noodle

So, I have a great little citrus juicer... I live in Florida, we all do
But, I'm in need of a good and not overly expensive juice extractor for weekly use, not too heavy usage. S needs it to extract from kiwi fruit since it's part of his recovery drink while training for the MS150 road biking event in October and I like to make home-made sorbets and stuff since I can't eat ice cream.
I'd prefer to use it with carrots, tomatoes, spinach, apples, strawberries, watermelon, peaches, grapes, etc. and it would be great if it did work with citrus fruit, but not a requirement. I read a bunch of conflicting reviews and information that I really didn't need or care about, so I thought I'd ask around here if anyone has a juice extractor that they loved (or hated) to help me in my search. Thanks!

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snowy

I don't have one myself, but I started wishing I did after reading this over at The Kitchn: Product Review: Breville Juice Fountain Compact | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn My SO is still not convinced that a juicer is a necessary addition to our kitchen, but I see endless possibilities. It also won't break the bank at $89.99.

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RogueGypsy

I've been juicing for 15+ years and have had several juicers. My personal favorite so far is the Hurom 100, my current juicer. It's a 'slow juicer', which I prefer. It actually juices faster than any other I've owned, but the auger turns slowly (80 rpm) and presses juice out. It is by far the fastest juicer, produces the most juice for the produce fed into it and is the best tasting juice I've ever had. I juice citrus rind and all with this bad puppy. Probably not what you would call a budget juicer, but still considerably less than other models of similar quality. Aside from the Champion, it's also the easiest to clean. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page at the link below, there is a video of the Hurom in action.

Hurom Slow Juicer (a.k.a. Oscar Pro 930)



My second favorite is the Champion Juicer. This thing will juice a tree. It also has a huge variety of attachments available; meat grinders, grain mills, citrus juicers.....so on. It's built like a tank and will last forever. It's probably the most popular slow juicer out there and can be found on Craig's List for under $100. I bought my first one for $50 in the classifieds. I've owned two, the first went with my X when she left, the second was re-purposed with the rest of my belongings when I left my house unattended for a couple of months on the Bayou. I'm sure both are still working just fine. I replaced it with the Hurom mainly because of the height of the discharge on the Champion. It was too low to juice directly into a glass, which meant more things to clean and I'm lazy.



There are several other slow extractors, but most go up in price and offer little more than the above two.

Going down in price brings us to the centrifugal juicers. They work at high speed, shred whatever goes into them and let's the juice run out. They tend to be very loud (think blender full of ice), heat the juice and do not efficiently extract the juice. I personally don't care for this style of juicer. I've owned 4, 3 died just after the warranty expired, the last is sitting on my counter no longer being used. The up side is they are better than nothing and are relatively inexpensive. I can't think of one to recommend with the luck I've had with them, but Consumer Reports rates the Hamilton Beach 'Big Mouth' a best buy.


Other than the device's ability to juice, the primary thing I look for is ease of clean-up, then noise. I know from experience that if it's hard to clean, it gets used less often and if it's noisy it gets used even less often. I had to save for a couple of months to get the Hurom, but it's well worth every penny and cost less than half that of other comparable juicers. I used a centrifugal juicer while I was saving for the Hurom and it was like going from a Yugo with no muffler to a Bentley.

Good luck with your search.

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