Presto Dehydro Digital Electric Food Dehydrator 06301

I've never dehydrated before, but I got interested in long term food storage. I read a lot of blogs and saw a lot of videos. This is what I did the first time trying it out. I bought a 5 lb bag of frozen mixed vegetables. You need to line the trays with the included mesh screens or parchment paper cut using the screens as a pattern. ( I have since ordered 4 mesh screens here on Walmart.com) Before filling a tray, I stuffed the center hole with a paper towel. I also put a paper towel under the hole in case anything escaped. Remove the hole blocker before placing tray on the Presto. I filled each of the 6 trays with 3 cups of veggies. There was about half a cup left in the bag which I distributed across 2 of the trays. I set the Presto for 8 hours at 125 degrees. When they were done, I unplugged the Presto and let them sit for an hour. I found that 3 cups dehydrated to 2/3 cup! I put 2 trays worth (6 cups frozen/ 1 1/3 c dry ) in a 16 oz mason jar and had an inch or so of headroom. I plan to use my jar sealer to remove the air. 1/3 cup will be equivalent to a 15 oz can when rehydrated. There are many ideas about how long these will keep, but 2 years seemed to be mentioned the most often in the blogs. I wore a hair net and gloves during all steps. As I told my friends,"Anything to keep me from cleaning!"

Drying apples day in and day out, two batches a day! The only real noise we hear is just enough to let you know it is still running. All trays dry the same and no need to swap trays as they dry. We are only using six trays so don't know about the twelve tray cooking process.