Juice Extractors Buyers Guide

There are 4 main types of juicers to consider when buying:

- Hand-held,
- Centrifugal,
- Fruit Presses and
- Hydraulic Juicers.

Your decision is determined by the type of juice you want to make and your budget. You should also consider overall maintenance of the juicer before buying.

If all you want is fresh fruit juice, consider a simple electric citrus juicer. Usually hand-held, these are the cheapest and most convenient form of juicer but limit you to little more than orange juice. They are easy to clean and surprisingly reliable. The resulting juice is generally thinner than that made by a more sophisticated type of juicer.

The most common juice extractors on the market are the centrifugal juicers. These basically grate away at the fruit or vegetable, separating the juice from the pulp. The juice is then forced through a strainer by the spinning action of the juicer. More expensive models allow you to control the smoothness of the juice by varying the amount of pulp in the drink.

Another option is to go for a fruit press, where halved fruit is placed inside the device and simply squeezed to produce juice. Relatively expensive, most fruit presses are well built and long lasting. They are limited, however, to squeezing citrus fruit.

For the serious juice fanatic, the top end of the market is dominated by the more expensive hydraulic juicer, which first crushes, then forces the produce through a sieve. This produces by far the best results, keeping the maximum amount of goodness in the juice. This is an altogether quieter way of extracting juice and has the added benefit of being able to crush juice from leafy vegetables without clogging up.

What are you likely to juice?
Bear this in mind when making your choice. Cheaper extractors use cheaper motors with only one speed. That's fine if all you want is fruit juice. Juice anything slightly tough, however (e.g. carrots), and a cheap motor will struggle. Do it for a while and the motor may even start to overheat. The only way to ease this is to chop up the item before you can extract the juice - defeating the object somewhat.

Is it easy to clean?
Using a juicer has to be quick and easy. If it isn't, the novelty will soon wear off and your juicer will end up on a shelf somewhere at the back of the kitchen cupboard. Look for a juicer that's not only simple to use, but easy to clean. That way, you'll use it more regularly.

Depending on the juicer you choose, on average, between four and seven parts have to be removed and cleaned. These include the juicer as well as the blade, filter, pulp container and juice container. Sometimes this also needs to be done during use. This prevents clogging and increases the efficiency of the juicer. The longer all this takes, the less the chances are of you using the juicer regularly. Also bear in mind that many manufacturers recommend against placing the parts in a dishwasher - check this before buying.

Think about whether it's going to be too much hassle to do all this to get a glass of orange juice, for example. Don't try to get round it by making one big job-lot of juice, expecting it to last a few days - it doesn't, not even in the fridge.

Before making your choice, consider the following checklist.

1. If you need to use it for long periods check that the motor strong enough.
2. If you want to juice vegetables check that it has variable speed.
3. Make sure the size of the juice container is large enough for your needs.
4. If the juice container can be used as a jug, check that it will fit in your fridge.
5. Make sure the pulp container is big enough.
6. Check that the feeder is wide enough and the right shape for what you plan to juice.
7. Find out how easy it is to dismantle and clean.
8. If you like the “little orangey bits” make sure there's a pulp selector.