EdgeCraft 610 Chef's Choice Premium Electric Food Slicer
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List Price: Our Price: $119.99 Availability: Usually ships in 2-3 business days Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of EdgeCraft 610 Chef's Choice Premium Electric Food Slicer
Customer Review: Excellent Slicer!
Summary: 5 Stars
When I was growing up, we had an old hand cranck meat slicer. Every friday night me and my father and uncle 'and puppy who got scraps' would spend the evening hand slicing meats for sandwiches and suppers for the rest of the week.
Later in life I got really big into grinding, making and smoking my own sausages, meats, and stuff. My father passed down the old family hand crank meat slicer.
Wow, I remember how much work that was o_O
This lead me to purchase a good electric slicer. I used a few that were ok, some I bought and some I borrowed. They were flimsy and what not.
Then I came across this Chef's Choice 610 that my father bought for me as a gift ...
The first thing I noticed was its superiour design and construction. No flimsy sheet metal on this bad boy at all. Everything is nice and solid. A lot of craftsmanship went into the making of this thing. Even the slider table where you slide the meats across is one huge solid thick piece of metal, unlike all the thin single rail systems I used in the past.
Setting it, the slicing size adjuster is behind the back plate, which is a nice solid piece of metal as well. I like the adjustment on the back as to keep it out of the way. This is important when your spending some time slicing up homemade bacon you just cured and smoked.
The pusher is a nice food grade plastic that is very easy to clean.
Speaking of cleaning, I have to say this... This is the only slicer I have ever used in my entire life that is this easy to take about to clean. That is unless you get into the bigger tor-reys or hobarts, but then your talking almost a grand on up price wise.
The front has a big switch, middle for using, push right to lock in place when not in use, and push left to slide off for cleaning.
The adjustment knob on the back, set to 0 'zero' then one more click and the whole backing plate now can be slid off for cleaning.
Instead of finding a screw driver to dismantle the blade, just pop out the center lock and give a turn and the blade is now ready to take off.
Those three easy things and you have entire access for totally cleaning this amazing slicer.
I will say this, I do wish the center locking nut for the blade was built alittle more firm, because I can see where it can break easily. However, you only use it to take the blade off and put back on for cleaning or changing, nothing more, so theres no reason to constantly play with it; plus its still much nicer then the screw driver method. All one needs to do is when using the center blade locking nut is use it slowly and gently, and all will go fine.
But even with that one thing, this awsome slicer still gets a big 5 stars from me.
Some think the motor is to slow. I can say this from experiance with other slicers, unless you get up into the $500 - $1000 range, your not going to find a professional slicer with a turbo motor. However, the motor on this Chef's Choice 610 dosn't lag when slicing big loads such as a whole belly square bacon, unlike the many other slicers I used before which you can hear the motor start to jam up and slow down. The motor on this Chef's Choice 610 is VERY powerful, so don't let it fool you.
I honestly can't live with out this appliance, with what I do with meats. And very thankful to my father for this awsome gift who gets to eat all the results... But for anyone who isn't into making sausages and curing meats, you can save so much money buying bologna, salami, turkey loaf, ham loaf etc in bulk, taking home and slicing yourself. This slices up to 2 inch cuts if I remember correctly, anything thicker, just use an electric knife. And this cuts near paper thin deli quality as well.
Alittle trick that might help those who think this cant cut thin: toss your uncut meat in the freezer for about 10 minutes until slightly firm, NOT frozen. This keeps it firm and more managable to slice then when room temp, loose and flimsy. This way you can much more easily manage nice quality deli thin slices.
Enjoy, I know I am with this puppy! :)
Customer Review: exceedingly reasonable
Summary: 5 Stars
Have had this a couple months now.
Used it to cut cheese, raw beef roast into steaks, cooked chicken, turkey, ham for deli.
I have also cut a little bit of bread, but really just to clean the juices slightly between ham and cheese (and just to see how it did).
I cut a store bought piece of pre-cut italian into about 3 or 4 melba-toast thin slices with east on the bread.
Raw Beef - cut a couple small roasts down for simple steaks.
Froze one about an hour (which did tidy up the juices a little), and one right out of the fridge.
Not a huge difference in cutting really.
Slightly tidier for juices on 'frozen' one.
Don't know that I'd bother freezing again.
Cutting fine on both.
110% perfect with zero change in thickness anywhere on all pieces?
No. But extremely, extremely acceptable.
The roast was large enough that often at the end of the cut there was the slightest bit left connected which I had to sort-of manually tension against the blade to pull the cut piece completely free. This might sound bad but seemed a perfectly awesome acquiescence on my part as opposed to trying to hand-cut steaks out of fleshy, squirming raw roast.
Ham - I am not sure everyone realizes, but many (most) city hams are completely pre-cooked and need nothing further. To prepare warm for dinner they really need nothing more than warming to about 100 deg F. typically.
Just look on package for "fully cooked".
For slicing for deli these need nothing more than to be boned (if needed) and sliced.
I did a cheap on-sale, no-name brand butt end and it was very good actually.
A lot better than what I buy on sale at the deli.
A little pain to debone first but hey - life and all.
Did a shank end too. I think I prefer the butt end for ease of processing.
Turkey and Chicken breast - cooked and then chilled completely in fridge did surprisingly well to me. I really thought they'd just shred. For the most part they didn't.
I found that sliced chicken in this way was very easy to do buying boneless/skinless and near as good to me as a turkey sandwich.
I've never used chicken like that but I will be from now on.
Cheese - like sharp as I can get. Even in large bulk the local place wanted $5/lb for sharp cheese. I can buy the same brand on regular sale in those much-more-easily managed 8oz bars for 1.5 lbs/$5 so did that instead. Also allowed me to get extra-sharp instead of just 'sharp'.
I cut these on the face of the slab and it works quite well. Nice thickness for use on sandwich or cracker or grilled cheese. I cut fairly thin and double as desired in use.
All-in-all extremely happy and agree with all others expressed here that it is not a pro unit at all but extremely capable and fairly described as an occasional use home unit.
Easy to clean, in a realistic sense.
Breaks down far and fast, which is great as others have said.
Blade retentions screw - yes, it's plastic. Just be careful and I see no problems. It is reverse thread. Do it lightly by hand to be sure not cross threaded. Then just 'snug' at end with quarter is all that's needed. I imagine it would break if you torqued on it. I cannot imagine why anyone would torque on it though. That is not at all needed. I expect it to have a long life with reasonable care.
Happy I got it.
For our family will pay for itself within the year as we go through a bit of deli, probably within months actually.
Wish I had bought it sooner.
Only catch might be that even the better quality ham I used to get from the deli was only happily eaten by about half the house. An actual, even modest quality, ham cut on this thing everyone has loved and it seems to disappear fast. hahahhahahahaah.
Customer Review: Buy this Slicer without any regrets !
Summary: 5 Stars
When i decided to purchase a Electric meat slicer, the large amount of slicers to select from was over whelming. I read all the reviews, done a lot of thinking about each one, then after 2 weeks i decided to purchase the Chef's Choice M-610 slicer. Ordered it on Dec, 4th, received it on Dec,10th. great fast shipping and no cost for shipping. I cleaned it up the day i received it, VERY EASY CLEAN UP. Product is well made for ease of consumer use. I familiarized myself with it before using.
Today, Dec,12 I used it for the first time. i purchased a long roll of fresh Pork tenderloin.
Cut in into two sections about 15 inches long each, placed the first half on slicer tray, had to use it without the safety food pusher because meat was too long.
Set the blade thickness to about 5/8 inch, turned on slicer, pushed meat toward the backplate to eliminate any looseness in the meat and to get a good uniform slice, pushed forward into blade slowly, thinking too fast would bog down the motor, it sliced through the first piece perfectly and very easy.
So the second piece i thought i would give the slicer a real work out. I made the second cut using a quick fast slice, ha, the machine went through the meat like butter with no sign of slow down, another perfect slice. at this point im very impressed! I noticed no slow down of the motor, no bogging down.
The third piece had a small tab holding the sliced piece to the unsliced meat, i grabbed the sliced piece still holding on by the tab, pulled it up against the blade to finish the slice, nicely done.
So next i wanted to know how to stop the tabbing. Well the solution was simple, TURN THE MEAT OVER EVERY 3 SLICES, bottom to top. This gave me the slices without tabs. Plus helps keep each slice uniform in thickness.
I see no way many if any slicers can eliminate the tab problem until you get into the commercial meat slicers. This in my opinion is not a problem by doing it like i mentioned, turning the meat over every 3 slices.
I cut up a slab of meat 30 inches long and about 5 inches through in about 4 or 5 minutes. The meat turned out very nice and even sliced, just remember to keep the meat pushed tight against the back plate to get a great uniform slice every time.
Oh and once you get enough meat sliced that it all fits on the sliding tray Please do place the safety guard on to finish up the meat. I finished up wit 2 very small pieces of meat [ less than 3 oz] that could not be made into a nice slice so im using it for soup stock or stir Fry's.
If my opinion makes any difference, i would say buy this machine without any reservations, you will get your money's worth.
I have not used it on cheeses, salami, vegetables like tomatoes or cooked meats. But im sure there will not be any problems with using this machine for anything. Just a suggestion here for cutting up Cheeses, try a little Pam no stick spray on the blade during slicing, sure couldn't hurt trying this.
Customer Review: EdgeCraft 610 Chef's Choice vs. Waring FS150 - a comparison
Summary: 5 Stars
I have purchased and used both the Waring FS150 and the EdgeCraft/Chef's Choice 610 slicers, which are in the same price and quality range.
On one hand, the Waring FS150 is a fully functional slicer, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with it. On the other hand, I fully agree with many reviews that it has some design flaws, and the Edgecraft/Chef's Choice 610 is definitely a superior product:
1. On the Edgecraft 610, the crumbs fall directly down onto a clear plastic tray that comes with the product. This is incredibly easy to remove and clean. On the Waring FS150, however, the crumbs fall sideways in 2 directions, and there's no easy way to clean it... you either have to use a sponge or a vacuum cleaner. By far, this is the major design flaw of this product.
2. On the Edgecraft 610, the device for adjusting the width is a fairly easy-to-turn dial, that expands all the way to a full 1". But on the Waring FS150, the device is a tough-to-turn knob that allows the width to expand to only about 0.5"... this is an issue if you are trying to get thick slices of bread or cake.
3. On the Edgecraft 610, the food tray slides back and forth on a clean surface, but on the Waring FS150, they use a wheel + a sleeve that slides along the bar. Functionally, both are satisfactory, but the Edgecraft permits the tray to be detached and cleaned, while the Waring is locked into position because of the sleeve/bar component.
4. Similarly, with respect to the backplate, the Edgecraft 610 has a feature allowing the backplate to be removed, but on the Waring FS150 is it bolted into position and cannot be removed for cleaning.
5. On the Edgecraft 610, practically the entire body is made out of aluminum, and the design is sleek and easy to wipe down. On the Waring FS150, there is a combination of plastic, steel, and aluminum, and the chunky surfaces are harder to clean. Note in particular the difference between the two when you examine the bottom portion of the slicer.
6. Perhaps the one potential relative positive on the Waring is that it is a smaller device... The Edgecraft 610 is about 10" wide, 15" long, and 11" high, while the Waring FS150 is smaller at 9" wide by 14" long by 11" high. The Edgecraft is also heavier than the Waring.
7. One more final possible positive is that the Waring FS150 features large suction feet, which help anchor it in position, while the Edgecraft 610 has smaller suction rubber feet that don't work as well.
8. Both slicers are equally noisy... the Waring has a low pitch noise while the Edgecraft has a higher-pitched noise, almost like a whine.
The FS150 is definitely functional, however, and I've used it for about 3 years without problems. Still, the Waring designers have a lot to learn from the Edgecraft/Chef's Choice designers. I'd definitely recommend the Chef's Choice 610 over the Waring FS150.
Customer Review: Worked well for my home use.
Summary: 4 Stars
I have never used a slicer before, or seen one other than at a Deli, where I never paid attention. So I was surprised at how slow the blade spun (maybe 90 or so RPM).
Unit feels pretty solid, the parts all move easily where they should, and the adjustment dial on the back has a nice ratcheted feel to it. Disassembly is about as easy as it could get, rotate the knob to the "remove" position and the guide comes out, the slider has a switch with three positions, locked, normal, and remove, so that comes out with a single slide of the switch. Blade comes out easily with a coin or something similar. So cleanup is just as easy as everyone says.
I was using a 6.5lb ham for my first test, and it started out really well at the beginning when the end was narrow. I started out with some pretty thin slices, nothing you could read through but thinner than normal oscar meyer lunchmeat would be cut. Did a few thicker pieces too, just to see how it worked, and had no problems. But as I got closer to the widest part of the ham, I started having issues with pieces not falling "behind" after they were cut and despite running the slider the full distance, i kept having to stop and pull a piece out manually every once in a while.
But I have to say, that was my only negative part of the whole experience (thus the one star taken off). Other than that, it worked great. Sounds more like a grinder than a circular saw sound I was expecting, but with the slow revolution, that makes sense.
Came with an extra fuse as well in case you blow one.
When looking at some of the other more expensive models, I was surprised to find most of them had a maximum cut thickness that was actually less than this one. So it certainly has a wide range of settings.
The on/off switch also has a "pulse" setting that has it spinning only when you press the button.
Item was well packaged against damage, nice sturdy box with well designed styrofoam inserts.
All in all I'm happy with the unit, although my first foray into purchasing meat was a bit of sticker shock, grabbed the small ham i mentioned, fully cooked from the deli, 6.5 lbs, and was in the low $40 range... I thought I'd save some cash over buying packaged pseudo meat, but I guess not. Fortunately, that wasn't the primary reason I purchased it, and I have to say the ham was worth every penny, some of the best I ever had...