Factory-Reconditioned Breville XXJE95XL Two Speed Juice Fountain Plus
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Factory-Reconditioned Breville XXJE95XL Two Speed Juice Fountain Plus
Customer Review: Great for speedy juicing but uses a *lot* of veggies and fruits!
Summary: 4 Stars
This reconditioned juicer works well and provides a speedy glass of juice in seconds. It's got a satin nickel finish which also looks good on my countertop. It has few parts and all are easily detached and can be cleaned in the dishwasher top rack. You can also line the pulp catcher with a plastic grocery bag to catch all the pulp and then throw it away. The feed chute is fairly large and you can put a whole decent sized tomato or a small apple down it pretty easily. So it saves you chopping time. This juicer has 2 speeds - slow for softer fruits and veggies and high for harder veggies. The italian wire mesh spins at a very high rate and vegetable turn to juice and fine pulp in seconds. You are not supposed to run this juicer more than 3-4 minutes at a stretch but that's ok as it is so fast that in 3 minutes you could probably get through several pounds of veggies. As a juicer it is fantastic, you can even put peeled oranges and tangerines down it and get frothy orange juice in seconds. I even made my own combinations. Ever tried cabbage, carrots and oranges together? It was pretty neat and tasted good!
However despite all the fun I had making several juice mocktails, I am taking away one star from this juicer as I am not very happy about the quantities of vegetables or fruits it takes to create one glass of juice. For instance, about 3-4 pounds of carrots will probably only produce a medium sized glass of juice. I remember metal hand cranked commercial juicers at juice stores from my childhood that produced more juice and less pulp. It also has a hard time with softer fruits even at the low speed. I put in 4 big bunches of champagne grapes into the juicer only to get a 6 oz. glass of juice. When I put the pulp back again into the juicer I got another 2-3 teaspoons of juice and there were still several grapes in the pulp that were not fully juiced. Therefore juicing with this machine can be expensive. I hate to throw away all the good pulp too...as it's pretty wasteful. But I simply cannot make a carrot cake each time I juice carrots or a fruit pie each time I juice some fruits. So the machine is getting less use than it should.
Despite this being a nice juicer I may send it back and go back to eating fresh whole fruit and veggies. That way I'll get the fiber and less calories. But for folks who prefer to drink juice to eating the raw veggies and fruit this is a powerful and well designed juicer and very easy to clean.
Update - The price of this juicer has been fluctuating a lot on Amazon in December 2007 it was listed for under 40 bucks for a few days and now in Jan 2008 it is closer to 90 bucks. Just something you might want to be aware of!
Customer Review: Great Juicer, but watch the blade cleaning & secure the pulp
Summary: 4 Stars
Breville was a new appliance name for me. However my 20 year old Oster had given up the ghoster...so I read reviews, compared prices and specs and took the dip with this Aussie designed and build juice extractor. First of all, it's fast, effecient and really gives some of the frothiest, best pure juice possible. It will juice almost anything, except very tough skins such as outer pineapple or orange rinds. Actually, it probably would do the rinds, but that sort of embitters the juice, so, it's not a reasonable tactic. I learned, however, that the pulp basket must be carefully secured or else pulp splatterfication ensues. A small quibble about the dribble...also...when you remove the reservoir with the juice, be sure to have a cup or short glass to tuck under the exhaust tube, or else, it will drip all over the counter (recommended locale for using). Clean up is easy and quick, but again, one careful note-- the juicer blade assembly is really, really fine, unlike the industrial oster that has gears, this is more a screen with micro-polished fins...and if you wipe with a towel, rag, paper, sponge, (God forbid your fingers or hands!)it will shred them and be caught in the jaws of death! The Breville folks did think about this, and they include a very snazzy brush just for cleaning this screen assembly. It works, too. But it does not DRY the assembly, and you will be tempted (I know how you think!) to give it a little tiny, ever so genteel wipe with a towel or something. Step away from the assembly! Just let it air dry on a drainer or something with a paper towel to collect the drips. If you can deal with these minor mayhems, this is one superb juicer...and it has the coolest AC cord...with a big hole in the middle of the plug portion, so one can insert a finger and actually remove it from the wall socket without yanking the cord or reaching around the plug grasping in a way that might result in a slip and a grip on the live prongs -- the appliance dance of death routine -- and we're not talking about the death of the appliance here folks!
So hats off to our Aussie Friends, they came up with a very nice product that works as advertised. They have a deluxe model that is all polished metal on the outside, same motor on the inside, for the decor conscious, and I am sure that it will provide the same sturdy quality and amazing speed of this model. Did I mention that it is really quiet for a juicer? No? Well, it is. It also has almost 5X the power compared to the "Juiceman" Jack Lalane and other typical TV ad juicers. Don't be fooled, there is no substitute for the joy of vast unadulterated power. Ask Machievelli -- he'd love this juicer!
Customer Review: I love this Breville juicer!
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm on day 15 of a 30-day juice fast, so I was glad to receive this juicer at this point. Although this is a reconditioned unit, it looks just like new. It had a few scratches on the top plastic piece, but I am satisfied with it. There was no juicer pitcher included, however. But I'm not going to complain, considering everyone seems to have such problems with Breville customer service. I could return it to Amazon, but I probably wouldn't use the juice pitcher anyway. I just put my glass under the spout. I also didn't have an owner's manual in my box, but I read below in one of the reviews that it is available online.
I have an Omega 4000 juicer that's 4-5 years old. I wanted a replacement because the chute of that is so narrow that you can't put whole pieces of a lot of fruits and vegetables in it. I was sick of cutting everything up to put into the chute. This Breville juicer requires very little cutting because of the large chute. I have to clean 7 parts on my Omega, only 5 on the Breville (if you use the juice pitcher, you'd have 6 pieces to clean). It is very easy to clean.
I like the strainer basket in the Breville better than the Omega. It is woven more tightly. I love the scrubber brush that is included. It works better than the scrubber brush I had to remove particles in the strainer basket.
The unit is more attractive than my Omega juicer to keep on your kitchen counter. I like how the pulp container is fully enclosed so the pulp doesn't spray out when you're juicing. My Omega doesn't have an enclosed pulp container, and pieces were always spraying out.
The blade cuts fruits and vegetables so quickly and efficiently. And considering how quickly the juicer cuts things up, it makes less noise than my Omega.
I like how the spout is higher than my Omega spout, so I can put a taller glass under the spout.
I don't like how little particles of fruits or vegetables get caught on the blade and are hard to remove. This never happened with my Omega.
The pieces of this Breville are pretty cheaply made (cheap plastic, and the silver exterior pieces of the juicer are just painted silver plastic, not stainless steel or metal). The juicer is lighter and does not feel as solid as my Omega.
I do like the two speed option. My Omega only ran at one speed.
Overall, I'm a very satisfied customer! To save $60 off the price of a new juicer was worth it to me.
Customer Review: Reconditioned or Looked Over and Packed by Breville?
Summary: 2 Stars
Received three of these. First one looked beautiful but leaked all over the place. Second one arrived with dried food crud and a sticky base. Third one was sticky and had a moldy blade/filter. Breville didn't return phone calls or emails for one month. CSR representative was worthless. Amazon was great and accepted two returns for replacement. The juices these machines produce are very good and if you clean them immediately, that is easy to do. I can imagine that if you don't immediately clean them, they end up like the second one I received, with crust embedded and a clogged filter. This is a product that I wouldn't recommend buying in a "reconditioned" condition because Breville clearly lacks in the Quality Control area of their reconditioning center. Customer Service really doesn't exist -- I've never waited for a month after numerous attempted contacts with a company by phone and email, then to be told that they return every call. The rep actually told me that it was Amazon's fault because Amazon sent out a dirty product, not them. Well, I received another dirty product and the second one was worse and both of the boxes definitely had not been opened by anyone other than myself. CSR then told me he had to go because he needed to make more calls and he wanted to go home. Really, he said that. Because this is a reconditioned item with a limited warranty, the Customer Service aspect of a purchase is critical. With a "new" product review, I wouldn't spend the time on this issue, but had I known what a pain this would be to get some fresh extracted juices, I wouldn't have done it in the first place. Wish I hadn't given away my 30 year old Braun! Oh yes, I bought the 1 speed Breville for my daughter and she had to exchange the first one because it "sprayed juice all over the kitchen." Don't know a thing about the replacement yet other than it arrived packed in popcorn, not the styrofoam fitted packaging that the other did. I'm giving this juicer 2 stars because the juice is good and if you receive a nicely reconditioned product, it probably would be 5 stars.Customer Review: Absolutely awesome juicer!
Summary: 5 Stars
So this is my first juicer and I spent a lot of time in research reading specs and reviews before I finally settled on this one. To start, it got here 3 days sooner than expected, which was a great surprise. Taking it out of the box, I could not tell it was a refurb at all...looked brand new! It even came with the owner's manual with recipes.
Now, I put this thing together, stick a grocery bag in the pulp collector and turn it on high, prepared for vacuum cleaner level noises. It was soooo quiet! Maybe it's just because I was prepared for something more, but I am totally happy with the noise level...less than my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. And man, did it tear through my produce! I mean, bam and it was done! I didn't measure ounces because my 5 year old (well...me too in all honesty--lol) was so anxious to try the juice, but I got a little better than half of the container that came with it of juice. I juiced 2 gala apples, 3 med carrots, and one rather large pear. (I had to quarter the pear, but the apples went in whole.) I had no splattering or leaking, with the exception of a tiny bit where the juice comes out, and that was my fault for not having the collector completely up against the juicer. No biggie.
Juice was AMAZING, pulp was mildly damp but fluffy. I am satisfied that the juice that could be taken out was. I took it apart immediately to clean before the pulp dried on and it took me all of 2 minutes. (I would not want the task of cleaning the filter if you let the stuff dry though...I imagine that would be a nightmare!) It is a bit larger than I expected, but not so much that it takes up too much room on my counter--which is very good because that is where it will spend the rest of its natural life. =)
Overall, absolutely worth the price! All I can say is I hope it lasts a very, very long time. But even if I only get 6 months out of the thing, I think I would definitely purchase another one. It is THAT good!