Why We Compare Juicers
Energise Your Life are not only passionate about juicers but also want everyone who enjoys juicing to come away with an experience that is both pleasurable and what they expected. Jargon can be overwhelming and mystifying, so the information that we provide here has been written to inform rather than sell you a product. This because, there are several different juicers available for purchase and the best juicer will depend on what you want to juice on a regular basis, your lifestyle and how much you would like to invest in purchasing a juicer.
Picking the Right Juicer
We think that it’s extremely important that you buy the juicer that is suitable for your needs. One of the most frequent questions that we are asked is ‘Which juicer is the best?'. Simply put, it depends. The perfect juicer for one person might be completely the wrong choice for another. Put it like this.
This is why we stock a range of juicers to suit the needs of everyone. Hopefully, this information page will go a long way to answering your questions, but of course, we are always here to help if you find that your question hasn’t been answered.
Let's get straight to the point. You might want to know which juicer is the best value for money, or which juicer juices leafy greens the best. Here's a quick outline for you to read so that you can make a decision on the most suitable juicer for your needs.
The Best Value for Money Juicer
The Samson Juicers are the best value for money models that we stock that currently come in two models; Samson 6 in1 juicer and Samson Advanced Juicer. They are fairly fast and convenient and have the ability to juice most ingredients, making it ideal for families.
The Best Leafy Greens Juicers
If you enjoy juices that contain leafy greens or wheatgrass, then you need a horizontal masticating juicer. There are two types of horizontal masticating juicers; singe augur machines and twin gear juicers. These juicers can also juice other ingredients as well. For juicing leafy greens primarily and wheatgrass, we would recommend the twin gear juicers like the Green Star juicers and the Angel juicers. The best juicer for juicing leafy greens is the Angel juicer.
The Best Hard Fruits and Vegetables Juicers
Hard fruits and vegetables such as apples and carrots can pose a problem when it comes to juicing. If these are your ingredients of choice, then you should opt for a vertical masticating juicer or a centrifugal juicer. In the centrifugal range of juicers, we would particularly recommend the Champion juicer. Centrifugal juicers are very fast paced as they will product juice very quickly. However, the drawback is that due to the very high speed, they are not able to retain all the essential enzymes, nutrients and vitamins within the juice from the fruits and vegetables. Vertical masticating juicers on the other hand, are slow juicers so the speed at which they work is much slower than centrifugal juicers. In this way, they retain the essential nutrients within the juice. However, they are not slow at producing juice due to the increased surface area for juicing. This means that every rotation of the augur, they will be able to process a large quantity of produce. Please note vertical slow juicers and centrifugal juicers are not so good at juicing leafy greens and wheatgrass on their own. Vertical masticating juicers can juice leafy greens if mixed with fruits and vegetables.
The Best Soft Fruits Juicers
Neither Vertical or horizontal masticating juicers are better at juicing soft fruits. Both can process soft ingredients to a certain extent but require harder produce to be fed through after to help push through the softer ingredients. This is particularly required with ripe apples, oranges, pineapples, cucumber and berries. It is important to note as a general rule that soft ingredients are hard to extract juice from due to the texture.
The Best All Rounder Juicers
If you enjoy juicing a range of ingredients, but don't want lots of juicers for specific tasks, then you need an all-around juicer. Vertical masticating juicers are ideal in this case and will juice a range of ingredients very well. They have a slightly larger feeding chute than horizontal masticating juicers which decreases preparation time when chopping the fruits and vegetables. They are also much easier to clean than the horizontal juicers decreasing time required to clean the parts post juicing.
Haven’t found your ideal juicer yet? Read on…
If you haven’t found your ideal juicer yet don’t worry. We’ll continue to explain the benefits of juicers in more detail. But first, it’s worth looking at some general points to help you decide.
Does Product Warranty Matter
We have tested many juicers in our time and all of our team members are keen juicers. One question that comes up time and time again is, does warranty dictate the quality of the product. Many people assume that because the warranty is over a long period that the product is reliable.
This is not the case.
Product warranties are more often than not a marketing strategy that is aimed to mislead the consumer to think that longer warranties mean better reliability. Sometimes this can be true…but not always.
A better question to ask would be 'What is the longevity of my juicer?' Longevity is dependent on the frequency of usage AND quality of the juicer. If you use your juicer three times a day, it is obviously not going to last as long as someone who uses it once a week, and for this reason, we suggest disregarding the warranty, in terms of build quality. This principal essentially applies to all electrical items in general.
What is being offered with a manufacturer's warranty is vital to understand and normally manufacturing defects are often the only thing that products are guaranteed against. Wear and tear or accidental damage are often not contained within the manufacturer's warranty. Product flaws are usually apparent after a few uses or at least very early in the juicers life and in this case long product warranties are a bit pointless. In other words; if it's going to go wrong, it'll probably happen sooner rather than later. At the end of the day, some juicers will be more reliable, whereas others not so much and unfortunately, there is no way of telling just by the warranty itself. Here at Energise Your Life, we make sure we only supply you with reputable juicers. This increases the likelihood that your new juicer WILL NOT go wrong, straight after you have purchased it and if for some unknown reason, the juicer doesn’t function normally straight after purchase, then we will happily arrange to collect the juicer and send you another brand new unit.
Although you might have thought that we have considered disregarding product warranty, there are obvious exceptions to the rule and sometimes juicers go wrong for no apparent reason. In this case, you need to purchase from a genuine and reputable company that will deal with warranty support after sales. This is where Energise Your Life will help you resolve any issues you might have with a faulty product after purchase. We stock parts for most of our juicers and have our own Service Department so when you purchase from Energise Your Life, you know your warranty is in good hands.
About Juice Yield Testing
One of the key features of a juicer that most people look for is juice yield, or in other words, how much juice will the juicer produce? This is all dependent on the type of ingredients juiced. All masticating slow juicers can generally juice fruits and vegetables quite well with little difference in yield. However, the same is not true when juicing leafy greens. Horizontal masticating juicers will give you a much greater yield in juicing leafy greens than the vertical models. Twin gear juicers will give you the highest yield in fruits, vegetables and leafy greens due to the twin gears as opposed to single augur machines with the horizontal and vertical masticating juicers.
We recommend centrifugal juicers for people with busy lifestyles and parents that want to make fruit juices for their children. Centrifugal juicers are not ideal for juicing soft fruits or leafy greens.
Fruit and Vegetable Juicers
Masticating and centrifugal juicers are the two main types of juicers that can be used for juicing fruits and vegetables and here you can find out a little more about them.
About Masticating Juicers
Masticating juicers slowly grind up the fruit and vegetables and in doing so, retain the essential nutrients within the juice.. That is the reason why they function much more slowly than centrifugal juicers. Additionally, due to the slow movement of the augur and twin gears, this significantly reduces the chance of oxidation as oxygen is not able to reach the juice. This means that the juice can be stored for a longer period of time before being consumed without losing the nutritional quality of the juice.
There are many subcategories of masticating juicers, something that can be confusing for people who don’t know what they’re looking for. Here we outline them below:
Vertical Single Auger Slow Juicers: Vey popular and user-friendly. The most popular juicer brand is the Hurom juicers.
Horizontal Single Auger Juicers: Ideal for leafy greens, wheatgrass as well as other ingredients. We are particularly keen on the Samson brand of juicers which are great value for money.
Twin Gear Juicers: These juicers will give the most superior quality juice. The Angel juicers being the best twin gear juicers.
About Centrifugal Juicers
As the name suggests, centrifugal juicers use centrifugal force to spin ingredients to the outside of a fast rotating basket. The flat cutting blade slice through the ingredients causing the juice to be passed through small holes in the basket separating the juice from the pulp. This juice then flows through a spout and into a collecting jug. Like masticating juicers, centrifugal juicers such as the L'Equip XL Juicer and the Sage by Heston Blumenthal juicers capture the pulp in a different container whereas other centrifugal juicers retain it inside the strainer basket to be discarded after completing juicing.
The nutritional quality of the juice that is produced by centrifugal juicers is less than when compared to masticating juicers. The reason for this is due to the extremely high speed at which the blade rotates and this causes oxidation of the juice which destroys enzymes and nutrients. This in turn means that the juice will not last for a prolonged period of time. That is the reason why it is recommended that the juice produced from a centrifugal juicer should be consumed immediately.
Centrifugal juicers are at a complete disadvantage when it comes to juicing leafy greens because the high speed at which the blades rotate does not allow them to cut through leafy greens. Centrifugal juicers are ideal for people with a hectic lifestyle that would like to drink fresh juice and are happy to compromise on the nutritional quality.
About Wheatgrass Juicers
Some people, especially those that are new to the world of juicing, are not familiar with wheatgrass, so we’d like to explain very briefly what it is before we look at the best juicers.
Wheatgrass is grown from wheat grains and harvested at a very young stage. The juice that is extracted is very nutritious and is consumed in a small amount, about 25ml shots.
If you want to juice primarily wheatgrass, then you definitely want to consider purchasing a twin gear juicer or a single auger horizontal juicer.
Another option is a hand-operated wheatgrass juicer and the Manual BL-30 Juicer is a perfect example of this.
About Citrus Juicers
There's nothing better than a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and if this sounds appealing to you, then have a read of this section. Oranges and other citrus fruits, such as limes and lemons can be juiced but you have to peel them first. This can be a very time-consuming task. Fortunately, there are numerous specific citrus juicers and all you have to do to use them is cut the citrus fruit in half.
Like many other juicers, citrus juicers come in two subcategories; manual citrus presses and electric citrus juicers. Let's first look at manual citrus presses. These are hand operated juicers that extract the juice via a lever that you pull down to crush the fruit. We’ve found that the OrangeX Olympus and Jupiter juicers are excellent at this function. They will also juice pomegranates as well.
If you don’t like the sound of manual labour, then electric citrus juicers are what you need. The CitriStar juicer is a cheap and cheerful model that does the job effectively but for something a little more upmarket, the Sage Citrus Press is both beautiful to look at and comes with commercial grade parts. All extracted juice passes through a filter that can be removed if you enjoy your OJ with bits.