Breville BJE510XL

900-watt stainless-steel juice extractor with 5 speeds
Speeds range from 6500 rpm to 12500 rpm for maximum extraction
3-inch circular feed tube; backlit control panel; dishwasher-safe parts
Juice jug and froth separator, detachable spout, and cleaning brush included
Measures 16-4/5 by 15-1/2 by 10-1/4 inches

We owned a refurbished Waring JEX328 juicer for about two years and my wife used it to make juice for our children and me almost every day. It held up fairly well and we paid almost nothing for it at the time (around 30 bucks, I think), but it finally cratered a couple of weeks ago. We debated for a while whether or not to replace it with this Breville model or the Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Pro. We finally decided on this one because it had so many five star ratings and because it is an appliance we use so often, thus we thought it made sense to get the best one we could find, even with its steeper price. While I can't compare it to the Hamilton Beach model, I can compare it to the Waring model, and it beats the Waring model hands down.

As soon as you unpack the Breville you know you have a top quality piece of equipment. It does an outstanding job at juice extraction (the pulp is dryer than what the Waring produced, and the Waring actually did pretty well) and the clean-up is far easier. When cleaning the Waring, you had pulp caked up within the machine itself and it was a pain to clean it out, partially becaused it had a higher moisture content but also simply because of all of the nooks and crannies in this catchment section of the juicer. Although this section detached, it was still difficult to clean nonetheless . The Breville puts the pulp in a separate container off to the side, and as others have mentioned, if you line it with a plastic bag there is nothing to it. The only "pain" is cleaing the filter device, which is going to be difficult with any juicer you buy. The brush they provide does make this a little easier, however.

Now for the biggest difference: the noise produced when the machine is turned on. With the Waring, you had to pause the television, stop talking, cover your ears, and hope the neighbors didn't phone the cops on you for disturbing the peace. The Breville is FAR quieter. Don't get me wrong, it is not "whisper quiet" or anything like that, but it probably makes one third of the noise the Waring did.

Is it worth the higher price as compared to the Waring or Hamilton Beach? Hard to say. Like I mentioned, we got the Waring for practically nothing and it was a good introductory machine for us for juicing, but SO LOUD!

I can't really find any flaws with the Breville at all (we have run it for about a week now). Considering, however, that it costs almost three times what you can get the Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Pro for (I would chose this one over the Waring purely from my experience with it and from reading the reviews for the Hamilton), whether or not you want to go with this "ultra juicer" version boils down to sheer personal preference. How often you will run it and what variety of recipies you might want to put through it should probably be your driving factors, along side the price difference, of course. The main differences I found with the Breville as compared to the Hamilton were a slightly higher wattage (900 versus 800) and the variable speeds instead of only one, single speed. From our perspective, though, we have had no regrets in spending the extra cash for this top model.

EDIT 08/05/08: Just thought I would mention that since this review we bought the Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Pro as a gift for my wife's mother, so we had a chance to directly compare it to the Breville. It did a good job, but it was louder and not nearly as solidly built as the Breville. After this comparision, we are even more satisfied with our decision to spend a bit extra and get this model. The varible speed on the Breville is something you will definitely miss should you go back to a model that does not have this feature. Hope this helps!

The Breville BJE510XL Ikon 900-Watt Variable-Speed Juice Extractor is the third juicer I've owned, and is definitely my favorite. My cheap and easy-to-use Juiceman's motor burnt out after a year, at which point it would have been more expensive to repair than replace. My Champion still works after 15 years and is not difficult to clean, but is messy to use, leaving drips all over the countertop or whatever I line it with. I've also tried the Green Star and Green Power Juicers, which make perfect juice with dry pulp, but take a long time to clean and assemble. The Breville BJE510XL Ikon 900 is the second-down from the top of the line of the four Breville juicers (only the Elite is better), but after a month of use of about every-other-day use, I find no need to upgrade.

Here's why I like this juicer so much for my typical juice of carrot, kale, celery and apple and/or pear:

*Easy to set-up: It takes only seconds to set up this juicer. The juicer itself has only 3 pieces to snap into place, plus there's the acrylic pitcher, pulp basket, and pusher. The pieces fit perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle, which brings me to the second reason I like it:

*Not messy: The juice ends up in the pitcher, the pulp goes to the pulp basket, plus some residual of each ends up in the juicer to be cleaned. My Champion Juicer OTOH required me to find containers around the house that would fit, and still some would drip out. I would have to place a baking sheet or towel under it to contain the mess.

*Quick vegetable and fruit prep: I can fit several carrots at once into the 3" diameter shoot, plus whole pears and/or apples. I don't have to do as much cutting ahead of time as I did with other juicers with a narrower shoot. You must be careful though to use the pusher and not your hand.

*Quick clean up: Those 6 pieces mentioned above are all I have to clean. I can clean my juicer in just a few minutes, once I figured out a good way to clean the filtration basket--by far the most challenging part to clean. This basket was frustrating to clean at first, particularly since my juicer did not come with the brush it was supposed to (and customer service did not respond to my request to obtain a brush). I tried various brushes, but what works best is an all purpose nylon scouring pad from Trader Joe's which comes in packages of 4 for $2.59. The secret to quick clean up is to begin cleaning as soon as you've finished juicing, although you do have a few minutes to drink your juice first. Rinse off the filtration basket and vigorously scrub half of each of the three sections at a time with the nylon scrubber, rinsing each half section before moving on to the next. This should remove 90 to 90% of the pulp debris. Repeat or spot clean to remove the rest. I can clean the whole basket in less than a minute. The other parts are quick and straightforward to clean, although you have to be careful to clean under the rim of the acrylic part that the basket sits in.

*Helpful design features: The juicer has a smaller footprint than the Champion and Greenstar Juicers; a sleek, modern look that looks good in kitchens; pieces that fit together well (as mentioned), and even the plug is in the shape of a ring so one can easily pull it out of the socket without yanking on the cord.

*Doesn't stain. Although it has some acrylic parts, so far, with immediate cleaning after use, there have been no stains.

A few compromises. No juicer is perfect. This juicer is average in several areas. You can have a juicer that is above average in these areas (Green Star and Green Power), but you will be spending a lot more time in assembly, disassembly and cleaning. Having used the Green Star and Green Power, I would rather have the quick and easy juicer and sacrifice a small amount of yield.

*Noise - This juicer is as loud as your average kitchen appliance like a food processor or blender. The Green Star or Green Power are whisper quiet. It is not as loud as my Blendtec blender which requires me to wear ear phones.

*Yield - The pulp in this Breville is neither very wet nor very dry--it's average. For sawdust-dry pulp and more yield, the Green Star, Green Power and the $2,000 difficult-to-clean Norwalk exceed the Breville.

*Versatility - The Breville is strictly a juicer. If you're a raw foodist who is interested in making frozen banana "ice cream" and "not tuna" pate', you might prefer the Champion, Green Star or Green Power. However, I have found you can make these items in the food processor, so I'd rather have the dedicated easy juicer. Banana "ice cream" takes about 5 minutes in the food processor, as opposed to about 30 seconds in the Champion juicer.

The bottom line is that the right juicer for you is the one that can get used. With quick and easy food prep, assembly, disassembly, and cleaning, at my house, this IS the juicer that gets used.