Juicepresso Platinum cold press juicer review

A few years ago when I was over at my brother in law’s home, he asked if we wanted some fresh apple juice. He then proceeded to juice up a batch of apples for us with a new juicer he had purchased. The juice tasted great, but then he spent the next several minutes cleaning each part of the juicing machine. That part didn’t look so great, but I didn’t say anything. A few months later he asked if we wanted / needed a juicer. He had stopped using it because the clean-up was too much of a hassle. We didn’t take his juicer, but I’ve considered buying one over the years in order to get a little more nutrition into my diet. As luck would have it, I was recently offered a Juicepresso Platinum cold press juicer for review. I looked forward to the fresh juice but wasn’t sure what to expect with the clean up. Let’s see how it turned out.

What’s in the box?

Juicepresso Platinum cold press juicing machine
2 pitchers
1 pitcher lid
User manual
Recipe book

What is it?

The Juicepresso Platinum is a cold press masticating juicer. Raw produce is squeezed through an auger that rotates at 40 RPM and the resulting juice is strained from the pulp. Cold pressing is supposed to result in juice with more nutrition because the high speed from other juicers creates friction and heat, which can destroy nutrients and enzymes from fruits and vegetables.

Unlike some of the juicers that I’ve seen, the Juicepresso is small enough to fit on most kitchen counters. It has a modern design with a brushed metallic-look base (I think it’s plastic though). It’s heavy, which means it won’t slide around when it’s powered on.

Assembly

A heavy 3-prong power cord extends from the back of the Juicepresso. You’ll also find the power / reverse button on the back of the juicer.

In addition to the pitchers, there are only 5 parts to the juicer, which means that assembly and cleanup should both be quick and easy. Pictured in the image above clockwise from the top left corner, is the hopper, drum, strainer, squeezing screw and the pusher.

Here’s a bottom view of the drum that shows the two spouts. The fresh squeezed juice comes out of one spout and the pulp comes out the other spout.

The part of the Juicepresso that does most of the work is the squeezing screw. It attaches to the strainer.

The strainer is a stainless steel ring with holes in the sides. It strains the juice from the pulp.

Assembling the Juicepresso Platinum juicer is very easy. Place the drum on the base, drop in the squeezing screw /strainer sub-assembly, lock the hopper on top and you’re ready to go.

Let’s make juice!

The Juicepresso comes with a recipe book that has ideas for juices and other things that can be made with the leftover pulp. I looked around in my fridge and decided try juice made with a handful of spinach, 2 small tomatoes, a bunch of baby carrots and some red grapes for sweetness. I figured I’d get enough juice for two cups. One for me and one for Jeanne.

Before I started feeding the ingredients into the hopper, I cut the tomatoes in half and cut the baby carrots in half. Then I turned on the Juicepresso and dropped the items in a few at a time.

When the ingredients drop from the opening in the hopper into the drum, they are then passed through the squeezing screw at which point the juice comes out the spout on the right and the leftover pulp comes out of the spout on the left. The juicer makes noise, but it’s neither quiet or obnoxiously loud. It took less than a minute or so to press the juice from the produce that I had assembled. Check out the image above. See the pitcher on the right? That’s all the juice that came from the two bowls of ingredients.

And this is the pulp. Looks like more pulp than juice…

The pressed juice only amounted to about a half a cup. How much juice you will get from vegetables and fruits depend on what you’re trying to juice. It takes a lot of carrots to make a cup of juice because carrots are dense root vegetables. The same amount of apples, grapes or oranges will make a lot more juice.

My fresh juice wasn’t the prettiest color either, but that was due to the spinach. How did it taste? Let’s just say it wasn’t horrible.  Of course, the taste of any juice that you make with the Juicepresso depends entirely on the ingredients that are used. I liked orange juice best – shocker! Apple juice was good too – no surprise. But veggie juices have a sharp background taste that reminds me of when I was on a wheat grass juice kick several years ago. That phase only lasted for about a week because of the taste. I think it’s something you have to get used to.

If you make more juice than you can drink right away, you can refrigerate it for up to 72 hours.

I know that fresh juices are healthy, but I can’t help but think juices made this way lack a lot of the nutrition and fiber that comes from the pulp. Of course, you can save the pulp and use it in other recipes, but honestly, I wonder how many people actually do that. I know the pulp from my juicing experiments ended up right in the scrap bucket.

Clean up

Immediately after making juice with the Juicepresso, you should disassemble and clean the juicer. Wait too long and dried pulp bits will be stuck to all the parts, making clean up a real pain in the rear.

I was actually happy with how easy and quick the clean up really was. All the parts except the base are dishwasher safe, but I just ran each part under hot water from the faucet and took a quick scrub with a soapy wash cloth.

Final thoughts

As my first experience with a juicer, the Juicepresso Platinum was pretty good. The juicer is small enough that it doesn’t take up that much space on a kitchen counter and it’s very easy to assemble, disassemble and clean. The only thing about the juicer that I didn’t like was the location of the power button which is out of sight on the back of the unit. It wouldn’t be that big of a deal but the switch toggles power and reverse. I could never remember which one was which and would need to turn the juicer around to make sure I was pressing the button the right way.  But other than that small complaint, the Juicepresso Platinum is a quality juicer that cold press juicing fans should enjoy using.

Source: The sample for this review was provided by Juicepresso. Please visit their site for more info and Amazon to order.