Vinci hands-free citrus juicer review

REVIEW – There are many uses for citrus juice.  It can be used in cooking, like in a key lime pie. It can be used for drinking, like a nice glass of orange juice. It can be the secret ingredient that makes a tasty cocktail.  You can buy bottled or frozen concentrated juice, but there is just no substitute for fresh-squeezed juice.  Getting that fresh-squeezed juice can be a slippery, messy affair.  A manual reamer takes some hand strength for a firm grip on the reamer as well as on the citrus half. An electric reamer simplifies the task a bit by mechanizing the reamer, but you still have to hang on to the citrus as the reamer does its stuff.  What if there was a magic juicing device that you could toss in your citrus halves and have delicious juice appear in a matter of seconds?  That’s what Vinci claims to offer with their hands-free citrus juicer.  It is the creme de la creme, or it is just all wet?  Let’s get squeezing!

What is it?

The Vinci hands-free citrus juicer is just what the name suggests – a juicer that requires no manual assistance.  You cut your citrus in half, place half in the juicer, press a button, and then watch the juice appear.

What’s in the box?

• The juicer, comprised of all the components shown above

• Instruction manual
• Warranty card

Hardware specs

• Dimensions: 8.5”L x 7”W x 12.5”H
• Weight: 4.31 lbs
• Power: 110V
• Capacity: 12oz, but can drain continuously
• Included straining discs: High pulp and low pulp
• Citrus sizes supported: Small (like small key limes) to oversized grapefruit (4.5″)

Design and features

The juicer feels very well-made.  All components fit well and slide or snap into place perfectly.

From top to bottom, we see the snap-down lid, the black straining disc inside the juice reservoir, the spout, the motor housing, and the non-slip base.

On the back of the reservoir, there is a sliding switch that releases the lid for cleaning.

The lid pops off easily.

Inside the lid is a cone that holds the outside of the citrus during the juicing process.  It pops out for cleaning.

Here is the lid attached to the reservoir.

You can see the spout that dispenses all the juicy goodness.

The spout has two positions – up on the left and down on the right.

Here’s a closer look at the two positions.  Sorry, I revered the order of the images.

In the down position, now on the left, juice flows. In the up position, now on the right, the juice is held in the reservoir as a seal on the spout closes off the drain hole.  The reservoir can hold up to 12oz before you need to dispense it.

Two straining discs come with the juicer. The low pulp disc is on the left and the high pulp disc on the right. The extracting reamer is between them,

The reamer sits on top of the straining disc inside the reservoir.

The reservoir locks onto the motor base.

The master power switch and power cord are located on the back of the base.

On the right side of the base, we find the automatic juicing button (left) and the reset switch (right).  With the power on, the automatic juicing button flashes blue and then glows blue during juicing. If you lose and regain power during juicing or if the motor jams, the reset button will flash blue.  Pressing the reset button will reset the motor.

Setup

The juicer comes fully assembled.  The only setup is a quick wash and inserting the pulp disc for high or low pulp as desired.

Performance

Before we get into performance, let’s take a look at the juicer in action without any fruit.

When you press the automatic juicing button, the reamer begins spinning and then is forced upward into the citrus, pressing it against the ridges in the cone inside the lid.  Vinci’s patented pressure-sensing algorithm applies varying pressure, sensing the thickness of the rind so the juice is extracted without extracting the bitter oils and zest from the rind. Once the juicing is complete, the motor reverses, spinning in the opposite direction and lowering the juicing assembly back to its original position in the reservoir. The entire process takes about ten seconds. After I cut the four oranges in half, I was able to produce two tasty glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice in under two minutes, including changing pulp discs for the second glass.

To test the juicer, I picked up a bag of navel oranges and put four in the refrigerator.  The next morning, I plugged in the juicer, turned on the power, and got to work.

I juiced two oranges each for my wife and me and produced two nice, full glasses of tasty juice.

I’m not a fan of pulp.  The low pulp disc produced a great glass of juice with minimal pulp.  My wife prefers pulp.  The high pulp disc produced a great, pulpy glass that she reported as having just the right amount of pulp in it.

The rinds were essentially devoid of any remaining juice.  The juicer did a great job extracting every drop. We got around 10 to 11 ounces of juice from each pair of oranges.

With our manual citrus reamer and our electric reamer, the rinds were always still moist, meaning I was leaving some juice behind. Plus, as my hands got wetter throughout the juicing process, it got progressively harder to hold the fruit in place, reducing my juicing efficiency. The ridges on the upper cone on the Vinci juicer holds the rind firmly while the power reamer absolutely destroyed the fruit’s flesh, producing all that delicious juice.

Here’s a look at the juicer doing its thing on the oranges.

We are lucky enough to have a neighbor that grows way more limes than they can use themselves.  I happened to have a bag of limes in the fridge, so I decided to juice two of them.

You can see how much smaller the limes are than the oranges I have been juicing.  The juicer did the same terrific job, extracting about three ounces of juice from these two smaller limes.  I also juiced some Meyer lemons with equal success. Time to make some tasty cocktails!

What I like

• Super easy to use
• Super easy to clean, either in the sink or dishwasher top rack, but see below
• Extracts a lot of juice
• Can be used on a wide variety of citrus sizes
• My hands don’t get wet and sticky like with other juicers

What I’d change

• The design of the reservoir isn’t great for cleaning in the dishwasher as no matter how you wash it in the dishwasher, water will collect somewhere – I’d design it with drainage holes in the sides along the bottom of the reservoir
• I would add some type of catch on the reamer and the strainer to make them easier to extract from the reservoir.

Final thoughts

I already had two different juicers, a manual reamer, and an electric reamer.  When juicing citrus, my hands always end up a sticky mess.  Plus, no matter how hard I press or move the rinds around, there always seems to be more juice to extract.  With the Vinci juicer, neither of those things happened.  My hands remained clean and the rinds were completely juiced. With two pulp options to please both pulp lovers and haters, the Vinci hands-free citrus juicer should be able to please the fresh juice lover in your life.  It has found a coveted home in our limited-space appliance pantry.

Price: $99.99
Where to buy: Amazon; Vinci Housewares
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Vinci Housewares.