Dehydrators & Vacuum Sealers

I'd like to start processing my own deer and making jerky.

What brand/model do you recommend for dehydrators and vacuum sealers?

I've been reading a lot of reviews online. For the dehydrators I'm teetering between (3) options. I like the idea of buying the jerky racks that go in my oven so that I don't have another electric appliance in the house. Of course then I have to make the jerky in the house and it ties up my oven. The Ronco dehydrator is simple and cheap but it sounds like it takes a long time to dry things out. The Open Country Dehydrator has some good reviews on cabelas.com.

For vacuum sealers I'm open to suggestions. The FoodSavers seems to have a lot of bad reviews. I'd like to find something that can remove air from a bag and seal it without spending $300 on the higher end commercial models.

LAST EDITED ON Nov-25-10 AT 10:44PM (MST)[p]I have made jerky on the Ronco before and it came out great. (yeah I stayed up late one night and he suckered me!!) Now I use a big chief smoker. I bought it for 85 bucks and like the jerky a lot more. For the vaccum sealer I have the stainless steel model. I believe it was around 180 bucks from fred meyer. It works good, however, looking back I wish I would have bought the more commercial looking sealer from cabelas. Sometimes I find that the foodsaver brand does not suck out as much air as I would like. It all depends on how you personally are going to use it. If you are just going to do jerky, I would buy a cheaper one. If you are going to seal tons of meat a year I would buy a high end vaccum sealer. I would rather buy the higher end brand and have it forever. Hope this helps, Smitty