My spiffy orange peeler keeps ripping oranges in two

April 26, 2022 12:02 PM

Got myself a mechanical orange peeler which worked perfectly out of the box. Once. Since then about a quarter of the way through the orange rips in half. I've tried various blade depths, speeds, and regular unclogging of the cutter. Turning both ends of the orange in sync works a bit but is still finicky. Do I just have wimpy oranges? Any special tips would be much appreciated.
posted by Tell Me No Lies to Food & Drink (6 answers total)

Total guess: Which end does the peeling start on? If you've been peeling from the end with the crank, then you might want to try running it the other way. Most of the structural integrity of the orange is in the peel, and that is what can best transmit the force from the crank through the orange to the cutter. If you start peeling from the end where the crank is, then you're removing the strong part and are left with mushy orange insides as the only thing between the force on the crank and the force from the cutter. But it's possible that you're already cutting from the other end and/or that the cutter can only run in one direction...
posted by whatnotever at 1:14 PM on April 26, 2022

Response by poster: Good thought, but unfortunately it will only cut going one direction.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:42 PM on April 26, 2022

Could it be that it's intended for oranges with thinner peels? Juice oranges tend to have one thickness of skin, while those honkin' organic navel oranges tend to have really thick, easy-to-peel skins.
posted by amtho at 2:12 PM on April 26, 2022

Best answer: That looks like a very similar design to the apple peeler I have, which rips apart apples that are too large (where "too large"= the bigger end of grocery store apples). The spring on the peeler just isn't designed to stretch that far, so it puts too much tension on the fruit. Was the successful orange a more modestly-sized one?
posted by tchemgrrl at 4:54 PM on April 26, 2022

Can you sharpen the blade(s)? Blunt blades are much more likely to tear things than sharp ones.
posted by Jane the Brown at 8:47 PM on April 26, 2022

Response by poster: I had a lot of success manually controlling the blade pressure. I don’t remember the size of the first orange I used, but the ones I have now are massive.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:21 PM on April 29, 2022 [1 favorite]