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We noticed that some juicers that we tested but did not recommend are no longer available, so we have removed them from the "competition" section. We still believe in Proctor Silex Alex's lemonade...
We noticed that some juicers that we tested but did not recommend are no longer available, so we have removed them from the "competition" section. We still believe that Proctor Silex Alex's lemonade vertical citrus juicer is the best juicer for most people, and we are still confident in our runner-up and upgrade options.
After more than 38 hours of research and testing, squeezing more than 53 pounds of citrus, and conducting blind tastings for four people, we believe that Proctor Silex Alex's lemonade vertical citrus juicer is the best machine for occasionally making a batch of orange juice at home. Compared with models that are 10 times more expensive, it produces a quantity (or more) of juice and has a higher quality than similar juicers.
This easy-to-use juicer is 10 times more expensive than the model. It is one of the only models we have found with a built-in pulp control and a separate water bottle.
*At the time of publication, the price was $17.
Proctor Silex Alex's Lemonade Stand model also offers one of the best freestanding pitchers we have found, and its pulp control design is really effective. From bulky grapefruits to small limes, Proctor Silex can effectively process all types of citrus, and the resulting juice is always sweeter than the juice from more powerful models, which tend to be over-stirred and produce more bitter result. It may not seem like much, but Proctor Silex has reached every mark that is important to a juicer. It currently sells for only about $15, which costs less than a hand press that can only extract a few tablespoons of liquid at a time.
In three independent tests, the simpler model always produced the best juice. Smaller, stand-alone juicers are not suitable for producing gallons at a time, but they are just right for squeezing out a few glasses of fresh, fragrant juice at breakfast, adding it to cocktails, or for cooking and baking. This year, Proctor Silex won our favor with a more stable engine. Of course, the fact that one dollar of each unit’s proceeds is donated to Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer is also innocuous.
Our previous first choice has the same design and features as Proctor Silex-including pulp control and pitcher-but the construction is not that sturdy.
*At the time of publication, the price was $16.
If our main option is not available, Black & Decker's CJ625 (previously sold under the Applic/Spectrum brand) is a good choice. Its design is almost the same as that of Proctor Silex, and its efficiency is about the same, but in our tests, the motor often stops unpredictably.
Compared with competitors, your arms are lighter and quieter, and if you often juice large amounts of citrus, this juicer is worth the money. But it has no pulp control or jars, and you run the risk of over-reaming and giving the juice some bitterness.
*At the time of publication, the price was $130.
The Breville Citrus Press is a low-priced version of the former Luxury Collection Breville 800CPXL that we tested for the first time in 2013, and we found that it worked just as well but was lighter (although it took up as much space). However, its cost is still nearly eight times that of our choice and runner-up, and it does not provide pulp control or pitchers for catching juice. If you are not careful, it also has a tendency to over-crush the fruit, which will make the resulting juice have a bitter aftertaste.
This easy-to-use juicer is 10 times more expensive than the model. It is one of the only models we have found with a built-in pulp control and a separate water bottle.
*At the time of publication, the price was $17.
Our previous first choice has the same design and features as Proctor Silex-including pulp control and pitcher-but the construction is not that sturdy.
*At the time of publication, the price was $16.
Compared with competitors, your arms are lighter and quieter, and if you often juice large amounts of citrus, this juicer is worth the money. But it has no pulp control or jars, and you run the risk of over-reaming and giving the juice some bitterness.
*At the time of publication, the price was $130.
Before joining Wirecutter as a guest writer, Winnie Yang worked in the food industry-working in restaurant kitchens, cookware retail, and chocolate making. She is the executive editor of the print quarterly The Art of Eating and writes for the magazine as well as Condé Nast Traveler, Feast, Jamie, Saveur and Tasting Table and other publications.
Nick Guy is an accessory writer for Wirecutter. In addition to technical reviews, he also reported on Wirecutter's bar supplies and cocktails and other beverages previously reported on Serious Eats.
In this guide, we interviewed Tim Cooper, bartender at Sweetwater Social in New York City; Nick Duble, director of Fusco beverages; Joshua Goldman, partner of Soigné Group, with 12 venues and 20 years of industry experience; and Lisa McManus, American test Executive tasting and test editing for the kitchen. Our tasting team includes Kat Odell, beverage editor of Eater, Nick Solares, restaurant editor of Eater NY, and Christine Cyr Clisset, senior editor of Wirecutter.
For those who wish to make more than a few ounces of orange, grapefruit, lemon or lime juice at a time, an electric citrus juicer is the right tool.
For those who wish to make more than a few ounces of orange, grapefruit, lemon or lime juice at a time, an electric citrus juicer is the right tool. (Be sure not to confuse them with the chewing fruit/vegetable juicers that we have already covered in depth.) These machines may be more attractive to those who get fresh citrus quickly and cheaply. In our tests, it takes more than 16 pounds of navel oranges to make approximately one gallon of OJ—more than 40 oranges.
Consider the price of a 59-ounce bottle of orange juice purchased from the store for $3, and the $14 we paid plus the time and effort required to extract the orange juice. Again, you can't really get the excellent flavor and texture of freshly squeezed juices packed in cartons, cans, or cans. Instead of gallons, you may more realistically want to make a few glasses of OJ or grapefruit juice at a time, or make a few glasses of lemon juice or lime juice for lemonade and lime juice in the summer.
We look for citrus juicers that are easy to operate, clean and store, and are reasonably priced (in our case, this means from 15 to 200 US dollars). The best juicers are easy to place on the hands, wrists, and arms — very important after squeezing dozens of oranges — and are designed to extract the maximum amount of juice without being overly articulated into the marrow.
Most electric citrus juicers work in basically the same way. A vertical, ribbed reamer-usually plastic, but in the case of some advanced options, metal-is mounted on the shaft connected to the base motor. When you apply pressure by pushing down on the cutting end of the citrus, the motor starts and turns the reamer. Many models also have an automatic reversal function: if you release the pressure and reapply pressure, the reamer should rotate in the opposite direction. Press the citrus into half until no more juice comes out, throw away the half, and repeat.
The manual press works in roughly the same way, but the reaming step is omitted. The pressure forces the fruit to lean against the perforated cone, breaking the pulp to release the juice. Some experts, including Joshua Goldman of Soigné Group, said that manual presses are unlikely to erode citrus pith and therefore are unlikely to produce bitter juices. In the test, we did find that the juice obtained did not have a bitter taste. However, because the bulky fruit pieces will eventually remain in the juice and produce an unpleasant consistency, you need to take an extra step to filter the juice. Such presses also produce less juice because their components process the pulp less than a reamer.
Electric models are usually equipped with multiple sizes of juicer cones. This is an important feature because the cones can optimally squeeze citrus fruits of different sizes. If the juicer has multiple cones, they are almost always stacked together, with the small cones fitted into the large cones.
If you are a pulpless person, you may also want to look for a model with pulp selection function.
Some juicers pour directly into the built-in jug, while other juicers require you to provide your own container for the water outlet. The latter design is not terrible, but having something that can collect juice is an advantage. If you are a person who does not eat fruit pulp, you may also want to look for a model with a pulp selection function, usually an adjustable filter under the reamer, which allows you to control how many orange entrails are put into the glass for the juice. Again, this feature is not necessary, because you can always filter the juice through a fine mesh sieve, but if you don’t like large chunks, it will make juicing easier.
Because we don't have many comparative reviews (except Cook Illustrated reviews), we rely heavily on expert advice and pay close attention to user reviews from Amazon and other retail stores to select models for testing. For the original guide in 2013 and the update in 2014, we tested 10 electric juicers. In this update, we tested 13 products, including our previous champion, runner-up and upgraded products, namely Black & Decker CJ625 citrus juicer, Proctor Silex Alex's Lemonade Stand citrus juicer and Breville 800CPXL. Other models we introduced for this round include Breville Citrus Press (low-priced version of 800CPXL); Dash's Go dual citrus juicer and stainless steel citrus juicer; Juiceman’s JCJ150S and JCJ4000S; KitchenAid citrus juicer accessories, suitable for Those who use KitchenAid stand mixers; and two manual presses, Ra Chand J500 and OrangeX Jupiter.
We performed the same series of tests on each juicer as in the past: after purchasing a suspicious amount of citrus at the local grocery store, we weighed five navel oranges for each juicer; the average was 208.28 grams and the highest was 248. Grams, the minimum is 182 grams. Next, we juice them and weigh the resulting juice.
By averaging these data together, we get the percentage of average juice extraction efficiency. We repeated this process with three lemons, three limes and one grapefruit. We conducted these subsequent tests, mainly to understand how different juicers handle different sizes of citrus. Between each fruit test, we separate the unit for cleaning. This process gave us a good understanding of the average usage of each model in real life. As a final test, we squeezed orange juice in four best-performing juicers, and conducted a blind taste test by a group of four, paying attention to the taste (including any bitterness) and mouthfeel of the juice.
This easy-to-use juicer is 10 times more expensive than the model. It is one of the only models we have found with a built-in pulp control and a separate water bottle.
*At the time of publication, the price was $17.
Proctor Silex Alex's Lemonade Stand Citrus Juicer produces more than 10 times the amount of juice than the model. In testing, we found that it is better constructed than the closest competitive model, and that it has additional features—including pulp control and pitcher—that make it stand out from most competitions. It is also easy and comfortable to use, and the juice it produces is sweeter than that of more powerful models.
For affordable models, Proctor Silex can produce an amazing amount of juice. When it comes to our orange test, most of the machines are in the same range, the juice extraction rate ranges from 35% to 45%, and there are some low outliers. Our selection rate is 39.9%, which is a bit lower than the best-performing Black & Decker. The $200 Breville 800CPXL was the most expensive model we tried, with 37.8% of the extraction, while the Breville Citrus Press extracted 36.6%.
No matter how much pressure we put on the cone, the motor will not intermittently or stop during use.
Although Proctor Silex is mainly made of plastic and looks unremarkable next to some of the other models we have tried, its components work better than many other juicer components. No matter how much pressure we put on the cone, the motor will not intermittently or stop during use. It is in sharp contrast to our previous preferred product Black & Decker, which has a very similar design. Both models have a 30-watt motor that automatically reverses when you release pressure and then reapply it to the cone, but Black & Decker's motor sometimes strains and stalls. In our test group, Proctor Silex also operated more smoothly than Dash Go Dual and two manual presses.
Proctor Silex is one of the three models we have tried with a pulp control and a jug to pick up the juice. It outperforms the other two (Black & Decker and Dash Go Dual). At the narrowest filter setting, Proctor Silex produces juice with a small amount of pulp, while at the widest setting, the juice has a stronger taste and good lumps. Black & Decker's filter removes more pulp because its traps are more tightly integrated, but in general, Proctor Silex performs better overall. Dash Go Dual hardly filters juice because its pulp collecting tray is so loosely assembled that most of the pulp will slip off even at the lowest setting. All the other models we looked at lacked pulp controls, jugs for receiving juice, or lids for dust protection-and their prices ranged from $10 to $185.
Although the lever mechanism of the two Breville models makes them easier and more comfortable to use, Proctor Silex does not require unreasonable force. It is easy to press with one or two hands. A man and woman with different arm strengths and hand sizes tested it and found it to be acceptable. This is not to say that if you handle a bag of oranges at a time, you won’t feel tired, but making a few glasses of wine shouldn’t be a problem. Compared to some other juicers we have tried, Proctor Silex is much less used, especially the manual press and KitchenAid accessories.
There is an advantage to pressing the fruit with your hand rather than with a lever: you are less likely to over-tangle the fruit. This is a problem with the two Breville juicers, because their easy-to-use levers also make it easier to use excessive force on the citrus halves, so the reamer digs into the pith a little. In our tasting, we found that the juice produced with Proctor Silex is sweeter and has no bitter taste. The juice from Breville Citrus Press has a slight bitter taste. On the other hand, the juice from OrangeX is not bitter, but contains a lot of fruit, making it rough and unpleasant.
Proctor Silex Alex’s Lemonade Stand Citrus Juicer was our runner-up last year. Amazon users also like it very much, with 78 reviewers giving it an average of 4.1 stars (out of 5 stars).
Like anything else, Proctor Silex is not perfect. It is louder than some other models; hopefully it will not spoil any surprise breakfast in bed. Using the Decibel 10th iPhone app at a distance of about 6 inches, we measured it to be about 95 decibels, which is similar to a normal food blender. This result is at the high end of the unit we tested, but except for the Breville we chose, all decibel levels are concentrated in a small range.
Compared with the Breville model, Proctor Silex is less comfortable and requires more effort to use. If you often squeeze citrus juice in large quantities, this may not be the best option-you will want our Breville option-but it is reasonable to use a few glasses of juice regularly or occasionally in large quantities.
Black & Decker provides a two-year limited warranty, while Proctor Silex only provides a one-year warranty. However, based on their performance in our last round of testing, you are more likely to need Black & Decker coverage than Proctor Silex.
The main complaint of Amazon reviewers is that the Proctor Silex juicer feels cheap and fragile. But compared to all other electric juicers, except for the Breville model, the material quality is roughly the same. Yes, it is plastic, but not particularly thin or weak plastic. When we consider all other factors, it is still the best model, especially at such a low cost.
Our previous first choice has the same design and features as Proctor Silex-including pulp control and pitcher-but the construction is not that sturdy.
*At the time of publication, the price was $16.
We think Proctor Silex is a better machine because its motor performed more reliably in our tests, but if our selection is sold out, the Black & Decker CJ625 Citrus Juicer at the same price is a good choice. In fact, it was our first choice before, but we downgraded it because in this round of testing, its motor occasionally stuck and stalled.
This juicer looks almost the same as Proctor Silex, with a kettle, a pulp control function and a lid. It produces 44.5% of orange juice, the most of all juicers. It also does a better job than Proctor Silex in filtering the pulp from the juice because its pulp control basket fits better. However, the strain and stall tendency of Black & Decker motors make us worry that it will not stand up to years of use.
At a distance of about 6 inches, it emits a sound of 95 dB, which is equivalent to Proctor Silex, but has more unpleasant mechanical friction noise, which many Amazon reviewers have noticed. More users complained that the juicer stopped working at some point. (However, in more than two years of use, we have not encountered this problem.) Since 68% of the 1,136 Amazon reviews currently owned by Black & Decker are four-star and above (and because the price is so low), We decided to move this juicer to second place.
Compared with competitors, your arms are lighter and quieter, and if you often juice large amounts of citrus, this juicer is worth the money. But it has no pulp control or jars, and you run the risk of over-reaming and giving the juice some bitterness.
*At the time of publication, the price was $130.
Although Proctor Silex Alex’s Lemonade Stand Citrus Juicer will make most people happy, if you are juicing several times a week, consider investing in Breville Citrus Press ($130). Because of its efficient lever, it requires much less elbow grease. For this reason, Breville may also be more suitable for people with disabilities or anyone who can get help in the arm strength department. It also makes heavy juicing a less exhausting and onerous task.
From limes to grapefruits, in our tests, Breville achieved good extraction results with little effort.
From limes to grapefruits, in our tests, Breville achieved good extraction results with little effort. Its average juice extraction efficiency is 36.6%, which is lower than our results in Proctor Silex and Black & Decker, but it is still a good result. Just use the plastic handle to pull down the two-point hinged rod and the juice will start to pour out. It has only one cone size, but due to its 3.5-inch radius, this cone is the only cone in the test group that can extract all the juice from the grapefruit without us having to shake it. In most cases, it also applies to limes and lemons. When finished, the water outlet will be stuck to stop the water flow so that the juice will not drip onto your table or work surface. Breville is also our only product with a dedicated on/off switch. (Other models work when you insert and press the cone.)
The main disadvantage of this juicer is that the lever can also easily over-ream the fruit, thereby removing a lot of unwanted pith. In our blind tasting, all four tasters found bitterness in Breville juice, which we attributed to over-reaming. The bitterness is subtle, so most people may not notice it—especially if you are not sipping juice with other people. However, in contrast, we found no bitterness at all in Proctor Silex's juice.
Although the price is higher compared to other electric juicers we tested, Breville lacks some key features. First of all, this model has no pulp control; although we found that the juice obtained is smooth, its pulp is also very thick. Breville also lacks something to capture juice.
Breville only brought the Citrus Press to the market last spring as a low-priced version of our previous luxury collection Breville 800CPXL ($200). It is mainly made of plastic instead of the main steel body of the 800CPXL, but this makes the model easier to clean and reduces the weight by 3 pounds. However, in terms of performance, we found that they were equal, so we chose the cheaper version. Currently, Breville Citrus Press is exclusively sold in Williams-Sonoma. There are not many user reviews available yet, but we will continue to conduct long-term testing to see how it performs.
All three of our options have removable parts and can be cleaned in a top rack dishwasher. The best way is to rinse or soak these parts immediately after use to prevent the pulp from drying out. The base is equipped with a motor, do not put it in the sink or dishwasher; instead, you can wipe them with a damp cloth or paper towel.
When working in batches, it is best to clean the filter every few oranges.
When working in batches, it is best to clean the filter every few oranges. Perform this step to ensure that the accumulated pulp residue does not prevent the juice from passing through.
Breville 800CPXL was our original luxury choice for good reason: Tim Cooper of Sweetwater Social in New York used it to make "gallon juice" and recommended it for home use because "it is really easy to clean and everything is metal. It’s really easy to shut down when everything comes. It will last a long time.” Lisa McManus of the American Test Kitchen described it as an “oh oh” factor, and she is absolutely right: this one The 10-pound steel machine is a beautiful beast. Its cost is also 12 times that of Proctor Silex, and its performance is the same as Breville's new low-cost citrus press. In our tests, the pulp tends to stick to the rubber handle, so this model is more difficult to clean.
When we measure the efficiency of juice extraction, the Cuisinart CCJ-500 pulp control citrus juicer is much lower than other devices, and it does not have a pitcher or multiple cones. We did not find any obvious design flaws that led to reduced productivity, but our numbers showed that its performance was not ideal. However, it is beautiful due to its brushed metal casing.
The design of Dash Go Dual Citrus Juicer is the same as Proctor Silex and Black & Decker. In our test, its efficiency is slightly lower than the first choice, at 38.9%. Unfortunately, the two parts of the pulp collector cannot be installed closely together, which leaves a gap large enough to allow a large amount of pulp to pass through even at the lowest setting of pulp control. The price of Dash Go Dual is also higher than the top and runner-up.
Oster's 3186 Juice-n-Serve 27-ounce automatic citrus juicer has no pulp control mechanism or multiple cones, and it is not dishwasher safe. However, it is the quietest among this group of people.
Tribest's CitriStar needs to be washed by hand and cannot capture the juice or control the amount of pulp entering the juice. Although its price is lower than the other models we have tried, it is not more efficient than Proctor Silex by $30.
KitchenAid's stand mixer juicer accessories are not worth buying. The juicer is installed at the front of the blender, so you must lay the fruit sideways to squeeze the juice, which is much more laborious than placing the fruit face down by gravity. In order to press down the fruit with greater force, we found that we had to place one hand on the other end of the stand mixer to maintain stability and leverage; this arrangement required a lot of effort, and a lot of it seemed to be wasted. Juicing sideways is also troublesome. The pulp filter is too small for this task and needs to be emptied every two oranges (while most other tested juicers can handle five), and it is not very suitable for accessories-it serves as a kind of shelf Insertion-so it has a tendency to fall off and sometimes pour its contents into juice.
OrangeX Jupiter is one of two manual juicers we tested for this latest update. It takes a lot of effort to use (if you are tall and strong, you might work better) and spray juice everywhere. The suction cups on the base work well-and are necessary-to hold the device in place when you squeeze the juice, but in our tests, they left oily black streaks on the countertop. Although the juicer keeps the fruit's pith intact, it tends to break the pulp into large, uneven pieces, making it unpleasant to drink. Therefore, using this juicer requires an additional step of passing the fruit through a fine mesh. filter.
The Ra Chand J500, another manual press we tested, was even more tiring to use than OrangeX, and after only eating five oranges, this effort made us sweat and exhausted. The cone is loaded into the squeezer by sliding into the notch, and you can rotate it slightly to lock it-but when you squeeze the juice, the cone tends to twist. As a result, the fruit sticks to it and takes it out of the slot, you have to reposition it repeatedly, which is very time-consuming. Like OrangeX, the juice produced by Ra Chand contains large pieces of pulp and needs to be filtered. It is also huge.
In our round of testing in 2015, we also tried Dash's stainless steel juicer and Juiceman's two products, JCJ150S and JCJ4000S, all of which are currently unavailable. Each has a fatal flaw that makes it a much less efficient citrus juicer than the citrus juicer of our choice.
We eliminated many other models before testing, possibly due to price, lack of features, or negative reviews.
We eliminated Aroma's ACJ-181 in the previous update, which is a 1 liter citrus juicer because it lacks pulp control.
Due to lack of pulp control, we also eliminated the Big Boss 8962 electric citrus juicer.
Black & Decker followed up with its discontinued CJ630 with CJ630-2. We asked Black & Decker how this model is different from CJ625, and learned that although the casing is slightly different, except for the different capacity, the construction of the two juicers is almost the same; the cheaper CJ625 actually holds 2 ounces more liquid. CJ630-2 is retail at Target, while CJ625 is available at Walmart. We passed the test of CJ630-2.
The Bodum Bistro electric juicer has good Amazon reviews (if there are few), but it is not equipped with a pitcher or pulp control device.
We like Chef'n FreshForce Citrus Juicer to make cocktails at home, but although it does a great job on lemons and limes, it is too small for oranges (and grapefruit of course).
Dash's Citrus Bar is interesting because of its unique design, but Cook's Illustrated found that it cannot handle a wide variety of citrus, so it is not recommended.
Hamilton Beach’s 66333 Fresh Mix 2-Cup Citrus Juicer failed to get better user reviews than the model we tested, and we don’t like its lack of pulp control.
Oster Citrus Juicer has the same design and features as Proctor Silex, Black & Decker and Dash Go Dual, but the pitcher's capacity is only 24 ounces instead of 34 ounces, and its price is often several dollars higher than our selected products.
Before testing in the previous update, we dismissed Toastess' TCJ-346 Silhouette Stainless Steel Citrus Juicer because it did not provide any control over the pulp and received a low rating from Amazon reviewers.
Finally, America's Test Kitchen stated that it is "not recommended" to use the Waring Pro professional citrus juicer PCJ218, because "it makes a terrible high-pitched whine, making it unusable."
Electric Citrus Juicers (subscription required), Cook's Illustrated, July 1, 2008
Nick Duble, Fusco Beverage Director, interviewed
Joshua Goldman, partner of Soigné Group, interview
Interview with Tim Cooper, bartender at Sweetwater Social in New York
Lisa McManus, Executive Tasting and Test Editor, America's Test Kitchen, interview
Winnie Yang is the editor in charge of Wirecutter's home appliance report, and was the editor of the guide to baby and parenting equipment. In her previous life, she served as executive editor of Culinary Backstreets and The Art of Eating, and wrote articles for publications such as Condé Nast Traveler, Feast, Jamie, Saveur, and Tasting Table.
Nick Guy is a senior writer at Wirecutter, responsible for Apple and accessories. Since 2011, he has been reviewing iPhone, iPad and related technologies, and stopped counting after testing the 1000th case. It is impossible for him not to mentally classify any cases he sees. He once had a good idea to build and burn down a room to test a fire safe.
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