RONCO Food Dehydrator!

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Hey all!

Just got back from my friend's tag sale and picked up her Ronco Food Dehydrator for 2 bucks!

So what can i do with this thing??? My other friend usually makes his own beef jerky, but uses a fan and air filters to dehydrate it. Could i just marinade it the same way and put it in the dehydrator?

What about my own herbs/spices/spice mixes? would they last as long/taste as good?

Any ideas?
 
Hi Drummercook and welcome!

You got a bargain. I have a Ronco dehydrator, too, and really like it. Yes, you can make your jerkey the way you're describing. But let me give you a pointer on slicing the meat. It should be sliced very thin. To do that, put the meat in the freezer for a while - just until it begins to firm up. Then it will be easy to slice it very, very thin with a sharp knife.

Herbs are great dried in the dehydrator. I've dried my own green peppers to make green pepper flakes/chunks. They're good, too. I think the herbs taste better because they're fresher to begin with.

One of my favorite uses is to dry bread cubes for stuffing. I use the least expensive sliced loaf bread I can find. I freeze the loaf overnight and then slice it (4 slices at a time) into large cubes while it's still frozen. It will shrink quite a bit during the drying process. One 24-ounce loaf of bread will usually fill all 5 of my drying trays. I rotate the trays at least once during drying. In about 2 hours I have perfectly dried bread cubes.

I also use this same method to make croutons out of whatever bread I want to use for that purpose.

If there was no instruction book with the dehydrator, email me and I can send you a pdf copy of mine.

Happy dehydrating.
 
I've only used mine to dry fruit so far.
Our favorites are apples and pineapple. Realllly gooood!
 
Mine is the Nesco / American Harvest F-50.

It has a powerful fan that forces the warm air though it and the trays. It's a patented process called Converga-Flow.

Yes Drmmercook, you CAN use it to make beef jerky and to dry out sliced fruits and veggies.


~Corey123.
 
please need manual

i was wondering if you could please email me the pdf manual for the ronco food dehydrator. thank you so much!
 
PDF file for Ronco Dehydrator instructions..

Hello:..I saw that you have the instructions on PDF for the food dehydrator...Would you kindly email it to me at cbiblical@yahoo.com?

Thanks:

Christine G.

Hi Drummercook and welcome!

You got a bargain. I have a Ronco dehydrator, too, and really like it. Yes, you can make your jerkey the way you're describing. But let me give you a pointer on slicing the meat. It should be sliced very thin. To do that, put the meat in the freezer for a while - just until it begins to firm up. Then it will be easy to slice it very, very thin with a sharp knife.

Herbs are great dried in the dehydrator. I've dried my own green peppers to make green pepper flakes/chunks. They're good, too. I think the herbs taste better because they're fresher to begin with.

One of my favorite uses is to dry bread cubes for stuffing. I use the least expensive sliced loaf bread I can find. I freeze the loaf overnight and then slice it (4 slices at a time) into large cubes while it's still frozen. It will shrink quite a bit during the drying process. One 24-ounce loaf of bread will usually fill all 5 of my drying trays. I rotate the trays at least once during drying. In about 2 hours I have perfectly dried bread cubes.

I also use this same method to make croutons out of whatever bread I want to use for that purpose.

If there was no instruction book with the dehydrator, email me and I can send you a pdf copy of mine.

Happy dehydrating.
 
Ronco food dehydrator

Hello everyone... I too picked up a ronco food dehydrator at a sale and would love to get my hands on a manual... if anyone has one scanned and would like to send to me, i would very much appreciate it... can't wait to try it out but haven't got a clue as to how to use it..
thanks
 
If it's like any other dehydrator, it has one control, a thermostat (the higher the number on the switch, the hotter it gets), and when it is turned on, the fan also comes on. In order to use a dehydrator, you only need experience, common sense or a recipe (which you can get on the internet.) It's not rocket science.
 
Hey all!

Just got back from my friend's tag sale and picked up her Ronco Food Dehydrator for 2 bucks!

So what can i do with this thing??? My other friend usually makes his own beef jerky, but uses a fan and air filters to dehydrate it. Could i just marinade it the same way and put it in the dehydrator?

What about my own herbs/spices/spice mixes? would they last as long/taste as good?

Any ideas?

You can make beef jerky in your Ronco. Dry herbs, croutons and such. You can make your own rubs for jerky. The trick is to make sure that the meats dried properly. I'll do my best to explain the why's..

I was waiting for someone else to say this first. Be prepared for some work. Ronco's and a few other round doughnut shaped dehydrators have been known to have problems. Most don't even have a temperature control setting. The heating element is positioned at the bottom, for anything like juices from meats to drip on. You have to rotate the trays often, they dry unevenly. Which can pose as a problem with improperly dried foods molding. Most don't evenly distribute air flow, uses a lot of electricity. They take longer to dehydrate anything.

Temperature control, tray size,and clean up are the biggest issues.
If dehydrating is something that your really interested in doing often. Check out other brands on the market. L 'Equip Nesco American Harvest's Gardenmaster and Excalibur's Large Garden dehydrator are all great dehydrators. I have the Excalibur. It's used often for many things. Been extremely happy with it. It has a temperature control that is so gentle when drying my own herbs. I don't worry about mold, or burning the delicate leaves. Sun dried tomatoes when I want them in the winter is a nice treat. :) Takes care of my bread rising needs to. I like to let people think I worked hard all day.

But anyways.. Good luck have some fun with it.

Munky.
 
If you are wondering what to do with your dehydrator there is a great site that shows how to dehydrate different things, as well as how to use them in recipes. I learned so much from this site when I first started. www.dehydrate2store.com
 
Manual leaves questions

We picked up a Ronco food dehydrator at a yard sale. It's black/grey and has this metal tray in addition to all the other plastic vented trays. Although placing it on the base above the burner seems where it should go, it causes the other trays to sit on the base in a more precarious manner. However, based on Chef Munky's comment, I'm assuming for now it must be to shield the coils from the drippings.
 
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