Excalibur reviews: is this 8-tray dehydrator worth your counter space?
Worth it if you dehydrate regularly
Why home-dried fruit and jerky never turn out even
Picture a plate of apple slices turning brown before you've even finished slicing the bag, or a rack of oven-dried jerky that came out leathery on the edges and raw in the middle. A regular oven can't hold a steady low temperature for hours, so anything you dry in it ends up uneven no matter how carefully you watch it. That's usually the point where people start reading excalibur reviews, wondering if a dedicated box that costs more than a toaster oven is actually worth the counter space.
How the Excalibur's airflow actually dries food evenly
Here's the part that actually matters: most dehydrators dry unevenly because they push air from one direction, so the tray closest to the fan finishes hours before the one farthest away, and you end up rotating trays every hour like a rotisserie. Excalibur builds this one around Hyperwave Pulse Technology paired with what it calls Horizontal Parallax airflow, which pushes air sideways across every tray at once instead of relying on a single vertical column. Air reaches each of the eight chrome trays at roughly the same rate, which is the whole reason you're not supposed to need to rotate anything, even fully loaded. The thermostat runs from 85 to 165 degrees and the timer holds a setting for up to 80 hours, which matters for jerky and pet treats that need a long, steady cure rather than a quick blast of heat. The glass French doors mean you can check progress by looking, not by opening the door and losing all your built-up heat. It's a stainless steel box built around one job: holding a temperature steady across a wide, flat space for a long time.
So you're not really paying for a box that gets warm, you're paying for even heat holding steady across eight trays without you standing there rotating anything. That patience is the whole product: a regular oven can approximate the temperature, but it can't hold it evenly for ten hours while you sleep. Whether that's worth it comes down to how often you actually dry things, not how good the fruit leather sounds in theory.
Who the Excalibur 8-tray dehydrator is for, and who should skip it
Worth it if
- You make jerky, dried fruit, or pet treats often enough to justify a dedicated appliance
- You want even drying without standing there rotating trays every hour
- You'd rather monitor progress through a window than open the door and lose heat
Skip it if
- You'd only dry something a couple of times a year
- You don't have spare counter or storage space for a 17-inch deep appliance
- You want a cheap entry point rather than a long-term dedicated tool
Not for someone who'd only use it once or twice a year.
Excalibur reviews: the bottom line on this dehydrator
If you make jerky, dry a garden's worth of herbs and tomatoes, or make your own pet treats on any kind of regular basis, this is a quiet yes, it earns its counter space. If you'd use it twice a year for a batch of banana chips, a cheaper stackable dehydrator will do that job for less. One practical note either way: run a test batch at a lower setting than the dial suggests before committing a big batch of meat, since interior heat can run warmer than what you dial in, and handle the glass doors gently when loading and unloading trays.
Amazon shoppers rate it 4.4 out of 5 across 140 ratings. That is their number, not ours.
Before you go
Do you need to rotate the trays in the Excalibur dehydrator?
No, the airflow design is built to reach all eight trays evenly, which is the main reason rotating isn't necessary even with every tray loaded.
What temperature range does the Excalibur dehydrator use?
It adjusts from 85 to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, with a timer that can hold a setting for up to 80 hours for slow, low cures like jerky.
Full spec sheet
| Brand Name | Excalibur |
|---|---|
| Unit Count | 8 Count |
| Included Components | 1 PP mesh screen, User manual with recipes, 8 Chrome plated drying trays, 1 crumb tray, |
| Item Type Name | 8-Tray for Jerky, Fruit, Vegetables, Herbs, Pet Treats, 7.2 Cu Ft Drying Space with Adj… |
| Model Number | DH08SCSS13 |
| Part Number | DH08SCSS13 |
| Wattage | 700 watts |
| Voltage | 120 |
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