Waring JEX328 400 Watts Juicer

I bought this juicer after reading very positive reviews on this web site and I am starting to wonder whether some of them were written by people who work for the manufacturer. My impression is fairly positive, but this juicer does not deserve the rave reviews it is getting. They make it sound perfect, but there are drawbacks that might cause some people to give up on using this appliance.

The juicer consists of a base in which the motor is housed, and several removable parts: a large black plastic juicing compartment, a metal shredding/filtering device, a black plastic top, a plastic plunger for the feed tube, and a stainless steel collection cup. All the parts are fairly well made and won't break easily. The motor is a bit noisy but is quite up to the job and does not labor or slow down during juicing. There is a five year warranty on the motor and a one year warranty on the rest of the machine.

The juicer is about 8 inches wide and 11 inches deep. The collection cup holds a liter, which is quite adequate since you would have to go through an awful lot of anything to get that much juice. (In fact the main compartment usually fills up long before the collection cup does).

The machine has done a pretty decent job of juicing carrots, oranges, melons, apples and grapes. The only juice I did not like the taste of was the oranges: it was a bit bitter and I might go back to the old fashioned hand juicer for them.

The first thing that disappointed me about the functioning of the juicer is that contrary to some of the reviews here, it does not wring out all the juice and leave a dry residue. When I juice carrots, for example, the residue is a moist paste that clearly leaves some juice for the trash (or hopefully you compost that stuff like I do).

The second problem is that it is NOT that easy to clean. While most of the plastic parts come clean pretty easily when they are rinsed with warm water, the chute where the juice drains down into the cup collects pulp and is hard to get into and clean. Of most concern is the key part: the metal shredder/juice filter. The filter part is made of a fine metal mesh (like in coffee machines), and it is a real pain to clean. The pulp gets embedded in this mesh and it takes several minutes to clean this one part alone. If you wanted to clean it perfectly, set aside ten minutes. They say the parts can be placed on the top rack of the dishwasher but the mesh filter still comes out dirty and must be hand washed. The manual does not give any real helpful information on how to clean the mesh easily.

Problem three is that during the juicing process, I have found that some juice leaks out where it shouldn't - along the seam between the main compartment and the lid. This then flows down the sides and onto the base or the counter around the machine. It is quite annoying to see good juice spill onto the counter; you lose efficiency and have more cleanup to boot.

All that said, for $65 shipped, this machine does a good job of getting me to consume more vegetables and fruit than I would otherwise. I am not sure that spending more would get you a much better machine, and of course there is no such thing as a kitchen appliance that doesn't need to be cleaned to some degree or another.