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Performance Tests: Carrots, Apples, Kale, and Celery for Masticating Juicers
See our juicer performance tests for carrots, apples, celery, and kale! We rate the machines for their speed, juice yield, and looks.
This test is part of How We Test Masticating Juicers v1.0
What It Is
We test a juicer’s performance using four common ingredients: carrots, apples, celery, and kale. Additionally, we evaluate juicing performance using these three criteria: juicing time, juice yield, and foam level.
Why It’s Important
Some juicers work faster and more efficiently than others. This saves on time, running costs, and reduces waste, which translates as a higher value buy in the long run. To know juice quality, we test if a machine can make thick, smooth juice that is not overly coarse or foamy.
Performance makes up 40% of the total test score.
The Ingredients
To evaluate a juicer’s performance on various types of produce, we picked four common juicing ingredients for their different textures and water content. Here’s the score weight for each type of ingredient and how we prep them.
Carrots (25%)
Carrots are a popular ingredient for juicing thanks to their sweet, earthy taste and impressive nutrition profile. However, the root is known for its hard and dense texture, which can be a challenge for machines with a weak motor.
For this test, we use 18 ounces of carrots sticks, which are 2- 3 inches long and 0.5 - 0.7 inch across.
Apples (25%)
Apples are softer than carrots but the challenge lies in the thin but tough and slippery skin, which requires sharp blades to cut. It’s not uncommon to see the untouched skin of an apple slice clogging the drum or mesh of a juicer, or flying and breaking the plastic cover of a fast juicer.
We use 18 ounces of apples, cored but not peeled, and cut into slices of 0.7-0.8 inch across.
Celery (25%)
For a vegetable, celery has a high water content, but manylong, tough fiber strings. These are difficult to cut, tend to wrap around the auger or the end cap of a masticating juicer, or stick to the mesh of a centrifugal juicer resulting in clogging.
For the test, we use 18 ounces of celery for each machine. That equals 500 grams, of which the stalks make up 420 grams and the leaves, 80 grams.
Kale (25%)
One of the most famous nutrition powerhouse, this leafy green, is one of the hardest vegetables to juice due to its thin shape, tough, fibrous texture, and low water content. Most machines have difficulty breaking down the kale leaves and extracting the juice. The tough cell walls of kale can clog or strain the juicing mechanism, leading to reduced juice yield and potentially damaging the juicer.
For the test, we use 20 ounces of kale leaves with the stalk on.
How We Test and Score
Trial Testing
Before officially testing the machines, we ran trial tests and recorded all data to make sure the actual tests bring out the features, strengths, and weaknesses of each machine. In addition, these trial tests were an opportunity for our team to familiarize themselves with each machine and learn the best tips and tricks to share with you.
Once the tests have been finalized, we conducted and video-recorded them, logging in important figures for rating. Here’s a breakdown of the criteria we use when scoring each ingredient and their respective score weights.
Carrots, Apples, and Celery
Juicing Time - 50%
We run the ingredients through the juicer, recording the amount of time it takes to process each type of ingredient.
The juicing time is then rated as follows.
Juicing time | Score |
|---|---|
2:00 | 10 |
2:30 | 9 |
3:00 | 8 |
3:30 | 7 |
4:00 | 6 |
4:30 | 5 |
5:00 | 4 |
5:30 | 3 |
6:00 | 2 |
6:30 | 1 |
7:00 | 0 |
Juice Yield - 50%
We collect the juice from each juicer and run it through a strainer to remove any coarse pulp before weighing it on a scale. The juice:produce ratio, or juice yield percentage, is then calculated using the following formula:
Juice yield = Amount of juice in grams / 500 (amount of ingredient in grams) x 100%
Since the juice yield is different for each type of fruit or vegetable, we score them differently. The details are as follows:
Celery
Yield | Score |
|---|---|
75% | 10 |
70% | 9 |
65% | 8 |
60% | 7 |
55% | 6 |
50% | 5 |
45% | 4 |
40% | 3 |
35% | 2 |
30% | 1 |
25% | 0 |
Apple
Yield | Score |
|---|---|
85% | 10 |
80% | 9 |
75% | 8 |
70% | 7 |
65% | 6 |
60% | 5 |
55% | 4 |
50% | 3 |
45% | 2 |
40% | 1 |
35% | 0 |
Carrot
Yield | Score |
|---|---|
55% | 10 |
50% | 9 |
45% | 8 |
40% | 7 |
35% | 6 |
30% | 5 |
25% | 4 |
20% | 3 |
15% | 2 |
10% | 1 |
5% | 0 |
Kale
Due to its leafy, thin, and lightweight nature, kale requires specific machine features to juice. This can result in large discrepancies in the speeds, juice yield, and juice quality among different juicer types and models.
As such, the criteria for assessing a juicer vary for kale compared to other ingredients.
Juicing Time - 40%
Kale takes a longer time to juice than dense ingredients such as carrots or celery. As such, any juicer that takes 5 minutes or less to process 500 grams (18 ounces) of kale gets a score of 10.
Juicing time | Score |
|---|---|
5:00 | 10 |
6:00 | 9 |
7:00 | 8 |
8:00 | 7 |
9:00 | 6 |
10:00 | 5 |
11:00 | 4 |
12:00 | 3 |
13:00 | 2 |
14:00 | 1 |
15:00 | 0 |
Juice Yield - 40%
With a masticating juicer, you can typically extract a decent amount of juice from a fussy vegetable like kale. A unit that makes only 25% or less juice by weight from 500 grams of kale will fail the test, but every additional 5% earns the juicer 1 point.
Yield | Score |
|---|---|
75% | 10 |
70% | 9 |
65% | 8 |
60% | 7 |
55% | 6 |
50% | 5 |
45% | 4 |
40% | 3 |
35% | 2 |
30% | 1 |
25% | 0 |
Foam Level - 20%
While the foam level was negligible with other ingredients, we found it not to be the case when juicing kale. Some of the machines made extremely foamy kale juice—the volume of foam was oftentimes more than the juice itself. This not only affects aesthetics, but potentially the juice quality. Excessive foam is also a hassle because it can cause the juice cup to overflow. This is why ‘foam level’ is a criteria for evaluating the efficiency of a masticator when juicing this leafy vegetable.
The foam level is determined by comparing its volume to that of the extracted juice. Both are measured in fluid ounces, using the following formula:
Foam level = Foam volume/Juice yield X 100%
The scoring table for foam level is as follows.
Foam level | Score |
|---|---|
0% | 10 |
10% | 9 |
20% | 8 |
30% | 7 |
40% | 6 |
50% | 5 |
60% | 4 |
70% | 3 |
80% | 2 |
90% | 1 |
100% | 0 |
During testing, we also observed and collected data on the noise level, juice taste, texture, and time till separation, among other factors. However, we did not find differences that were significant enough to warrant a rating among these factors.
