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303 of 307 people found the following review helpful.
Almost perfect juicer
By E. Tam
It juices virtually everything perfectly! Peel the rind off a lemon and it juices better than a citrus juicer! It does greens VERY well, almost all pulps come out dry without so much as a drop to wring out from it, and it looks gorgeous in a glass.Here's how it works: you feed your produce into the feed chute and it's processed by a black acrylic auger against a metal sieve. Basically this means the auger is chewing the produce and pressing the resulting pulp and juice against a metal screen with tiny holes. The pulp is pressed through a pulp chute while the juice is filtered through the holes and into the juice chute. It's absolutely amazing. Honestly, I really wanted one of the Omega nutrition center juicers, but just watching the videos of making carrot juice on those things was painful! You have to JAM it into the feed chute to get the carrots to go in. The amazing thing about this juicer is that the auger PULLS carrots in with no effort whatsoever from the user. One thing to note though, is that you need to let it do its own work. If you DO try pushing it in, it locks up the auger. On softer produce like leafy greens and fruits, it has no problem with jamming stuff in. It may not be as fast as a centrifugal juicer, but it's at least twice as fast, and a QUARTER of the work that goes into jamming them into the Omega nutrition center.So far I have juiced the following without any problems:CeleryCarrots - SHOULD BE PEELED. Skins are extremely bitter!RomaineKale - surprisingly mild flavor even in its raw stateCucumbersApple - must be a firm fleshed apple like Fujis, Galas or Granny SmithsOrange - I will NEVER drink "fresh squeezed" carton juices ever again.LemonGrapes (didn't expect this one to come out as dry as it did--wow!)As for citrus, be sure to peel the rind off first otherwise you'll be left with very bitter juice which contains natural though indigestible oils. Note that certain pulpy fruits like grapes and berries will have somewhat wet pulp, but it can be put through the juicer again and the auger will squeeze even more juice out of it! The great thing about this juicer is if you want to make a different juice without mixing the flavors, you can run 2-3 cups of water through the machine and you'll be ready to juice your next batch of fruits and/or vegetables. So if Sally wants carrot but Brian wants apple and neither wants to taint their juice with the other's juice, you don't have to disassemble the whole thing to avoid doing so.Green juicers should already know this, but if you're new, this is how you get through several batches without having to wash it over and over: alternate produce! This actually goes for fruit as well, but it's imperative that you alternate with greens. Start with some leafy greens, then follow this with 1/2 of a cucumber--which actually doubles as a plunger so you can just use that cucumber half to push those leaves in. If you want to do straight kale, you may have to open the juicer, remove the auger and pull some of the fibers out of the base--which won't be a problem if you mix your greens. Keep in mind I've never had to do this as I've never had any lock-ups while juicing--most likely because I've always alternated produce.Speaking of cleaning--virtually painless. Just separate the removable parts from the base whole and put it in the sink. Run hot water through the top and rinse it off (with soapy water if you desire), then remove the top and rinse the bottom of the feed chute plate. Next rinse your auger, and if you juiced something fibrous, run the chisel part of the included cleaning brush through the indented ring where it may have collected. This takes maybe 5 seconds. Next, rinse and scrub the screen. This is a little more difficult/time consuming. I don't actually like using the included brush for this. I use a non-stick safe scouring pad to wipe it gently twice and usually all the pulp stuck in the holes are gone. The clear plastic base is easy to clean; pull the attached silicone plug out and clear out the pulp chute with a spray of water and rinse the rest out and you're done. Cleaning takes 3-5 minutes depending on what you juiced. Quick tip for removing carrot stains: use a towel with a couple drops of vegetable oil on it and the stains wipe right off.The main things that attracted me to this juicer that it's able to process almonds for a very easy almond milk. Just soak 1 cup of almonds overnight and the next morning put it through the juicer with 3 cups of water and you've got a very healthy and tasty almond milk which goes phenomenally well with cereal. I've tried blanching the almonds and removing the skin first but it does not make a big difference. Using raw almonds does result in a cleaner fresher tasting almond milk. It does do soymilk as well, but I would recommend doing blending it instead as processing the soymilk (which is neccessary) over the stove is better done with the pulverized soybeans in the pot as it wrings more flavor than juicing them would. Either way, filtering with a strainer or nut milk bag is necessary. I usually follow this immediately with some juicing so I don't have to wash it twice.Edit: Three months and still going strong! Still no jam ups whatsoever. I still haven't run into any wet pulp (bone dry pulps here, with oranges I always run the pulp through 1-2 times). This thing has handled an entire 6 cup pitchers worth of juice of oranges/pineapple, and all it spits out is a handful or so of totally dry pulp. I really can't squeeze a single drop out of it! Completely amazing.
206 of 210 people found the following review helpful.
Happier with it now after using it a while
By Denise M. Jones
For the last four years I've used a centrifugal juicer and always wanted a masticating juicer, but never bought one because I knew some of them had problems juicing fruits, and also that they're very slow.So, when I saw the advertisement for this "slow" juicer that was fast and which could juice both leafy greens and fruits equally well, I was very excited. I raptly watched the video demonstrations of its capabilities and ordered it promptly. Some of its purported advantages of extremely dry pulp, more juice, little to no foam, etc. have fallen far short of the promises made. I notice no increased amount of juice, the foam is absolutely no less than it was with a centrifugal juicer, and UNLIKE my trusty centrifigual juicer the Hurom does a LOUSY job of juicing greens. Just try to juice a leaf of Kale and you'll find it gets all wound up around the screw that is supposed to be chewing it up. It's a mess! I have to stop, put it in reverse, which makes the top come off, then unplug it, stick my hands down around the screw and try to get some of the stuck kale out. And, if you are going to juice a green like kale, do it last or anything you try to juice afterwards will also get stuck around the screw with the kale and not get juiced.I have also NOT noticed any less separation than the juice created with my centrifugal juicer. So, that's a bust, too.On the positive side, here are some things I do like about it better than my centrifugal -- it's blessedly quiet, the juice doesn't spit out at high velocity causing splashing everywhere, also small berries and things like pomengranate seeds are easier to juice since they're not trying to jump back out the top of the juicer like they do with the high-speed velocity of the centrifugal juicer.So, if this is your first juicer, you'll probably be pretty happy with it. If you're a seasoned juicer and are looking to buy up, however, for the money I think I'd wished I'd gone for the twin auger juicer instead.Update: I've been using the juicer for a couple of months now and am pretty happy with it. I just make sure I tear some of the larger greens up a bit before feeding them in, and I try to juice them last or right before some other item that will help push them through, like celery.
179 of 184 people found the following review helpful.
I broke it twice
By K. Lortz
I use this juicer twice a day. I juice wheatgrass, kate, chard, lemons, limes, fennel - everything. I have had it for 6 weeks. I broke it in three days. The three posts holding the top of the unit on broke off when the chute was blocked with long fibers from fennel. It bound up and also broke the basket. This is a real issue. WARNING: Cut your greens small. They replaced it immediately and the customer service was excellent. BUT last night I broke the little white gear inside the top that directs the juice to one side the tailings out the other. I also cracked the basket in two places. The cause? A mere lime cut in 4 pieces. It could not handle it. WARNING: Limes must be in tiny pieces to go through. I e-mailed again and asked for replacement parts. I am willing to pay for them as I have a lot invested in it. Just realize that this machine breaks rather easily. It is a great tool with real limitations. Once you know what those are, you should be fine. I wish they would warn us about the fibers in things and the limes. I assume they must know that these are a problem.UPDATE: They contacted me immediately like last time and parts are on the way at no cost to me. They are very good with backing their product.UPDATE 1: I have now cracked three strainer baskets within a day of getting new ones along the seam of the mesh. There is a plastic ring that cracks very easily. Simply replacing the plastic encircling band of plastic with metal would solve the company's problem. I am afraid I would have a hard time recommending this machine to a friend with these obvious faults.UPDATE: I now have had this juicer for 6 months. A tooth on the auger broke off. I think it was on wheat grass. I heard a terrible noise. It now jerks around with the gap. I started using the larger strainer basket. I finally cracked that one too. The rubber stopper on the bottom now leaks just just from regular use and I get some juice running out the bottom. It is a real mess with beet juice on the white base and on the counter. This is really not a well made machine to take any heavy use. I will have to replace these parts now, but I am so tired of dealing with it.
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Great item.
