Excalibur Dehydrator Review: What 16 Square Feet and 165 Degrees Buy You

Buy the Excalibur Select Series 10-tray if you make venison jerky in batches: 16 square feet of drying area, a dial that runs from 85 to 165 °F, horizontal airflow that means no tray shuffling, and a 60-hour timer.

Step up to the Performance Series 10-tray for three things only: dishwasher-safe stainless trays instead of chrome, two-phase programming (two temperatures and times in one run), and a three-year Excalibur warranty. The tray area and temperature range are identical — you are paying for trays and warranty, not capacity.

The specs that matter

Why 165 F is the headline

Jerky guidance is temperature guidance. USDA FSIS directs home cooks to heat meat to 160 °F before dehydrating and to dry at a steady temperature; PNW Extension's jerky publication works in a 145-155 °F holding band. A dehydrator whose dial stops at 158 °F has no headroom above that band; a dial that reaches 165 °F does.

Horizontal airflow and tray rotation

Excalibur runs what it calls Hyperwave and Horizontal Parallex airflow, with the fan and element at the back rather than the base, and states that no tray rotation is needed. On a stacked vertical-flow dehydrator, trays nearer the element dry faster and you shuffle them every couple of hours.

On a ten-tray load of jerky that is not a small convenience. It is the difference between a batch you start and a batch you babysit, and it is the main structural reason the Excalibur cabinets sit at the top of our dehydrator roundup.

Select vs Performance

The honest summary: same box, same air, same temperatures, different trays and paperwork.

• Trays. Chrome on the Select; stainless and dishwasher-safe on the Performance. After a marinade-heavy venison batch, that is the difference between a sink job and a rack job.
• Programming. The Performance runs two drying phases at different times and temperatures with auto shut-off. Useful; not essential, since jerky is usually one temperature throughout.
• Warranty. Excalibur publishes three years on the Performance. The Select listings do not state a term, which is the single biggest gap between them.

Two-phase drying does not replace the heating step either, and we would not buy the Performance expecting it to.

Which size for your season

Tray area is the constraint, not the number of trays. The Select 10 gives 16 sq ft; the Select 5 gives 3 sq ft, which is less area than a stock Nesco FD-75A and runs out fast on jerky.

Sizing it to a season: at the Ohio Division of Wildlife average of about 52 lb of venison a deer, a three-deer season is roughly 157 lb. If a fifth of that becomes jerky, that is about 31 lb of raw meat to dry — several loads on 16 sq ft, and a great many on 3. The 5-tray is a small-kitchen machine for small batches, and Excalibur's own line makes no claim otherwise.

Against Nesco and Cosori

Excalibur's advantages are tray area and the 165 °F ceiling with horizontal airflow. Where the competition answers back is on published detail and price: Cosori publishes wattage and stainless construction, and Nesco's expandable stacks let you add trays rather than buying a bigger cabinet.

Our Nesco vs Excalibur comparison carries that head-to-head with a Cosori section, and best dehydrators for jerky ranks the whole field on the temperature bar first.