tell me about your great, recently purchased, blender

November 29, 2022 9:24 PM

I f*king hate my blender. Rec me a new one?

I bought this damned thing on the recommendation of some review site, it might even have been Cooks Illustrated. I hate it. Nothing seems to "catch" in the blades, I'm constantly having to stop and shove stuff down into the vortex if I'm blending stuff that's even a little bit thick, do you know what I mean?

I don't want one of those industrial types, the Vitamix or Blendtec. Those giant aircraft motors they have in there are simply too loud. Regular blender noise is fine and to be expected.

It does need to be able to handle ice.

What should I get?

posted by fingersandtoes to Home & Garden (8 answers total)

I have a tiny one that came from one of those drugstore chains like riteaid or walgreens or cvs or something. I got new(!) as a gift to celebrate a major bicycle collision with a very unyielding large concrete lamppost.

You can probably find the brand of blender on a drugstore website and then get it used from someone who tried it once and never used it again. I told the whole world about my exciting new blender but it turns out everyone somehow already knew about and had one of these.

It is single-serving, charged by USB-C and I just think it's the cat's miaow. Probably handles ice cubes fine, at least until the blades get dull. I've had mine for half a year and the blades aren't dull yet. Works good on frozen fruit.
posted by aniola at 9:32 PM on November 29, 2022

I like my Ninja Pro 1000 blender. I make smoothies a few times a week with frozen fruit, veggies, granola, oats, and it does great.
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:39 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

I, too, went Ninja. I've had mine about two months now. It works very well. One caution: the blades are wicked sharp.
posted by SPrintF at 10:30 PM on November 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was having the same problem with my Osterizer blenders, and when I looked at the blades I concluded they were designed to throw the food up and out of the bottom of the jar, and that vortex flow only started when things were liquified enough that the internal attractive force of the liquid took over.

Which actually makes a certain kind of sense, because if it was the other way around and it was pulling the food down, the force on the blades would be up, and that would tend to make the jar as a whole jump out of the blender, and also make achieving a good seal against liquid around the rotating shaft more difficult.

I didn’t look too hard at other blenders to see if they were doing it the same way, but I guessed Vitamix probably wasn’t, because they have a lock mechanism holding the jar to the motor unit, whereas with Osterizer the jar just sits in a socket.

So maybe look for blenders where the jar locks down and the blades pull the food down instead of pushing it up.
posted by jamjam at 10:44 PM on November 29, 2022

Best answer: Bamix It's awesome. I also didn't want to get an industrial huge, LOUD blender or giant expensive vitamix. Bamix works great. I use it every day and it's great for smoothies and I've used it to make hummus, falafel, grind spices and coffee, soup, etc.

Really great, expensive, but worth it. I got mine from Williams-Sonoma but they may not be selling it anymore, at least in the US. If you want long lasting quality, ease of use and easy to clean that doesn't sound like a jet about to take off AND you like your counter space.This is it. There's demo videos on youtube too.
posted by VyanSelei at 3:21 AM on November 30, 2022

Best answer: We have the Breville Fresh & Furious, which I worry is the one you bought based on Cooks Illustrated, since I think it's one of their favorites. In any case, we're happy with it: it crushes ice with aplomb, makes frozen fruit smoothies, soups, etc. If it gets hung up on something thick (generally if I've just got, say, a banana and a little yogurt in there), usually adding just the tiniest bit of liquid will get it going and blend it right up.

It's loud and powerful, but not like a Vitamix, which is a whole other beast.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:01 AM on November 30, 2022

Best answer: Agree with Breville blenders. I also based it on America's test kitchen recommendation. The video specifically tackles the design of the jar that allows blending action (vortex) without needing to push the food as you mentioned.It works well, is relatively quiet, and easily cleans up.
posted by radsqd at 8:07 AM on November 30, 2022

Response by poster: nah the one I have is a Black & Decker... if I bought it on their recommendation (and I'm not sure) it would have been because it was a "best buy," not a straight up "best".
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:45 AM on November 30, 2022