon­tal dehy­dra­tors and pro­vides the most effi­cient food­stuff dry­ing that does not require fre­quent tray rota­tion dur­ing dehydration.

Exterior Design and Wattage

Exte­ri­or design: This dehy­dra­tor’s out­er unit shell is made from stain­less steel; thus, its exte­ri­or design will look sharp on any kitchen counter. It also has two han­dles on the sides, and the user can eas­i­ly pick it up and move around.

The inte­ri­or walls and bot­tom of the dehy­dra­tor are made of gal­va­nized steel. All oth­er parts that come in con­tact with the food are made of stain­less steel. The only plas­tic ele­ments of the dehy­dra­tor design are the remov­able drip tray and meshed plas­tic tray inserts. The drip tray goes straight in the base of the machine and pre­vents drip­ping the par­ti­cle and liq­uids to the bot­tom, and meshed plas­tic inserts are designed for dehy­drat­ing small pieces of food.

A glass door is anoth­er dehy­dra­tor smart fea­ture that fur­ther sim­pli­fies the work­ing of this device. With this see-thru glass door, the user can fre­quent­ly super­vise the dehy­dra­tion progress with­out open­ing the dryer’s door. The glass door is also easy to clean and can­not affect the fla­vor or nutri­tion­al val­ue of food.

Motor and Wattage: Any dehy­dra­tor mod­el requires suf­fi­cient elec­tri­cal pow­er to run its motor and sup­ply the high tem­per­a­ture need­ed to kill harm­ful food micro-organ­isms. Specif­i­cal­ly, Sam­son’s 10 trays dehy­dra­tor has a 600 watts motor. The entire pow­er sys­tem is mount­ed at the back of this unit- a fea­ture that improves its safe­ty since no food drip­ping fall on it.

Besides, this machine is also equipped with a safe­ty shut off sys­tem that will auto­mat­i­cal­ly stop the dehy­dra­tor if it is over­heat­ed. The device is designed only for 24 hours of con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion. After 24 hours, you have to stop it for 30 min for cool­ing before resum­ing its oper­a­tion if needed.

Number of Trays and Square

Apart from hav­ing an effi­cient pow­er sys­tem, this dehy­dra­tor mod­els come with six (6), sev­en (7), or ten (10) remov­able stain­less steel trays. Addi­tion­al­ly, the stain­less steel that makes up the trays is food-safe; hence it guar­an­tees you chem­i­cals-free food. More­over, stain­less steel is a stur­dy and durable mate­r­i­al that assures you a long dehy­drat­ing service.

Each tray has a dimen­sion of 12’’ by 13’’, mak­ing a total inter­nal space of 15.6 sq. feet with the 1 ¼ ‘’ space between the trays. If you are deal­ing with thick food items that might not com­plete­ly fit with­in trays, you can elim­i­nate many trays to accom­mo­date them. Remov­able trays improve the effi­cien­cy of dehy­dra­tion of some large food pieces.

Besides, the dehy­dra­tor mod­els also come with two (2), four(4), or ten (10) semi-flex­i­ble clear plas­tic mesh lin­ers, depend­ing on the mod­el, which are essen­tial for dehy­drat­ing small food items. These mesh lin­ers ensure that the dry­ing food ingre­di­ents like the herbs do not fall through the entire dry­ing process trays. A BPA-free mate­r­i­al is used to make these mesh lin­ers to ensure that your food is toxic-free.

Control Panel

This dehy­dra­tor has a dig­i­tal con­trol pan­el with an LCD screen and only four (4) but­tons — the ON/OF but­tons, tem­per­a­ture and time set­ting but­tons, and decrease (-) and increas­es (+) buttons.

Tem­per­a­ture con­trol: Its tem­per­a­ture set­ting ranges from 95ᵒF/35ᵒC to 165ᵒF/74ᵒC with the 9 degrees steps, so it has only 167, 158, 149, 140, 131, 122, 113, 104, and 95 tem­per­a­ture options, and you can­not select the tem­per­a­ture in between. Nev­er­the­less, it is still enough for effi­cient dehy­dra­tion of a vari­ety of food. The high­er tem­per­a­ture range is essen­tial, espe­cial­ly while dry­ing meat, while the low­er range is vital for most veg­eta­bles and herbs.

Timer: Fur­ther­more, the con­trol pan­el also has an up to 24-hour count­down timer with 30 min­utes inter­vals set­tings. The dehy­dra­tor will shut off auto­mat­i­cal­ly at the end of the cycle. The timer is a very use­ful fea­ture in dehy­dra­tors, espe­cial­ly when you need to leave food­stuff that takes a long time to dehy­drate overnight.

Using and Cleaning

The Dehy­dra­tor con­trol pan­el has only four (4) but­tons to oper­ate; thus, it is rea­son­ably easy to use.

 Using: This dehy­dra­tor does not have a pow­er switch or but­ton, and once you plugged it in, the machine beeps, and all pow­er but­tons start illu­mi­nat­ing. Now press the on/off but­tons and the “temp/time” but­ton, and it will show 158F, now it is ready for set­ting the tem­per­a­ture para­me­ter by using the “-“and “+” but­tons. The tem­per­a­ture set­ting has only 167, 158, 149, 140, 131, 122, 113,104, 95 options; you can­not set it to a pre­cise degree.

After you set the tem­per­a­ture, you press the “temp/time” but­ton again to set the time para­me­ter. The user sets the time with the pre­ci­sion step of 30 min by press­ing the “-“ and “+” but­tons. After the user sets the tem­per­a­ture and time, the unit will start run­ning auto­mat­i­cal­ly with­in 2 sec­onds. The timer will auto­mat­i­cal­ly shut off at when at the end of the set cycle.

Clean­ing: After the use of any dry­er mod­el, what comes in our mind is the issue of clean­ing. Since the trays of this dehy­dra­tor are made from stain­less steel, clean­ing of these trays is easy. You can opt to clean the trays, mesh lin­ers, and the bot­tom drip trays man­u­al­ly using warm, clean soapy water or in the dish­wash­er as all the trays and acces­sories are dish­wash­er safe.

Food Preparation and Functionality

In this mod­el, food dehy­dra­tion is effi­cient, allow­ing you to dry your herbs, nuts, veg­eta­bles, fruits, spices, berries, meat, and oth­er food items due to max­i­mum air­flow with­in its unit.

There are a care and instruc­tion man­u­al where you will find use­ful infor­ma­tion that guides you on how to dry a vari­ety of food and the best heat range for each type. The guide has 40 dif­fer­ent food from grapes, nec­tarines, apples, and a vari­ety of meats. It explains what piece size you should cut for best results and how much time it will take to dehy­drate the food to the right con­di­tion, iden­ti­fy if food is ready for stor­ing it, and not have an excess of moisture.

Gen­er­al­ly, the food prepa­ra­tion for dehy­dra­tion does not need much knowl­edge, and every item should cut to the thinnest pos­si­ble size, so it will dry faster. The thick pieces are not good for dry­ing them in a dehy­dra­tor and could even mold dur­ing the dehy­dra­tion process.

The dehy­dra­tor could also be used for raw food dehy­dra­tion; the user has to keep the tem­per­a­ture for this pur­pose below 118 degrees. In case a very high tem­per­a­ture is used to dehy­drate the food, the nutri­tion­al val­ue might decrease.

But, if a user uses a low­er tem­per­a­ture range to dehy­drate meat, some micro-organ­isms might remain in it. Such organ­isms will even­tu­al­ly decrease the shelf life of the meat. Here, you need to under­stand the cor­rect tem­per­a­ture range to dehy­drate a par­tic­u­lar type of food­stuff to pre­vent using the wrong heat range.

Dimensions

Fur­ther­more, this dehy­dra­tor even ten (10) tray mod­el has a com­pact size and, there­fore, can fit prop­er­ly in most kitchens or can be moved with­in the dehy­drat­ing area with ease.

• Sam­son 6 trays unit has a size of 17.75” deep X 13.5” wide X 12.25” high and 18.5lbs of stand­ing weight;
• Sam­son 10 trays machine has a size of 17″ L x 21″ W x 16.5″ H and weight of 40.8 lbs.;
• COSORI Pre­mi­um Food Dehy­dra­tor Machine with six (6) trays has the sim­i­lar to the Sam­son 6 trays size of 17.75” deep X 13.5” wide X 12.25” high  and weight — 18.5 lbs.;
• Mag­ic Mill Food Dehy­dra­tor Machine with sev­en (7) trays has a size of 17.75” deep X 13.5” wide x 17” large and weight of 19.5 lbs.

Optional Accessories

The only addi­tion­al acces­sories you may need to buy for your dehy­dra­tor are the mesh tray insert for dehy­drat­ing the small­er items such as nuts or herbs and sheet inserts for dehy­drat­ing liq­uid ingre­di­ents for mak­ing fruit leather or crackers.

Usu­al­ly, the dehy­dra­tor will include the mesh inserts in the set; how­ev­er, not all the mod­els come with the inset for every tray, so you may wish to buy addi­tion­al ones. The sheet insets are rarely includ­ed in the set, and if you plan to make fruit leather, they could be a great option to buy to expand your dehy­dra­tor functionality.

Here are the mesh inserts and sheet inserts that are com­pat­i­ble with the dehy­dra­tors above:

• Bak­ing Mat Teflon Dehy­dra­tor Sheet;
• BPA-Free Dehy­dra­tor sheets for Jerky Mesh Screen;
• Fruit Roll Sheets, BPA-Free Dryer.

Special Features

Col­or: All dehy­dra­tor mod­els come in one stain­less steel col­or with some black trim­ming in front.

Oper­a­tion out­side of the USA/Canada: The dehy­dra­tors sold via the USA dis­trib­u­tors have the 110–120 volt­age sys­tem and not com­pat­i­ble with the 220–240 volt­age sys­tem that is used in most of the Euro­pean, African, Asian coun­tries, and Aus­tralia. When buy­ing a dehy­dra­tor, you should pay atten­tion to the machine volt­age sys­tem and opt for the one from the local dis­trib­u­tor or the coun­tries with the appro­pri­ate volt­age system.

Noise

This dehy­dra­tor brand is main­ly known to have a silent inter­nal mech­a­nism and emits only 48 dB — 52dB noise from a work­ing fan; hence, you need not both­er your­self by drag­ging it to your laun­dry or the garage. This fea­ture also makes it one of the suit­able device for peo­ple liv­ing in lim­it­ed square footage or where neigh­bors are noise sen­si­tive. You will not be lim­it­ed from using your device at a cer­tain time of the day, such as ear­ly in the morn­ing. It means you can decide to wake up at dawn and pro­ceed with your dehy­drat­ing activ­i­ties with­out mind­ing much about your sleep­ing fam­i­ly members.

Warranty

The device’s man­u­fac­ture gives a five (5) year war­ran­ty for heaters, fan, motor, and the con­trol panel.

Pro and Cons

Pros:

• Stain­less steel body and trays ensure a health-friend­ly envi­ron­ment for dehydration.
• Drip tray pro­vides eas­i­er cleaning;
• Count down timer with auto­mat­ic shut­down does not require baby the machine;
• The tem­per­a­ture con­trol allows a wide vari­ety of food dehydration;
• Glass­door allows us to observe the dehy­dra­tion process;
• Par­al­lel dehy­dra­tion tech­nol­o­gy pro­vides even clean­ing for foodstuff;

 Cons:

• Does not has a pow­er switch but­ton and start to draw the elec­tric­i­ty ones the machine plugged in;
• Tem­per­a­ture pre-set has only 9 degrees incre­ments; the user can­not set the 1 degrees pre­ci­sion temperature.

Cosori Premium vs. Magic Mill vs. Samson “Silent” Food Dehydrators vs. NutriChef NCDH6S.5 Electric Countertop Food Dehydrator

Notably, the Cosori Pre­mi­um, Sam­son “Silent,” and Mag­ic Mill Food dehy­dra­tors are all pro­duced in Chi­na, have very sim­i­lar tech­ni­cal para­me­ters and exte­ri­or design, though, avail­able under dif­fer­ent brands. If Cosori and Mag­ic Mill are very new brands that were recent­ly estab­lished and sold all Chi­na man­u­fac­tured prod­ucts, Sam­son is the USA brand spe­cial­iz­ing in man­u­fac­tur­ing juices and oth­er health-relat­ed appli­ances, and their pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties are locat­ed in the USA or South Korea. How­ev­er, this prac­tice is com­mon when rep­utable brands out­source the pro­duc­tion of some of the brand prod­ucts in Chi­na, usu­al­ly for the bud­get mod­els, and sell under its name while pro­vid­ing the mod­els with a good warranty.

Nev­er­the­less, these three (3) brand mod­els have some minor dif­fer­ences, and you may learn about these dif­fer­ences here.

The Sam­son “Silent” Dehy­dra­tor is avail­able in two mod­els that come with six (6) trays and ten (10) trays. These mod­els have iden­ti­cal tech­ni­cal para­me­ters and exte­ri­or design but dif­fer by the num­ber of trays and the dehy­dra­tor unit height and weight. Both mod­els came with a five (5) years war­ran­ty cov­ered by Sam­son Com­pa­ny and sold at a slight­ly high­er price than oth­er machine brands.

The COSORI Pre­mi­um Food Dehy­dra­tor has the same as Sam­son with 6 trays, iden­ti­cal size, and weight, tech­ni­cal para­me­ters with the Sam­son 6 trays dehy­dra­tor while the doors’ slight­ly dif­fer­ent design and dif­fer­ent order of con­trol pan­el but­tons than Sam­son dehy­dra­tor. The Cosori machine comes with a 1‑year war­ran­ty and avail­able at a slight­ly low­er price than Sam­son 6 trays version.

 The Mag­ic Mill Food Dehy­dra­tor Machine comes with sev­en (7) trays. It has sim­i­lar tech­ni­cal para­me­ters with the Sam­son and Cosori mod­els, a sim­i­lar foot­print, but slight­ly heav­ier weight than Sam­son’s six (6) tray mod­el and Cosori, and comes with a 1‑year war­ran­ty. Thus it has a price close to the Cosori model.

Price

The Sam­son, Casori, and Magik Mill stain­less steel dehy­dra­tors are the bud­get mod­els and come at very afford­able prices. The Cosori and Mag­ic Mill are cheap­er than the Sam­son mod­el that is explained by the short­er war­ran­ty they have.

Samson“Silent” Stain­less Steel Food Dehy­dra­tor (10 trays), via Amazon

Samson“Silent” Stain­less Steel Food Dehy­dra­tor (6 trays), via Amazon

COSORI Pre­mi­um Food Dehy­dra­tor Machine (6 trays), via Amazon

Mag­ic Mill Food Dehy­dra­tor Machine (7 trays), via Amazon

Set includes

• Dehy­dra­tor Unit;
• 6, 7, or 10 stain­less steel trays depend­ing on the model;
• Plas­tic mesh inserts (Sam­son has 6, Cosori 1, and Mag­ic Mill 2 inserts);
• Fruit leather inserts (Sam­son has 0, Cosori1, and Mag­ic Mill2 sheet inserts);
• Plas­tic drip tray;
• Instruc­tion Manual;
• War­ran­ty Card;

Summary

To con­clude, the Sam­son “Silent”, Cosori Pre­mi­um, and Mag­ic Mill stain­less steel dehy­dra­tor mod­els stand out among the many dehy­dra­tors in the mar­ket due to its numer­ous fea­tures that are essen­tial dur­ing any food dry­ing activ­i­ty. For instance, they run qui­et­ly and can be a bet­ter option to places where silence is key. Theirs 10 trays will enable any user to dry a lot of food ingre­di­ents per trip. You can also dry your favorite food ingre­di­ents and con­tin­ues with oth­er house­hold activ­i­ties because the dry­er has a timer. By set­ting the timer cor­rect­ly, the device will shut-off itself auto­mat­i­cal­ly after the set time. For effi­cient dehy­dra­tion, there is a glass door where you can check the dry­ing process visu­al­ly. Fur­ther­more, the mate­ri­als that make up this kitchen appli­ance are food-safe, and there­fore your health is guar­an­teed. Oth­er acces­sories like mesh lin­ers and the drip tray are also essen­tial parts dur­ing dehy­dra­tion. In case you are unsure about the dry­er to go for, you can check the fea­tures of this very model.