Top positive review
7 people found this helpful
First Time Juicer
By DET on Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2011
The wife and discussed juicing for about two months and finally decided to do it. After doing a fair amount of reading and watching various videos on the Internet I decided on the VERT 330 HD and ordered it through Amazon. No tax and free shipping was a plus. With free shipping I fully expected to wait a week or more for delivery and was pleasantly surprised when it arrived in two days via UPS.I think the juicer itself is all it is supposed to be, heavy duty and multipurpose. Right off the bat we had to give it a test drive. There were about 20 baby carrots and an apple handy in no time at all they were converted into about 8 ounces of juice. The juicer comes with two screens, a fine and a course depending on how much pulp you may like or dislike in your juice. This first try we tried the fine screen. The juice tasted great and I looked forward to shopping for "judicable's."The next day, after a trip to the local grocery, I gave the juicer another try. This time I used a couple of full size carrots, and apple, and 5-6 collard leaves to see how green juice would be. I had read where long green leaves like collards could stop up the juicer and it would be better to break/tear them up into pieces. The apple was wedged into about 6 pieces and the larger end of the carrots halved.The collard leaves didn't feed quite as well and required a bit of coaxing by using the carrot pieces as a plunger. The combination of the tough/fibrous collard leaves and the hard (and somewhat large) carrot halves required me to reverse the juicer a few times to get it all to feed. This really wasn't an issue and now I know that I need to feed smaller bits of heavy/dense items. The good news is that despite my overloading the juicer, the reverse is a great feature and allowed me to back up and go again with little issue.I would also mention that this time I decided to use the filter screen with larger holes for more pulp. To be frank with you, I did not like the amount of pulp that resulted in the juice. It was just too thick. I ended up pulling out strainer and running the juice through it to remove quite a bit of pulp.The juice itself was fine. Now again, this is a matter of taste and I'm not real sure I like the taste of "raw" collards that much. The carrot to me Is kind of a neutral flavor where the apple adds a bit of sweetness. This helped cut the collard flavor. You just have to get over the dark green color of the juice. I keep telling myself that this is healthy and it's a "good thing." Anyway, no reflection on the juicer, just my first impressions of juicing. I am sure that with some experience I will find some combinations of fruits and vegetables I like more than others.The unit assembles and disassembles pretty easy. Clean up is a bit of a chore. I don't have any other juicers to compare clean up to but it does take a few minutes. Most of the pulp goes into its own catch container and you simply dump it in the trash. However the inner workings, there are 6-7 pieces, can still hold a fair amount of pulp that has to be cleaned out. Once you have collected your juice and both the pulp and juice containers are in place it may help to cycle a cup or two of water through the juicer to help flush out excess pulp. Otherwise you may find the strainer in your sink full of pulp rinsed off the various pieces. You will probably end up with pulp scattered around regardless. A sink with a spray nozzle helps. The most difficult item to clean was the screen. The juicer comes with a "toothbrush" to facilitate cleaning. I had to go over the screen with it 3-4 times, shake the water out, look closely, and go over it some more to ensure pulp was not clogging the fine mesh. This may be "easy clean" compared to some juicers, I can't say. I'm not really complaining here, cleaning up in the kitchen is part of the job no matter what you do. This is just more of a reality check to let you know that cleaning this juicer after use will take a few minutes. As most everyone knows, colored juice, weather its green, or orange or whatever will stain. After two uses I'm seeing some of the plastic components of the juicer starting to discolor. Again, probably par for the course but it's more of a reminder to be cautious of clothes, counter tops, dish towels, or whatever juice may come in contact with. It's probably my inexperience, but I tended to be a bit messy on this second juice outing that included straining the juice to reduce the pulp content. I'm thinking my technique for juicing and cleaning up will get better with a few more uses and I will not doubt use the fine mesh screen.I look forward to trying more recipes and trying more fruits like orange and grapefruit as well as flavors like ginseng, beets, and even a bit of garlic or hot pepper in some juices. I really look forward to health benefits.Though it might come off I'm been negative about this juicer I don't mean it to be. From my limited experience I think it is a great product. A ten year warranty pretty much speaks for itself. I really wanted to convey my experiences as a first time juicer while evaluating the VERT 330 HD while providing a reality check as it were for others that are thinking about juicing.
Top critical review
8 people found this helpful
Wow, what an amazing machine of propaganda
By B. Ogatiy on Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2012
I did a quick review of 'the reviewers' giving 5 stars to this juicer and the ones I looked at haven't done many reviews or have given most products high ratings. Go check it out yourself. Very suspect, and this leads to the title of my review because I think it's all propoganda.I was only able to make it through 3 sessions with this machine, which I hesitate to call a juicer. It's a grinder mostly and not a very good one due to the clogging issues. It seems to have a design flaw with the output. Unless fibrous greens are cut very short, the rotation effect aligns them and clogs the output very thoroughly.Of course I did see some of the amazingly convincing u-tube videos by sellers of this product. That's a key point to keep in mind, those people sell juicers for a living. A new one comes on the market and they try to sell it. Again, they are sellers of a product they want you to buy.Ease of use? Not really. Sure you can feed things like carrots into it fairly easily and retrieve smaller quantity of juice than with any other juicer I've used before. But with most anything else, somehow I ended up being very messy. It's not my first time with a juicer, I've been doing this for years.Pulpy? Yes, it's pulpy juice, so its necessary to strain it. Frankly, I've just never met someone who will take a drink of pulpy juice and then pulp free juice and then reach for the pulpy juice. So I don't believe it when a review states "Pulpy, just like I like it." Sounds more like something a paid reviewer would write, rather than someone who plans on drinking a lot of juice or drink it daily.Cleanup? Took around 10-15 minutes. On the outlet, which is covered by a silicon flap, small pieces of matter get between the flap and the hard plastic and using the brush end pick it's possible to get most of it. Most of it, but not all of it. Dissassembly with a philips screwdriver is possible. That's just not my idea of how to clean a daily juicer that I plan to use for years.Running pulp through again to get more juice? This is a pretty consistent way to clog it and increase your cleaning time. The output is more like a soupy mash that again needs strained and yields not much more juice. A better juicer strains it for you automatically so you don't have to run the pulp through. But why would anyone think to run the pulp through again? Yes, you got it, because the pulp is pretty wet.High quality juice? Well, I'm not sure, but as informed from the media machine there's less oxidation. I read on one review of a masticating juicer that apple juice will stay un-brown longer, as a sign of less oxidation, but I didn't try it.So to summarize, you can read pros and cons on all the other reviews, but my take is this is a faulty machine driven by marketing hype. It's going back and has really soured me on the Omega brand, though I know they just repackaged a Huron.I'm going to try the Green Star and Angel juicers next.Update of August 2013: Surprised this juicer is still out on the market. Have heard many additional stories of dissatisfaction. The only people I've found who liked this machine are newbies who're not experienced or have not tried a quality juicer. As for me, tried the Green Star and Angel 7500. Kept the Angel and use it frequently with no complaints. The Angel is likely the most efficient juicer available and uses a twin gear masticating process, it's built like a tank and is all stainless steel. The Angel is excellent for leafy greens and hard veggies but will struggle a bit with softer fruits unless harder veggies are interspersed. As an aside, I use it to get the juice of black currants for wine and then keep the pulp to toss in a fruit bag to get extra tannins. Using a pressure cooker to extract black currant juice, a frequently relied upon method for notoriously hard to juice currants, changes the flavor and requires additives to adjust the wine's flavors, but using the Angel results in excellent outcome and allowing a pure black currant wine with no additives (no raisins or banana). Mentioned this here because I run about 18lbs of currants through the Angel at one time without problems of any sort. The Omega wouldn't even be able to juice more than a few ounces or pound before requiring dis-assembly and cleaning, but also doesn't provide dry pulp like the Angel. Anyway, the Angel is 3X as much in price, but once you've experienced the efficiency (more juice, dry pulp) of it the thought of the high price is easy to digest. As an aside, there's small juicing business start-up that was using this juicer as one of their daily juicers for some specific juicing chores (not as a primary juicer). The owner said she liked it and I saw her working with it nearly daily over the course of several weeks. But then I started working in a different part of town and didn't visit for several months, but when I did visit again found she'd grown the business and replaced the Omega with a Champion and an Angel. Another local health food store that provides juicing as a key part of their business relies upon Champion juicers.
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