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Breville VFJ005
by sparkymarky1973
My wife is on a bit of a health kick, concerned about all the calories she will be putting on shortly with all the Christmas parties she will be attending, and so bought this little gadget from our local supermarket without first consulting me because she figured it would be a great tool to make fresh fruit smoothies and because it ... "looked funky". Not the best way to form an opinion of a product, I thought, but there you go, she's bought it now. Unfortunately I am kind of left wishing she had checked out reviews on Amazon or here first as this product has so far failed to impress!
First of all, as many others have noticed and commented, your fruit has to be cut quite small to fit in the chute of the blender making quite a lot of work for, what turns out to be, very little juice. I am not sure that the ratio of how much fruit you put in to how much juice you get out is worth the effort at all and I found myself squeezing the left-over pulp through a chinois or strainer with the aid of a wooden spoon in order to get a bit more out of the mix. And there was me thinking the idea of this gadget was to save you a bit of effort, not make you more work! The capacity is 1.5 L but trust me, there is little chance of you filling it unless you REALLY stock up on fruit. Maybe if you buy left-over stock or seconds from your green grocer or supermarket then this might prove cost-effective but I cannot see this juicer being very economical and I think there would not be significant difference in cost as to if you bought pre-made smoothies! Okay, maybe that's a sight exaggeration, but in my honest opion the smoothies you can buy in the shops may be full of artifical ingedients to enhance the flavour and hence less healthy but they are certainly not as much effort!
The other thing I do not like about this product is the noise! I suffer from migraines and often find fresh juice helps alleviate some of the symptoms but I would not be using this, trust me, if I was having an attack. My mother-in-law has a blender/ juicer and it makes nowhere near as much noise as this! Maybe after a few years when the motor was a tad worn I might expect noise but not from new!
Storage too is an issue. My kitchen is not small but I already have quite a few gadgets in it and, though they are all reasonably compact, I do find this to be quite cumbersome for what it is! Also, unless you clean this immediately, it can be a right pain in the prverbial to wash! It comes apart quite easily but food bits get stuck in some of the most awkward places and once dry, this can make things very difficult.
Yes, it looks good and yes, Breville are ordinarily a good brand.
But maybe they should stick to toasted sandwich makers as, for me, this was little more than a novelty item ~ the cow design being a gimmick which detracts from the fact that this isn't anywhere as near as good a product as it should be!
We paid around £25 for this but there are lots of other products available at either side of the price spectrum so my advice would be to shop around and check sites such as Dooyoo or Amazon BEFORE you form an opinion. My overall thoughts are that this is okay but for £25 I wanted better than just okay and its only unique selling point is the cow-print design! Not recommended!
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Breville JE15
by Aaron
I've literally just finished gulping down my first ever homegrown, organic carrot juice drink, made using the JE15. I'd been deliberating on getting a juicer for a while now and in an effort to improve my health, I decided to get one. What a thoroughly awesome product. Very simple and safe to operate as well as clean. Its also not hugely ... noisy either, unlike my smoothie maker, which leaves my ears ringing afterwards.
All the food shavings are collected in the grey bin and can be made into other things or given to the dog as a delicious treat, so nothing really goes to waste. I found myself nibbling on the carrot shavings as it made them so light, moist and fluffy, almost like a sponge cake!
Cleaning the JE15 took me all of about 3 minutes in total. Simply disassemble, rinse under the tap and dry. The brush provided does a decent job of removing food particles from the mesh, which probably took about 90 seconds to be pristine again. Simply reassemble and you're good to go once more.
I am really keen to try other fruits and vegetables both on their own and in combination. The good thing about juicers is that you are maximizing the nutrient intake and essentially does the chewing for us. I'd recommend this product to anyone.
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Breville JE24
by butterly
A while ago I decided to buy a juicer, because I figured that it would be a good way to get wholesome and healthy fruit and vegetables in to my body, as I'm not a fruit or veg eater unless I am forced! I had been suffering from severe tiredness, and looking at juicing online it seemed like a good idea nutritionally. I paid £75.00 for ... mine and I bought it from Amazon, after I had read reviews on different types of juicers.
It's a good-looking machine, with a stylish silver brushed finish, but it's also pretty big. I've got a tiny little kitchen so unfortunately there is nowhere to put this, it has to go into a cupboard when not in use. Sadly, because it is in the cupboard it is not used as much as it should be, it all seems such a palaver to get it out and assembled. It's also heavy, so find a place in the kitchen for it where it will stay and be used frequently.
There are two speeds for juicing hard and soft fruit, but I tend to use just the first speed, I don't want to wear out my juicer so I never put in fruit whole or vegetables. I cut an apple in four pieces and juice that way, and it works fine for me. I also peel and top and tail my carrots, but you don't have to if you wash the veggies thoroughly. The core and skin are left behind and the juice is extracted into a jug. The jug is a bit small and unsteady so a pyrex jug might be better. It's got a powerful 700w motor and it was this that sold it to me, I don't want to be juicing small amounts at a time. A jugful of beetroot, apple and ginger is delicious, drink what you want and then put the rest in the fridge for later. It's not a good idea to juice a lot that can last several days, you want fresh juice with all the vitamins and minerals still there. It's noisy, but I think that's what happens with a large (700w) motor, and as you don't use the juicer for very long (as in minutes) it doesn't deafen you or cause problems.
You put your cut - up (or whole)fruit or veg in the funnel on the top of the machine and use the plastic top of the funnel to push down your fruit or veg. It sounds silly but don't put fruit or veg in with skin on that you wouldn't normally eat - as in bananas. If you want to juice up several different concoctions be aware that unless you clean the whole machine you will get colour or taste from your previous juicing. If you clean the juicer as soon as you use it you will find it very easy to clean..............if you wait to clean the juicer later it is a nightmare, once the fruit or veg residue has dried on the juicer parts it is difficult to get clean, and may make you think that juicing is too much bother because of this. Washing the juicer straight away makes sure most of the residue will easily wash away, so that must be part of your plan!
You will end up with some tasty juice, and the fruit or veg residue. I always put the residue back in the juicer to squeeze the very last drops out. I have read that you can use the residue for cooking or placing back into your drink. You can also use this machine for smoothie making.
Something I can recommend is buying a book on juicing, I bought "Top 100 juices - 100 juices to turbo charge your body with vitamins and minerals" from Amazon. I have just had a quick peek to see how much this book is and I see that you can buy this book for 1p and £2.80 postage, so a good buy. I think you do need recipe books for juicing because there are absolutely hundreds (thousands?) of recipes to use, but I would guess you could try your own recipes for juicing if you so desired, but I never have done, I always use the book or free recipes online. I like to be told what juicing certain fruits or veg together will do to my body - as in detoxing or energising for example.
I've just gone and got mine out of the cupboard, I will use this again as soon as I have bought some fruit and vegetables. It's a good juicer, I have never had any problems with it. I would consider it a "middle of the range " juicer, you can buy juicers much cheaper and also much more expensive, but this juicer does a good job at juicing and smoothies - I love it.
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