While we love the durable stainless steel design, we do miss a number of convenient features and highly recommend the optional digital thermometer with timer and wall socket automatic timer. We'd also prefer a thicker grade stainless steel used for a more robust design.
While there is no inbuilt automatic timer to turn the unit off after a drying cycle is complete a separate automatic timer (that plugs into to the wall socket) can be purchased and is highly recommended. The optional digital thermometer can also be used to set an alarm reminder. Of course, any timer/alarm is suitable.
The unit does not display the current temperature and there is no way of setting an exact drying temperature. The optional digital thermometer can be used to monitor exact temperatures (and will record the highest and lowest temperature) however the units temperature must still be manually adjusted up or down (based on the thermometer's display). For our purposes, we don’t feel we need an “exact” temperature to produce quality dehydrated food, but this feature would still be appreciated.
Both these options are available on the larger (14) shelf model.
While non-stick shelves and plastic drying screens are available for this model we don't recommend them. Recent research identifies non-stick and plastic materials as potential health concerns.
