Reply #1: I do, I do.

[Denninmi]

Love it. I dry all kinds of things in season. Mine is from Sausage Makers in Buffalo, NY. I paid about $225 for it around 2006. I see the price for this model (stainless steel cabinet and 10 shelves) is now about $350-ish. What I like about it is durability -- all stainless, adjustable heat level from very low (about 80 degrees) to very hot (160), and capacity -- it holds a LOT with 10 shelves.

I too have never made jerky in my life (heck, I've only tasted it once or twice, "Not a fan, ahuuu, ahuuu' as Elaine Benes said about the lima bean soup made by the Soup Nazi in that particular Seinfeld episode.

I do, however, dry all kinds of fruits, veggies, and herbs. It's quite a nice way to preserve things. Some of my favorites include tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, and various hot peppers on the veggie side, and peaches, strawberries, apples, pears, and persimmons on the fruit side.

There are various things you can do with the dried product -- many of the vegetables are good to grind into powder and use to augment other foods in ways you might not think of, such as adding to meatball or meatloaf mixtures, into bread and pasta doughs, or into soups, stews, and sauces. Some are ok just out of hand as snacks -- I like cucumber slices, sweet pepper chips, and sweet onions this way, actually, and of course, dried tomatoes are yummy. I grow a LOT of onions, generally planting around 3000 a year, and I dry most of those, which yields many bags of dried onion slices, chips, and powder, which I share with family.

Any of the dried fruits pretty much are nature's candy, which should go without saying. My personal favorite, though, are my dried peaches -- think of the sweetest, juiciest tree ripened peach, and then think of all that flavor concentrated into a small package. Yum, yum, yum.

I did have to replace the fan last summer, which cost about $22 plus I think another $5 for postage, IIRC. But, it has had many, many hours of use, so I'm not complaining one bit about that, I think it earned its place in small motor heaven after all of the work it's done.