STX International STX-DEH-1200W-XLS Dehydra Commercial Grade Stainless Steel Digital Food Dehydrator Review

Any­one who minds healthy liv­ing will always plan to pre­serve nutri­tious food items to con­sume dur­ing their low sup­ply sea­son. How­ev­er, domes­tic food preser­va­tion can be cum­ber­some with­out an effi­cient food dryer.

STX Inter­na­tion­al 1200W-XLS dehy­dra­tor is a dehy­dra­tor mod­el that has been in the dry­er mar­ket for quite a long time. This dry­er brand is man­u­fac­tured by STX Cor­po­ra­tion, which is a hold­ing com­pa­ny in South Korea. It also invests in com­mod­i­ty, machin­ery, and ener­gy trad­ing. The STX Inter­na­tion­al 1200W-XLS dehy­dra­tor has a num­ber of fea­tures that make it stand out on its own among oth­er dry­er mod­els. First, the mod­el has ten stain­less steel trays, which can accom­mo­date a sub­stan­tial amount of food items, even for a large fam­i­ly. Addi­tion­al­ly, its hor­i­zon­tal air­flow design ensures an effi­cient air­flow through­out the unit. Also, it has 1200 watts of pow­er and a wide tem­per­a­ture range (95ᵒF-165ᵒF) to enable it to dehy­drate a wide vari­ety of food ingre­di­ents. The infor­ma­tion below shows var­i­ous fea­tures of this dehy­dra­tor mod­el in a detailed form.

Will you be inter­est­ed in an alter­na­tive Food Dehy­dra­tor? Check our arti­cle — 7 Best Food Dehy­dra­tor for Healthy Kitchen.

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

Horizontal Technology

Effi­cient dehy­dra­tion of var­i­ous food items large­ly depends on the air­flow design used to con­struct a spe­cif­ic dehy­dra­tor brand. Specif­i­cal­ly, the STX-1200W-XLS dehy­dra­tor has a fan motor at the back of the unit, which allows a hor­i­zon­tal air­flow. The hor­i­zon­tal air­flow design ensures a con­sis­tent flow of air through­out the inte­ri­or of this unit. It pro­vides the com­plete cir­cu­la­tion of hot air on all the trays where the dehy­drat­ing food is placed. When using this design, there are high­er chances of the com­plete elim­i­na­tion of mois­ture in food, unlike when using devices with a ver­ti­cal air­flow design.

It is worth not­ing that dehy­dra­tors with hor­i­zon­tal air­flow design most­ly suit peo­ple with very tight timeta­bles or those who are busy with oth­er chores. This is because less super­vi­sion is need­ed dur­ing the entire dry­ing process. In case you need to check the progress of the dry­ing food in most such dehy­dra­tors, you need to pull out any indi­vid­ual tray as in a con­vec­tion oven. Since this dry­er mod­el has a fan at the back of the unit, there are no drip­pings on the fan motor. There­fore, the clean­ing of this unit is fur­ther made eas­i­er. Every user should know that most food dry­ers with hor­i­zon­tal air­flow designs are slight­ly more expen­sive than those with ver­ti­cal air­flow systems.

Power and Wattage

Every food dehy­dra­tor requires pow­er in order to run the fan motor and pro­vide suf­fi­cient ener­gy to the heat­ing ele­ments. There­fore, it is imper­a­tive to check on the dehydrator’s wattage before pur­chas­ing since this will give you an approx­i­mate cost of run­ning it. Par­tic­u­lar­ly, this dry­er mod­el con­sumes 1200-watts of pow­er, enabling it to dry food items requir­ing high tem­per­a­tures. In addi­tion, a ther­mo­stat reg­u­lates the heat ener­gy from this device to enable each food ingre­di­ent to dry at its suit­able tem­per­a­ture. Besides, the wattage of this device is high, and hence its unit heats up quickly.

Trays and Capacity

Basi­cal­ly, the num­ber of trays in a spe­cif­ic dry­er mod­el will always deter­mine the num­ber of food ingre­di­ents to be dried per dry­ing trip. This dehy­dra­tor brand comes with ten trays where; each tray mea­sures 14.5 inch­es deep by 16 inch­es wide. Each tray has a total dry­ing area of 1.61 Square Feet, while the total dry­ing space is 16.11 Square Feet. Such a dry­ing space is large enough to dry food items for domes­tic con­sump­tion and those inter­est­ed in start­ing small organ­ic food shops. The dry­er will dry a lot of your favorite food per trip.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the ten trays have holes where each has a dimen­sion of ¼ inch by ¼ inch that ensures eas­i­er accom­mo­da­tion of most food ingre­di­ents. If you wish to dry fruits, veg­eta­bles, and meat of var­i­ous sizes, you will have no wor­ries about them falling through to the bot­tom of the unit. The trays are made from 304-Grade stain­less steel. This met­al is a food-safe mate­r­i­al that won’t put your health at risk of con­sum­ing harm­ful chem­i­cal ele­ments. Such mate­r­i­al mak­ing up the trays also eas­es the clean­ing process, hence; sav­ing time for the user.

Notably, there is a drip tray that slides below the front dehy­drat­ing sec­tion, which holds drip­ping from the food ingre­di­ents. The drip tray mea­sures 14.5 inch­es by 16 inch­es, and it is made from stain­less steel. That means the drip tray is durable hence giv­ing you a long-time ser­vice. By hold­ing drip­pings from the trays, the drip tray makes clean­ing the unit eas­i­er. Fur­ther­more, the dehy­dra­tor is a large size mod­el and has a breadth (Front to Back) of 20 inch­es, a Width of 16.5 inch­es, and a height of 14.5 inch­es. There­fore, it is worth know­ing the size of this mod­el before pur­chas­ing it.

Control Panel

The STX-1200-XLS dehy­dra­tor mod­el has a dig­i­tal con­trol pan­el like most mod­ern dig­i­tal dehy­dra­tors. The con­trol pan­el is easy to use, and all the set­tings of this unit are done from this point. In addi­tion, there is an inbuilt shut-off timer and a ther­mo­stat on the con­trol pan­el. Its ther­mo­stat pro­vides a wide tem­per­a­ture range from 95ᵒF to 165ᵒF to allow you to dehy­drate food items requir­ing dif­fer­ent dry­ing tem­per­a­tures. So whether you are aim­ing to dry herbs, kiwi chips, oranges, snacks, or beef jerky, the ther­mo­stat will allow you to set a suit­able tem­per­a­ture for each.

There is also a shut-off timer on the con­trol pan­el, where you can set the suit­able dura­tion which a par­tic­u­lar food item can take to com­plete­ly dry. Specif­i­cal­ly, this dehy­dra­tor mod­el has an inbuilt 12 hours shut-off timer. With this timer, you can set the appro­pri­ate time when the unit can switch off auto­mat­i­cal­ly. This fea­ture pre­vents your food from over-dry­ing or not dry­ing com­plete­ly. After set­ting the timer, you can con­tin­ue with oth­er com­mit­ments with no wor­ries. Remem­ber, the ther­mo­stat and the timer might not pro­vide the accu­rate time or tem­per­a­ture tak­en by indi­vid­ual food to dehy­drate. This is because there are oth­er fac­tors that affect dehydration.

Any dry­er user should under­stand that the tem­per­a­ture on the ther­mo­stat is an approx­i­mate tem­per­a­ture at which a par­tic­u­lar food item can dehy­drate. Sim­i­lar­ly, the dura­tion at which indi­vid­ual food type takes to dry is not exact. There­fore, users are advised to check the mois­ture con­tent of the food after dehy­dra­tion. The dry­er mod­el also has an ON/OFF func­tion, which switch­es on the unit when the pow­er cord is con­nect­ed to the kitchen elec­tric sock­et. More infor­ma­tion about the device’s set­ting and usage is pro­vid­ed in the man­u­al that accom­pa­nies the dehydrator.

Using and Cleaning

In all hon­esty, the ther­mo­stat, ON/OFF but­ton, and the shut-off timer of this machine are easy to use for most users. Load­ing, super­vi­sion, and man­age­ment of the entire process are sim­ple as long as any user fol­lows the device’s man­u­al instruc­tions. You need to plan ahead when­ev­er you think of dehy­drat­ing any food ingre­di­ents with this dry­er. For instance, you should ensure that the dehy­dra­tor is at a min­i­mum dis­tance of 12 inch­es from any wall or obsta­cle. This ensures that there is prop­er air cir­cu­la­tion. You are also not to block the air vents or the back air intake screen.

Almost every food ingre­di­ent can be dried after prepa­ra­tion. Before dehy­dra­tion, food prepa­ra­tion includes peel­ing apples, slic­ing bananas, and remov­ing stems and pits in cran­ber­ries. Oth­er forms of food prepa­ra­tion can also include par­tial steam­ing of peas, steam­ing and peel­ing of yams, and blanch­ing of grapes. After prepa­ra­tion, load the food ingre­di­ents on the machine, tak­ing care not to over­load it. In case you over­load the machine, the process will result in uneven dry­ing. Since tray rota­tion is unnec­es­sary since the dry­er mod­el has a 7’’ inch­es fan that blows hot air hor­i­zon­tal­ly to the food on the dry­ing trays.

Imme­di­ate­ly after food dehy­dra­tion, clean­ing the dry­er unit is crit­i­cal in prepar­ing for the sub­se­quent dry­ing activ­i­ty. Clean­ing of the STX-1200-XLS dehy­dra­tor is sim­ple, espe­cial­ly because of the stain­less steel used to make it. Man­u­al clean­ing or using a dish­wash­er is the two ways of wash­ing the trays. Use a clean damp cloth to wipe the exte­ri­or and the inte­ri­or of this unit.

BUY NOW

Summary

In con­clu­sion, the STX-1200W-XLS dry­er mod­el is one of the most com­mon dry­er brands that any cus­tomer can opt to buy after con­sid­er­ing its fea­tures. Any­one who thinks of start­ing a small nat­ur­al dry-food shop can con­sid­er this mod­el because of its 10 trays, which can pro­vide an ade­quate dry­ing space. The stain­less steel mak­ing up this mod­el is food-safe; hence, it guar­an­tees you good health. Its ther­mo­stat gives a wide tem­per­a­ture range to enable the user to dehy­drate var­i­ous food ingre­di­ents. High tem­per­a­ture enhance the killing of harm­ful micro-organ­isms in the meat, while low tem­per­a­ture retains nutri­tion­al food val­ue. There is a fan with 7 inch­es blade, which blows hot air from the back­side to the front side over­all trays caus­ing effi­cient air cir­cu­la­tion through­out the unit.

More­over, the dry­er comes with a cook­book that con­tains over 270 dry­ing recipes to guide your food dehy­dra­tion activ­i­ties. There­fore, it will be wise to con­sid­er what you need from a dehy­dra­tor and com­pare it with the fea­tures of this dehy­dra­tor. This will guide you to make the cor­rect choice.

Will you be inter­est­ed in an alter­na­tive Food Dehy­dra­tor? Check our arti­cle — 7 Best Food Dehy­dra­tor for Healthy Kitchen.