Steel Wheatgrass Juicer - A Product Review

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Hurricane Stainless SteelWheatgrass Juicer - a productreview

mood: geeky

I just got a new wheatgrass juicer toreplace my old juicer which broke. The oldjuicer was the HealthyJuicer Manual, and areal bargain for the price. It could juice justabout anything and cleaned up relativelyquickly. Both juicers are masticatingmodels. That is, they "chew up" the foodand press the pulp to separate the juicefrom the dry matter. The HealthyJuicer'smain limitation was it's primarily plasticconstruction. The plastic had a tendency tostain, but when some of the plastic aroundthe tip of the auger began to crack I startedto get less juice and wetter pulp. When Ibegan to get pulp which I could easily

squeeze more juice out of by hand, I decided I was not comfortablediscarding half the juice with the pulp. Sometimes I find good uses forthe pulp, but more often than not it went straight into the compost.

I was always happy with the manual action of the HealthyJuicer, sorather than buy a more expensive electric, I went looking for anothermanual. After the failure of the HealthyJuicer, I was concerned withfinding something with stronger construction. I selected my newHurricane Stainless Steel Wheatgrass Juicer over a less expensive castiron model I saw, because I was not confident about being able to keepthe inside of a cast iron juicer from rusting.

Frances Bea - Hurricane Stainless Steel Wheatgrass Juicer - a product r... http://frances-bea.livejournal.com/8954.html?thread=7418

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When I got the juicer, I found that nowhere on the box, on the juicer, orthe directions did the word "Hurricane" actually appear. This seemedoddly modest to me, but I'm convinced I got the correct machine. It didsay "Model No. BL-30".

The juicer didn't have all that many parts. It consists of a main body, afilter, an auger, a front cap and a crank. Also included are a white plasticwrench for attaching/detaching the front cap, and a green plastic plungerfor pushing recalcitrant food into the range of the auger. Other thanthose two, the parts of the machine which are not stainless steel are arubber gasket in the front cap, the rubber feet protecting your counterfrom the counter clasp, a plastic ring inside the back end of the mainbody, and the crank handle. See:


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The rubber gasket in the front cap is removable for cleaning, but noreplacement gasket is included. I'll have to be careful not to lose it.

Attaching the main body to mycounter, I found that the clampdid not open as widely as Iwould like. The rubber footingfor the underside clamp ismovable, and with it slid out ofthe way, I could just barely getthe clamp to attach to mycounter. The footing on theupper clamps could not havebeen removed without damageto the rubber.

The first thing to add to themain body is the filter, which I

inserted backward the first time. It fits in backward, but the juicer justdoesn't work right that way. Be sure to insert it with the smaller sloppedend going in first. With the filter in, insert the auger, then screw on thefront cap. With the front cap, remember that the normal thread directionis reversed (to keep the cap from screwing off while juicing), so thinklefty-tighty righty-loosey. The crank attaches very simply, and the juiceris constructed. I should have been ready to start juicing, but I hadanother difficulty.

There are three drain holes on the bottom of the main body. That's wherethe juice will come out. the dry pulp should come out of the front of thefront cap. To catch the juice, you'll need a container short enough to fit


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under the mainbody, but narrowenough that itdoesn't also catchdry matter comingout of the frontcap. If you lookagain at thepicture on the box(at the top of thisentry), you can seethe pretty glasscontainer beingused to catch thejuice. If they wereto actually startjuicing with thatarrangement youwould see that thecontainer isperfectly situatedto catch both thefalling juice andthe dry pulp in thesame container,thus defeating theentire exercise.After trying a

number of thingseither too tall ortoo wide, I settledon a little Pyrexbaking cup tocatch the fallingjuice. TheHealthyJuicercame with aspecially designedcapture containerwith goodcapacity, butHurricane has leftus on our own.

Grumble, grumble...

Actually Juicing!! Yay!

On my second attempt (once the filter was in correctly), I actually got tojuice some wheatgrass. The pulp isn't stone dry, but I'm satisfied thatmost of the liquid has been extracted. My little cup is catching the juicewithout trouble, but I'd have to pause frequently to pour it out if I wereto start juicing in quantity. I noticed that, like the HealthyJuicer,whatever is in the juicer seems to be pushed through the mechanism bywhat comes behind. When I stopped adding wheatgrass what wasalready in the device stopped processing through.

Tags: raw, sprouts


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I pulled out theauger, and found it to be quite clogged with wheatgrass. If I were juicinga larger quantity, the waste of this much grass would be fairlyunimportant. I could just scrape it off into the compost, but I wanted tosee what else I could do. I pushed the clogged auger back into themachine, and decided to see if I could flush out that last bit of grass withsomething else, and so not waste the last bit of juice. I was also hopeful,that though the product box says, "Extracts the Healthy Benefits ofChlorophyll from Wheat Grass and other Leafy Greens", it really wouldjuice other things. The basic design seemed so similar to myHealthyJuicer, and that could juice just about anything!

I fed the machine acouple small chunksof carrot, and got asatisfying splash of alittle morewheatgrass juice. Ididn't see anyorange-colored juiceand as the carrotstarted come out ofthe front cap I sawthat it had not beenjuiced, or crushed. Itlooked more thananything like it hadbeen grated. Mydisappointedconclusion was thatthis machine wouldnot ever make mecarrot juice, and it'sprobably not a goodway to grate carrots,either. Pulling outthe auger again, Iwas not at allsurprised to see thatmost of the clog hadcleared up - I hadseen that


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wheatgrass coming out as pulp and juice already.

Not ready to give up on the hope that I might have a more flexible juiceron my hands, I cleaned all my wheatgrass mess and decided on one finaltest. I was going to juice an apple. I cored and sliced but didn't peel it,feeding it to the machine. For the first time, I found that the machinedidn't quickly ingest what I had given it and I needed to push a little withthe plastic plunger. Very little pushing was necessary, and the machinefully processed the apple. I got a small amount of apple juice (a littlepulpy, but yummy), and a pile of far-to-wet pulp. Looking at the pulp Ithought it was almost like apple sauce, but the peel had passed throughthe machine mostly unchanged. I supposed I could dry it into an applecookie or brownie, but didn't want to run the dehydrator for just onecookie.

The machine was just not destined to make me apple juice.

ConclusionsThe Hurricane Stainless Steel Wheatgrass Juicer juices wheatgrass verywell, and is remarkably simple to set up, take down, and to wash. I'mhopeful that its stainless steel construction will hold up well to time andusage. It should definitely not be confused with an all-purpose juicer. Itis designed for juicing grasses and greens and it will not juice carrots andapples effectively.Posted on Feb. 2nd, 2008 | Link | Leave a comment | 17 comments | Add toMemories | Share

Comments


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(Anonymous)

frances_bea

The best Wheatgrass Juicer?....

Hi Frances Bea !

I living in France, and I'd like to order a manual juicer in US ( becauseit's cheapest there).

I'd like the 'Z Star Manual Juicer' or the 'Hurricane Stainless SteelWheatgrass Juicer'

Would you help me to choose one between this two ?Juice quantity and robustness of the juicer are important for me.Thanks in advance!Pascal(sorry my bad English!)

Posted on Aug. 9th, 2008 07:01 am (UTC) | Link | Parent | Thread |Reply

Re: The best WheatgrassJuicer?....

Hi Pascal,

I haven't used the Z Star juicer, but it looks like itcan juice a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. The Hurricane SSWheatgrass Juicer can juice only wheatgrass and green leaves.

-Frances

Posted on Aug. 19th, 2008 05:16 pm (UTC) | Link | Parent |Thread | Reply


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Steel Wheatgrass Juicer - A Product Review