It’s time we updated and refreshed our Nesco FD-61 food dehydrator review. Nesco keeps improving their product line.
If you’re looking for a good food dehydrator, stop here for a bit and read what we have to say.
Do you want to make some of your own beef jerky with no additives and maybe a bit cheaper than the stuff down at the corner grab-and-go?
Or, maybe you want to dehydrate some of that backyard bounty from your garden?
Our food dehydrator is a must-have modern-day home appliance to preserve food and make healthy homemade snacks for us and the puppy dogs.
Nesco FD-61 Food Dehydrator Review
The Nesco FD-61 food dehydrator is a great all-around product for making your own dehydrated foods and snacks. I know, I have owned is predecessor the FD-60 for close to 20 years at the time of this update.
As Nesco continues to offer this series, it is probably a good testimonial on its enduring versatility and popularity.
Nesco does make a variety of other food dehydrators under $100 mark. This model, the Nesco FD-61 Snackmaster, hovers between the $50 to $80 range on Amazon. Check out the current price, customer reviews, and ratings.
In an earlier post, I described what I consider essential features of a good food dehydrator. As I have owned food dehydrators from several manufacturers, I have learned what is important to look for!
The Fan Is On Top
Most food dehydrators have a fan that blows warm air to dry your food items. The Nesco FD-61 has a top mounted fan, most department store brands have a bottom mounted fan.
So why is this important?
Where we live, when something gets loose, it generally fall to the ground. When that excess beef jerky marinade drips off your freshly made meat strips, where does it go?
What about those spices and other small food bits, where do they go?
Would that stuff fall into that fan, maybe the thermostat, or the heating coil?
Or, would it fall into the bottom tray for easy clean up?
Once those food bits and marinade drippings get into that sealed fan and heating element area, you can’t do much about that. Those food bits and debris on these critical parts probably doesn’t make for a very long for product life.
Room For Growth — Adding Drying Trays
That Nesco FD-61 food dehydrator comes with four trays and can accommodate up to eight extras for a total of twelve food drying trays.
Twelve dryer trays, that is a lot of dehydrated food and snacks.
A 2-pack of accessory trays run between $10 and $15 on Amazon, click here to see current pricing.
You will probably need them anyway for that next big batch of jerky you will make.
Food Dehydrator Drying Tray Accessories
The Nesco FD-61 food dehydrator ships with one fruit roll sheet. You’ll need more, so go ahead and order a few extras.
Fruit Roll sheets are for more that drying fruit rolls. You can also dry sauces!
This blog is all about doing stuff outside. As an example, I can dry jarred pasta sauces to take on my frequent camping trips to mix up into my recipes. No glass, no heavy jars, — just add water.
This food dehydrator is designed to blow the warm air from the fan down the center of the dehydrator then out across each of the food trays. So this means you can use more than one fruit roll sheet at a time with this model.
If this feature is important to you, then compare to those other bottom mounted fan dehydrators that blow warm air straight up from the bottom. Those units can only dry one fruit roll sheet at a time. Visit their websites and download the owner’s manual to check for yourself!
These are handy to have as well! The Clean A Screen run between $12.00 for a set of 2 on Amazon.
At first glance, the Nesco clean a screen appears to be just a perforated plastic mesh. It is not. Each strand is a triangular strip of food grade plastic. Each strip has a flat side, the bottom, and a pointed side, the top.
So, the Nesco clean a screen is flat on the bottom, the part that contacts the food dryer tray.
And the top of the Nesco clean a screen is pointed, the part that contacts the food.
The Clean-A-Screen can also help keep some things you might make from sticking to the trays. I make a lot of dehydrated dog treats, — in this case dehydrated liver treats, the Clean-A-Screen keeps those treats from sticking.
Adjustable Thermostat
Most dehydrators under the $100 mark have just the low-medium-high switch on their product.
Yes, you can look on Amazon and compare them!
The Nesco FD-61 food dehydrator has an adjustable thermostat, variable from 95 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit or 35 to 71 degrees Celsius.
Food Dehydrator Cleanliness
Cleaning up after making a batch of dehydrated food should be easy. Cleaning the Nesco FD-61 is straight forward as you might imagine. The top mounted fan we already talked about, just wipe it down when it gets dusty. The base where all those tiny bits fall, well its easy enough to just wipe that out with a damp cloth as well.
A neat trick is to place a fruit roll sheet on the food dehydrator base. This will catch most, if not all, of the bits and pieces of food, spices, and marinade drips that tend to fall to the bottom.
The trays are dishwasher safe. You can wash them in the sink as I do. I do the same with the Clean-A-Screen and the fruit roll sheets they are washed in the sink as well.
Specifications
+ adjustable thermostat
+ 500 watts of drying power with a top mounted fan
+ it comes with 4 trays, expandable to 12
+ dehydrator tray specifications:
++ outside diameter: 13.5 inches
++ inside diameter: 12.75 inches
++ tray height: 1.25 inches
++ space between the trays: about 1 inch (my measurements)
++ about 120 square inches per tray (for food items)
If you are looking for a really good quality food dehydrator, the Nesco FD-61 Snackmaster should fit the bill. They have several other models as well. The FD-61 has an average of a 4.5 star user rating. Hundreds of happy customers is usually a good indication of a quality item.
I coming posts, I will share with you more of my beef jerky and fish jerky recipes. Be sure to come back and check out my “Dehydrators” page. This is where I link to all my recipes and food dehydrator posts in one easy place.
2 replies on “Nesco FD-61 Food Dehydrator Review”
Thanks for the review! I ordered the FD-60 and it arrived in no time thanks to Amazon Prime. I think you should tell your readers that they should get the extra trays. I made some dried apples and had to do them in 3 batches because I had so many.
I have used this dehydrator for over 5 yrs and wouldn’t trade it for any other brand. I do lots of deer jerky year round and it has performed to perfection. I have expanded mine to 10 trays. I also used the jerky mix from nesco and everyone goes crazy for it. Great products!!!