Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain Elite 1000-Watt Juice Extractor
by HWI/Breville USA
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List Price: Our Price: $299.99 You Save: $100.00 (25%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $260.99 (click here) Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain Elite 1000-Watt Juice Extractor
Customer Review: Absolutely Brilliant, Highly Recommended!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been juicing for well over 10 years and have used more juicers than I care to admit. I started with the juiceman Jr. and eventually worked my way up to a Green Power Juicer, which I am still extremely happy with, but I was still unsatisfied with certain aspects of my juicing including overall time required and ease of cleaning up. I actually received the Breville 800JEXL as a gift from my sister as she had been using one for quite some time and was aware of my dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the juicers I was using. I was super excited to get home and try it out as the picture on the box makes it look mighty impressive and I had heard good things about this model. I certainly wasn't disappointed as this juicer works just as good as it looks.
First off to say that this thing has some serious power behind it is a massive understatement. It has 2 power settings and the first time I used the 2nd, more powerful setting, I was absolutely blown away. For a minute there I thought it might launch right off my counter, through my roof, and into orbit. The first power setting is extremely quiet and powerful enough for most of the items people juice including most fruits and vegetables. The 2nd power setting is far more powerful and while its much louder than the first setting, its not excessively noisy. Still, you can just feel the power that this thing is kicking out. None of the juicers I had used in the past could match the 2nd power setting on the Breville. It simply must be seen to be believed. It made quick work of everything I put in it.
One of my favorite aspects to this juicer is that its mostly stainless steel which means no more stained plastic and no more lengthy clean up sessions. I can have this entire unit cleaned, dried and put back together in a matter of a couple minutes. Its the best juicer I have used yet in this regard, and not by a small margin either. The piece that takes the most time cleaning is the mesh screen and I now have a technique with a soft bristled toothbrush that roughly only takes me about a minute flat.
Another aspect I absolutely love is the 3" diameter juicing opening. It makes prep work with your fruits and vegetables practically non existent. Whole apples, as long as they aren't to big, can fit without a single cut although I still use a corer to get rid of the core and seeds. With my previous juicers prep time was actually one of the most time consuming aspects to juicing. Well, no longer with the Breville.
The one area that concerned me the most was the efficiency in regards to extracting as much juice as possible and once again the Breville did not disappoint. My pulp was just as dry as it was using my Green Power Juicer. I got in the habit a long time ago of running my pulp through a couple more times to try and extract as much juice as possible yet when I did it with the Breville, almost no additional juice was extracted. I would get maybe a couple drops here and there but for the most part the pulp is pretty dry.
Of course it would be a crime not to mention how nice this juicer looks. It is the nicest looking juicer I have ever seen and my kitchen has a lot of stainless steel accents so it looks fantastic right out on the counter. The appearance just screams quality and fortunately that is exactly what you get with this model.
The bottom line - I really cant possibly give this juicer a higher recommendation. If you juice more than 2-3 times a week then you should at the very least give this model a serious look. Actually now that I think about it, even if you only juice once a week or once every couple weeks, this would still be the model I would recommend. Its powerful, easy to clean, requires very little prep work with the items your juicing, and most importantly is very efficient in regards to extracting as much juice as possible. The Breville 800JEXL is the best juicer I have come across yet.
5 Stars and then some!!
Customer Review: Quiet, well-built, easy-to-use and easy to clean.
Summary: 5 Stars
[Update Feb 28, 09: Still using the unit. The unit has had zero problems to date]
[Update Feb 03, 10: Still using the unit. The unit has had zero problems to date]
I read tons of reviews about this product before I bought it and most reviews mentioned the difficulty of cleaning so I was somewhat trepidatious about its cleanability.
Others mentioned the noise. I'm unusually sensitive to noise and I wear hearing protection when using the vacuum cleaner, lawn mower etc. Neighbors lawn equipment and barking dogs drive me nuts. I didn't find the sound from the Breville to be at all objectionable.
I bought a bunch of fresh organic vegetables to play with; beets, celery, carrots, peppers, tomatoes and some dark green leafy stuff. That covered the entire gamut from soft to extremely hard (beets) vegetables.
I did read the entire manual before using and pushed the vegetables in through slowly for maximum extraction. The juice never became warm.
I had the most difficulty with the leafy stuff even when extracting with hard vegetables (as the manual advises). Much of the leafy stuff went unprocessed. My wife suggested putting the partially ground up stuff back in and trying again. Indeed, a lot more juice actually came out.
I found that one should process soft, low-fiber veggies (e.g. tomatoes) before the stringy stuff like carrots since the high fiber material tends to fill up outside the strainer reducing the effectiveness of the centrifuge.
Although the fiber felt relatively dry, it seemed like an awful waste to discard all that expensive organic material.
Our original intention was to make our own fresh juice as the liquid base for making shakes (we add freshly ground flax seeds, psyllium husks, and about a number of low-carbohydrate, high protein powders (e.g. "Private Reserve Superfood" )from [...]).
My wife uses a hand-held Cuisinart mixer to mix the powders into the juice. The mixer can't handle hard material like carrots. My idea was to add the vegetable puree back into the shake making a smoothie. Now, no waste and we eat the vegetable fibers. We have at least one of these shakes each day in place of a meal. It's satisfying with no fats, oils or meats. Although I was just a bit overweight, I've been able to lose 20 pounds in the past 3 months and never go hungry. I now have a totally flat stomach and no "love-handles".
To save time, I make two quarts at a time and put the juice into mason jars with a 1/4 teaspoon/jar of crystal ascorbic acid (vitamin C) as an antioxidant. You'll notice ascorbic acid added to a lot of foods.
Cleanability: I really don't understand all the fuss over cleaning the unit. The vegetable fibers easily come out with a warm/hot water spray. The provided brush takes out all fibers from the disk and screen. I can't see any reason what so ever for using a dishwasher as long as the parts are cleaned while still wet. I air dry the unit before reassembling.
The one problem I encountered is the dripping from the spout when the juice collection container is removed. I had deep red beet juice dripping all over the counter (nasty staining stuff). Then I thought of using a flared lip container to collect the residual dripping juice. Breville really should have added a collection cup for this purpose.
I thought the large finger pull in the plug was absolutely clever. I've never seen it before. You put your finger in the hole and tug rather than trying to pull the plug out of the wall by the wire.
I bought the unit from Bed and Bath over the Internet with a 20% discount coupon for $256.11 including tax. Luckily, I didn't get charged the normal $28 shipping charge. I bought from Bed and Bath in the event that if I didn't like the product I could return it locally without having to pay a large return shipping fee. I absolutely intend to keep the unit.
Customer Review: Fantastic juicer! I'd buy it again.
Summary: 5 Stars
I guess I'm an "experienced juicer" - I owned a Juiceman II a few years ago, used it to make all kinds of juice. It was a decent little unit.
But I was ready to move up. Having been around the juice carousel once, I knew what I wanted. Here are the things that the Breville Juice Fountain does like no other:
1) It's easy to clean. If you don't think this matters, you've never used a juicer. Every part can go in the dishwasher. Parts that get heavy exposure to juice are brushed steel, so they don't stain. Every part can go in the dishwasher. The plastic parts are clear so you can see where the bits of pulp are hiding. The pulp can is specially shaped and sized to hold the bag that you used to hold your fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. And did I mention: every part can go in the dishwasher? That's huge.
2) It doesn't drip, splatter, or spray. In other words, it's designed right. After a huge juicing session, your countertop will be clean beneath the machine.
3) It's loaded with POWER. Sure, it has a huge 3" juicing feed tube - big enough to accept a whole medium sized apple - and that's neat. But if the disk at the bottom is going to slow down and bog when you press a whole apple on it, what good is that? None, because you'll end up having to take the machine apart, fishing a half-juiced stuck chunk out of the stuck disk, if there isn't enough power. The Breville's 1000 watt motor macerates an entire apple in less than half a second without even appreciably slowing down. And it could care less about seeds or stems, although you don't want to put too much wood down the feedpipe because you will drink bitter wood juice if you do.
4) It's quiet. This is a side effect of the POWER, I think. Since the motor doesn't bog, it does its business efficiently without a lot of waste energy being dissipated as noise. It's not whisper quiet, but you could probably use it in the kitchen without waking up hubby in the bedroom. If your cat is sleeping in the kitchen, though, she'll wake up.
5) It's got a really fine screen. Much finer than the one on the Juiceman. This means that there's no pulp in your beautifully colored, clear juices. It also means that the pulp is not quite as dry, and that you might have to work a little bit with the included stiff bristle brush to clean it to keep it operating efficiently. That's fine.
6) It has two speeds - fast for hard fruits and veggies like carrots, ginger, and apples; slow for soft ones like grapes, berries, peaches, tomatoes, and peeled citrus. No compromise.
Basically this is just a well-designed unit. Even the power plug has a hole in it so you can pull it out easily with 1 finger. There are no annoying nooks and crevices where unreachable pulp can hide. The included juice pitcher has a separate fill port that fits the spout perfectly, and a pour spout that has a special anti-foam ledge. And it's clear, with graduations every 2 ounces so you know just how much juice you've made. It feels like this is the juicer you'd design if you'd been thinking about juicers for many years.
And you can get it shipped right to your door! The health benefits of fresh, unoxidized juice are incomparable. The labor savings are incredible - have you considered soup stock? Celery, onions, tomatoes, peppers? Healthy and delicious! And I'm looking forward to putting the Breville's output to work in my Cuisinart ice cream maker!
The only caution I'd give is that if you drink 30 carrots the first day you get the machine, you might find yourself to be in violation of your states' "emissions laws" - if you know what I mean, and I think you do!
So, what are you waiting for?
Customer Review: Looks intimidating but it's a fantastic juicer
Summary: 5 Stars
Like many of you, I searched all over the internet for reviews of a quality juice extractor. This particular model seemed somewhat pricey -- no, make that very pricey -- but hey, if it does the job for many years, it will surely pay for itself. When the gigantic box arrived I was afraid to open it -- it was huge, heavy and scary looking! Finally, I dragged the thing out from all that Styrofoam packing, washed all the parts, then sat down to read the instruction manual. Once you've put it together, which is easy if you look at the pictures and read the instructions, there isn't much to operating the device. The feeder chute is large enough for a whole apple or orange. I personally prefer to peel my apples because after doing taste tests with several varieties, Duh Hub and I agreed the peels made the apple juice a little bitter. So, we prefer to peel the apples first but no need to core, since the juicer does all the separating and hard work for you.
Also, a tip I learned from a great book is to boil your oranges, unpeeled, for about 5 minutes, and the peels come off very easily. This works even if you want to refrigerate the oranges after boiling but before peeling!
How to Repair Food
The best and sweetest juice is from Valencia oranges. If you absolutely must use Navel oranges you need to drink the juice within a couple of hours or it becomes bitter.
This juicer looks like the space shuttle about to launch, it's that large, but it's also well made and appears perfect for large quantities and constant use. It's not unreasonably heavy and I can move it around by myself, all 88 lb. of me vs. this 20 lb. appliance. Believe me when I tell you Duh Hub never lifts it up for me so I'm on my own. There's a high speed button for hard fruits and veggies, a low speed button for softer fruits and veggies (like those yummy oranges), and an off switch -- very simple. I haven't found any leakage around the collection basket nor around the juice chute that pours into the included pitcher. There is one caveat -- you'll get a lot of foam with this juicer. Let your collected juice sit for a few minutes and just skim it off. I've only tried apples and oranges but I'm guessing it will do well with most fruits and veggies other than leafy veggies. For those you'll want a macerating juicer. The juicer really does extract every drop of liquid -- you can tell by the very dry debris left in the collector basket. I was quite impressed.
Okay, now that you've juiced to your heart's content, it's time to clean. I strongly advise either in the dishwasher or, if by hand, washing it right away before everything hardens into concrete. It really is quite the snap to wash. The toughest part is the little basket that helps filter fine particles, but Breville has included a handy small stiff brush that is quite useful to scrub the mesh part of the basket, inside and out. You need to pay attention to this because it's easy to miss some of the debris -- for some reason it tends to blend in with the mesh basket and you might miss it. So be sure to scrub both sides of the mesh filter. Another added benefit to cleaning right away, then putting all doo-dads back together, is you'll become very familiar with how the parts go back on. It looks complicated but honestly, it's really not. I can't even hammer a nail in straight but I can take this baby apart and put it back together with no stress, no worries.
Okay, now buy the juicer and enjoy fresh delicious juice, not heated or pasteurized, healthy, yummy ..... you won't be sorry about your investment.
Customer Review: Incredible machine, great results!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have not owned any other juice machine but after doing my "homework", I was hoping I made the right choice.
All I can say is this is becoming more and more fun with less time to clean up. All parts do clean very easily, and actually that's the easiest part. For me my preparation of all the fruits and vegetables is mildly time consuming, even though I know you can throw things in there whole. Somehow the thought of little stems, seeds and tiny pits going in there don't thrill me but I'm starting to overlook those things now.
I have made some incredible pitchers of juice, at times using a large combo of fruits and at other times, using less combos of fruits. I have learned that when I toss in small things like blueberries, blackberries, small carrots, etc., I must quickly cover the top with my hand before they fly out of the chute all over the place. Yes, like I said, it's a learning experience. Large chunks of fruits and carrots (only vegetable I can tolerate juiced thus far) make an awesome drink and my kids love it too. I have been experimenting with the choice of items in chute and the speed at which things are juiced at. There are 2 speeds: higher and lower. I have made many little mistakes along the way, from causing a huge mess with juice overflowing out of the container and down the cabinets, to stuff flying out of the top and staining my wood cabinets. I have gotten much better at this. The other thing is this can become a very costly addiction.....I spend a fortune on organic fruits and vegetables and in a flash, $50-$75 worth of fruit is in one small to medium pitcher! The amount of pulp that goes in the garbage is scary looking.
Cleanup takes about 10 minutes total. Be sure to put a small garbage bag or a plastic bag in the container that catches the pulp or it will be a messier cleanup for sure.
The only thing I cannot acquire a taste for is the green juice. As much as I eat only organically grown fruits and vegetables, I just cannot get green juice down my throat. I know it's something that has to grow on you but I think I'd rather eat raw veggies anytime than drink them. I keep saying I'll try it again but I get weak thinking about swallowing that stuff! Ugh....no one can honestly say it tastes really good unless they have no taste buds. The fruit drinks on the other hand are absolutely fantastic. I guess it's all personal taste and to each his own likes and dislikes.
I am not disappointed with this machine at all. It is not cheap though but I hope it lasts a very long time. It is beautifully constructed but it does take up alot of counter space and it is tall than the bottom of my cabinet area so I have to put it alongside the cabinets, next to my sink area, but that's okay. It looks really attractive and sits near my other neat machines, as I do have alot of counter space.
If you are patient and willing to do a little cutting and cleaning up, you will not be disappointed. My total time preparing, juicing and cleaning up my mess is 30 minutes from start to finish and the container lasts me 2 days, if I'm lucky and I can hide it from my family!