If you’ve become a juicing enthusiast then you may want to buy a juicer that gives you high quality juice and that’s a masticating type of juicer. So what is the best masticating juicer on the market in 2020? The answer lies in your specific needs.
What is a masticating juicer? This type of juicer which is also called a slow juicer or cold press juicer, has a heavy build and features a tube that holds the auger. The fruits and vegetables to be juiced are pushed into the opening of the feeder, and the auger crushes and squeezes them. The juice drains into a receptacle, leaving the dry pulp to be expelled. This type of juicer can process fibrous vegetables which can be difficult to juice otherwise, such as leafy greens and wheatgrass. It also juices soft fruits like citrus, as it squeezes them and leaves behind the pith and fiber without needing to cut through them.
As we have explained in our article about masticating juicers vs. centrifugal, juice from a masticating juicer is higher in nutrients because it works at a low speed, creating less heat and therefore less oxidation. Cold press juicers are also easier to clean than centrifugal.
If you think you’d rather just have a smoothie with the fibre intact, take a look at our countertop blender picks for fruit and easy green smoothies. You can also get an inexpensive centrifugal juicer that will give you pure juice without any pulp. If you only want citrus juice then a citrus juicer is more than enough.
So, what is the best masticating juicer to buy? Do you choose a twin or a single gear juicer? A twin gear juicer gives you the best results and lasts longer but if you’re on a budget, you should go with a single gear juicer. Most single-gear juicers start at $150 while twin-gear juicers start at about $400.
Should you choose a vertical slow juicer or horizontal slow juicer? That answer becomes more involved because they’re designed quite differently.
As far as cost goes, it all depends on how often you plan on using the juicer. If it is for every day use, it’s best to get a top rated juicer that is going to be a bit more expensive. For occasional use, you may be better off getting a less expensive model like one of these centrifugal and masticating juicers that are the best in your budget. The materials that are used make a big difference as well. Metal juicers are going to be better than plastic, but they will also be more expensive. Also, look for whether or not the juicer can accomplish other tasks, such as the ability to make nut butters, extrude pasta, or grind coffee and flour. It’s a good idea to see if it comes with a food processing attachment as well but this should not be a deciding factor if that is a non-essential task or if you already have an appliance that does that. Make sure that the juicer is easy to clean too.
Now that you have learned what to look for in a masticating juicer, it should be easier to find one that fits your needs. Because of all of the great features that these juicers boast, it can be hard to choose one, which is why I have come up with a list of the top masticating juicers 2020 listed below.
Best Cold Press Juicer on the Market
Table of Contents
Best Horizontal Single Gear Masticating Juicer Options
A horizontal masticating juicer is the original type of slow juicers and they’re still the gold standard for juice quality. They work slowly and you do have to push your produce through the chute, but they’re very easy to clean and will last for years.
Omega J8006HDS Nutrition Center Ultimate Masticating Juicer
The end cap has 5 pressure settings that you can use to adjust, depending on the produce that you’re using, for maximum juice output through the stainless steel screen. Depending on this setting, the pulp waste can be pretty dry and is automatically ejected into the removable bin as the juicing happens. There’s an attachment that prevents foam from exiting along with the juice. It comes with a wide feed chute so you don’t have to babysit the machine while it does its job.
The juice can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 72 hours, while the pulp can be used when cooking or in bran cookies.
It comes with several different attachments as well as a blank cone that can extrude pasta, make baby food, sorbet, nut butters, soy milk, and even grind coffee and spices or mince garlic and herbs! It features a sleek stainless-steel finish and carries a 15-year warranty.
It’s very quiet as it works and its 4 stabilizing feet ensures that it doesn’t jump around the countertop when juicing hard produce. There’s a built in handle for easy transport, although it is not as compact as a vertical type juicer.
Cleaning all the parts using the included cleaning brush is a breeze. It also lets you unclog in case there’s a jam by giving you a reverse switch.
This is a great option for all vegetable juices, even wheatgrass and celery, and decent for soft fruits. It’s easy to assemble and it comes with the juicing screen already installed.
This Omega model’s chute size is adequate but not large, so you do have to cut up your produce enough. It’s also a little slower than other newer models, but if you have the time to wait for it to do its job and you don’t want to spend a massive amount on faster juicers, then this is your best bet.
It comes with the industry-leading 15 year warranty.
As a 6th generation juicer from Omega, the NC900HDC has a wider feed chute that measures about 2-inches by 1.5-inches, which allows it to take in larger pieces of fruits and vegetables than the J8006 model above. This means less prep work beforehand, which is a real time save for families!
This model is also better at juicing soft fruits like oranges, but make sure to include a bit of the rind for best results. There are two juicing screens and 5 pressure settings to handle every kind of produce, including apples, wheatgrass, celery, carrots, kale and much more.
The nutrition center also has 6 nozzles to carry out additional tasks like making baby food, nut butters and almond milk, mincing garlic and herbs, and extruding pasta.
The motor rating is 150W and the augur turns are 80RPM. It comes with a 15 year warranty.
Best Double Auger Juicer
A double auger or twin gear or triturating juicer is the very best type of juicer you can get. It’s not meant for occasional juicers but for serious health conscious juicers who don’t mind spending the required time to allow this machine to do its best job.
The difference between a masticating juicer vs triturating juicer is that while the former’s auger presses against the chamber, the latter has two augers that are set very close together and work together to slowly crush the produce. A twin gear juicer is even slower than a single gear one but produces the purest and most delicious form of juice that’s dense and bright in color.
One drawback is that most double auger juicers are very expensive and may not be worth the cost for home use. However, there is one that consistently scores high marks and won’t break the bank, especially if it’s going to be used for the whole family.
Tribest Greenstar Elite Cold Press Complete Twin Gear Masticating Juicer
The twin augers are made of magnetic and bioceramic materials with the teeth designed with little pocket recesses to aid it crushing the hardest produce. There are cutting points to handle stringy vegetables like celery, so that nothing gets clogged inside. For those rare times it does get jammed, there is a reverse function switch.
It comes with 4 different screens depending on what kind of job you want from it. A fine screen gives you no pulp at all, a coarse screen lets you have more pulp mixed in, a homogenizing blank can be used to process baby foods, nut butters and frozen desserts, and a breadstick maker helps you make raw sticks and rice cakes. It also comes with a glass pitcher, wooden and plastic plungers and a cleaning brush. Optional attachments include an adjusting knob for soft fruits and a pasta extruder.
This juicer is powerful but the chute is just 2 inches round, so you do need to cut up your produce. You can adjust the pressure setting while it is still running to optimize juice extraction. The concentration of nutrients in the juice is very high because of the slow operation and materials used in the augers.
It is a bit of a pain to clean, as you need to brush the screens often and the auto purifying feature requires quite a lot of water.
Although this is a top class slow juicer and can handle hard as well as soft fruits and vegetables just as easily, the price of this juicer along with the slight hassle of cleaning it makes it not the best choice for those who are on a budget or not that serious about juicing. It is quite heavy and takes up a lot of space, so once you put it in one spot it may be difficult to move it but it does have a handle if you need to.
It comes with a 12 year warranty.
Best Vertical Masticating Juicer
Vertical masticating juicers sit in a happy medium between centrifugal juicers and horizontal masticating juicers, as they produce better quality juice than the former but operate faster than the latter. They also take up less counterspace in your kitchen, but make sure that if you’re placing one under a cabinet that the clearance will be enough for the one you want. We’ll go into detail about a vertical vs horizontal juicer in a later post.
Hurom Elite Slow Juicer HH
The advanced twin-winged augur works at a low speed of about 43 RPM, extracting the juice while retaining all the nutrients of the produce. The pulp left behind is dry and all this is done quietly.
This juicer comes with two strainers – a fine strainer for when you want pure pulp-free juice and smooth nut milks, and a coarse strainer when you want to add some pulp to your juice or want to make a chunky soup. The fine strainer works well to prevent fiber from stringy veggies or skin from nuts getting through, while the coarse strainer is good for berry and citrus fruits or even baby food. There’s a pressure control lever that you close if you only want juice and when you release it slightly, you allow the pulp to flow through along with the juice.
The auto-pulp eject only releases pulp when no more juice can be extracted. You also use the pressure control lever for self cleaning the juicer. In the half closed position, running warm water through will force out any remaining pulp. When it’s fully opened at the sink, the juicer parts are all thoroughly cleaned. You also get one small and one broad cleaning brush to assist you in cleaning the stubborn bits and hard to reach corners.
It is easy to assemble and disassemble the parts and it won’t turn on unless all parts are properly locked in place.
You can process all types of hard and soft produce using this juicer, including leafy greens, fruits, and certain nuts and beans. The oxidation is almost zero because of the very slow RPM.
When doing your prep work, your fruits and vegetables, especially celery and leafy greens, will have to cut them down to about 2″ pieces.
This juicer will come with 10 year warranty on the motor and 2 years on parts.
Kuvings Whole Slow Juicer Elite C7000
While the market is now filled with vertical masticating machines that have wide feed chutes, Kuvings was the first company to release a 3-inch feed chute juicer so there’s less prep work needed. The smaller fruits and veggies are caught and self fed by the hopper attachment.
The Kuvings Elite C7000S operates under an ultra-quiet 60 RPM augur that can extract the maximum amount of juice from all types of products, whether its hard, soft, or leafy green and delays oxidation for around 72 hours. The very powerful 240W motor works effortlessly on even the largest pieces of tough ingredients and juices everything fast!
You should be able to make smoothies, nut milks, baby food, and even frozen sorbets by switching out the strainer screen with the blank screen.
There’s a removable pulp strainer that sits in the juice cup if you want to prevent the pulp from mixing in with the juice. It does a really good job of straining the pulp out so it’s a top pick for the best masticating juicer that gives you pulp-free juice. You can insert it in the beginning and remove it towards the end if you want a little bit of pulp in your glass of juice. A detachable drip-free smart juice cap at the end of the spout lets you make mixed juices and do a quick rinse between rounds of juicing.
This juicer also comes with a cleaning tool and two cleaning brushes and there’s a reverse button that ensures it does not choke or experience jamming. You can put the parts together quickly and finish your juicing job in no time.
All the parts come with a 10 year warranty.
Omega VSJ843QS Vertical Slow Masticating Juicer
The feed chute is fairly small by design. With chopping, this juicer does really well on hard fruits and vegetables and leafy greens, but this is not the one for wheat or barley grass and celery would need to be cut up quite small. When it comes to soft fruits, leaving on the rind or alternating them with harder produce will give you very efficient juicing while avoiding wet pulp reject. Keeping these tips in mind, the produce is wrung completely dry and you won’t have any pulp in your juice.
It has a very quiet 150 watt motor that allows you to use it at any time without causing any disturbance. The machine may stall and get clogged on certain types of produce but the reverse switch easily fixes it and you can continue from there. The slow 43 RPMs of the augur will give you very high quality juice with low oxidation.
This machine is mainly only for juicing. Although you can use it for extracting nut milks, it won’t be as efficient,
and making baby food, sorbet or nut butters is a no go.
The Omega VSJ843QS has auto-cleaning capabilities that allow you to clean it in between juicing sessions. The end juice cap not only prevents drips but also aids in this so that you can quickly rinse out the juice bowl when switching to a different recipe.
The tight fit dual propeller blade auger design pulls produce faster into the juicing bowl and its spin action pulls the silicone wiping blades of the auto-clean feature against the fine mesh juice screen to remove pulp buildup. However, the pulp that is pulled away tends to buildup in the hollow under the augur, so you may have to spend some time cleaning it out between juicing jobs.
Yes, the Omega VSJ843QS is a bit pricy and the prep work required for juice for a family can be a lot. However, for single juicing enthusiasts there are few vertical juicers that can beat this one out and you’ll save a lot by cutting down on the amount of produce you’ll need per glass of juice.
As with all other high end Omega juicers, it comes with a 15 year warranty.
Tribest Slowstar Vertical Slow Juicer and Mincer
The versatility comes from its mincer, which allows you to make nut butters, pesto, dips, soups and sorbets just as easily.
The powerful 200W motor and 3-stage gears run the duo-blade augur at a nice and slow 47 RPM, but it processes your foods fast and with high torque to prevent jamming even when juicing the toughest ingredients. This gives you a high juice yield and the oxidation levels are minimal, allowing your juice extract to stay natural and full of minerals for a more extended period.
The augur and wiping blade mechanism also powers the auto-cleaning feature. When it comes to cleaning, you have to keep the juice end cap closed, fill up the juicer with warm water and run it for a short time. Then open the end cap to drain. There is a small brush provided as well. However, cleaning the juicer out of all the rejected pulp is not the easiest.
It is also a very quiet juicer that can do its work early in the morning without waking everyone up.
It is a very compact juicer with a small footprint, so if counter space is an issue, this juicer is a good pick. However, at 18″ tall, it is too tall to place under standard height kitchen cabinets.
The Tribest Slowstar is a bit more complex to use and clean when compared to other slow juicers. It tends to produce more pulp than the other juicers, so for those who don’t like any pulp in their drink, there’s a stainless steel sieve to help separate the pulp from the juice. When this is inserted NO pulp remains in the juice so this is not the juicer for you if you like to control the amount of pulp. It is also a small sieve so you may have to clean out the sieve in the middle of juicing if too much pulp accumulates.
The Tribest Slowstar Vertical Slow Juicer is an ideal machine for experienced users, but if you’re a beginner and you are contemplating buying this machine, be ready to have a few challenges during your first attempts at juicing. It comes with a 10 year warranty.
Best Economical Masticating Juicer
We have two picks for best masticating juicer under $150. If you’re not a frequent juicer and willing to compromise a little on performance and overall quality, then you can absolutely get the low rpm juicer benefits of slow juicing without the high price tag.
Aicok Slow Masticating Juicer Extractor
The Aicok Slow Masticating Juicer comes with an RPM of 80, which is a low enough speed to slow down oxidation of the juice extract. It uses an acrylic auger, which a safer option compared to other plastic materials found in other budget machines.
The Aicok Slow Juicer is very user-friendly and can process quite a few types of fruits and vegetables like apples, carrots, melons, citrus, spinach, kale and cucumber. However, stringy or tough ones like celery can shorten the life of the motor, which is rated at 150 watts. It does a good job with wheatgrass but parsley comes out more finely minced in water rather than a homogeneous juice.
This juicer is best for those who don’t mind a small amount of pulp in their drink. The remaining pulp comes out reasonably dry but for certain produce you might want to pass it through for an extra crushing. You’ll also get a bit of foam with this juicer compared to higher end ones but not so much that it should matter.
The juicer gets clogged after a few minutes of juicing so you will have to stop every once in a while to unclog it. But it is very easy to disassemble and assemble and you can put all the parts in the dishwasher after you’re done. Manual cleaning is easy too.
This juicer comes with a 2 year warranty.
Omega H3000D Cold Press 365 Juicer
The 150 watt Omega H3000D operates at a low-speed RPM of 90 to 110. At that range, users are assured of a high level of nutrients in their extract while maintaining a low level of pulp. To control the amount of pulp in your juice, you get two screens for straining – a fine and coarse one.
It has a small chute, so that increases the time spent to prepare your products. Despite that, you can rest easy and know clogging cases are very minimal with this juicer.
This juicer is good with celery, carrots, mint, leafy greens, ginger and apples but not so good with grapefruit, mangos and cucumber, as the leftover pulp still has quite a bit of juice in it.
The Omega H3000D is easy to assemble, use and clean. It comes with a 1 year warranty.
FAQs
Which Masticating Juicer is Easiest to Clean?
In our experience, a juicer that’s difficult to clean won’t be used regularly and will feel like a waste of money. So we understand if you want to base your decision first and foremost on how easy it will be for you to clean.
Amongst the horizontal masticating juicers, the Omega NC900HDC Premium Juicer wins with the Omega J8006 Ultimate Juicer coming a close second. Amongst the vertical juicers, the Kuvings Elite C7000 is easiest to clean, while the easiest to clean budget juicer is the Aicok Slow Juicer.
Featured photo: Cold Press Juice by ROMAN ODINTSOV from Pexels