2

A less-viscous smoothie is more drinkable, by adults and kids alike. (We assume we add minimal to no water.)

1300W-blenders are touted by sales-folks as Formidable Juice Machines.

Is this marketing hype to justify the significantly higher price tags, or do they actually serve a better purpose than 400W blenders.

No wide survey question is sought here. The question is very narrow.

Is the viscosity of the smoothie (for mangoes, berries, kiwis and other low-fibre food) produced by 1300W blenders noticeably lower than that of 400W blenders? Assume that I add equal amounts of water, and I do not intend to add ice cubes.

Context

A high-powered blender from a good brand may render the price-tag a moot point. What still remains distasteful in high-powered blenders is that they all come with plastic jars. It may well be that the plastic never leeches into the food, but the possibility that it could be happening is disturbing.

Calaf
  • 657
  • 2
  • 9
  • 19
  • 5
    Possible duplicate of [How do price and quality relate in blenders?](https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/32444/how-do-price-and-quality-relate-in-blenders) – Nat Bowman Aug 29 '17 at 17:58
  • Hey, usually folks here have the opposite problem: Finding a blender that is good for unhip cooking tasks (making nut or spice pastes, pureeing sauces, pureeing fruit for jam making, creating things like soymilk, cashew cream or coconut milk from scratch), not juices and smoothies :) – rackandboneman Aug 29 '17 at 18:36
  • 1
    While I would point out that a 1300W motor shouldn't necessarily be considered 3x better than a 400W motor, high-powered blenders are inherently going to be better for breaking down harder things (eg. carrots, apples, etc.) without burning out or not having enough power. The fruits you describe shouldn't be a problem. I don't see a high power blender providing anything extra regarding either of your questions. There will always be a certain amount of solids (pulp) remaining after blending. – Wolfgang Aug 29 '17 at 19:40
  • Your narrow answer is found in the wider, already existing answer - nothing here warrants a new question so far as I can tell. – Nat Bowman Aug 29 '17 at 21:27
  • 1
    Do you really mean blenders or do you mean a juicer? Blenders don't make "juice". – Catija Aug 29 '17 at 21:53
  • @Catija You're already ready to provide an answer. What is a juicer? Does a blender with ultra-high rpm qualify as a juicer? Is an ultra-high-rpm centrifugal force extractor the only kind that is (officially at least) known as a juicer? I'm not interested in the latter because I don't want to discard the fiber. In the question I'm asking whether a high-rpm blender is better for just making juice. But also, what comes out of a 400/550/700W blender looks awfully a lot like juice to me, wholesome even. Why do you say those don't make "juice"? (And why the quotation marks?) – Calaf Aug 29 '17 at 22:33
  • 1
    Blenders don't remove matter, they make semi-solid blobs (think smoothies). Juicers remove solids, leaving only liquids behind. There's 3-4 types of juicers. If you want liquid only, a blender is not the tool you want. – Catija Aug 29 '17 at 22:38
  • If you don't want to remove the fibers, I wouldn't call that product "juice". I don't know what it *is*, but it's not juice. If you add a little bit of liquid (often actual juice or milk or just ice) that sounds like a smoothie to me. – Catija Aug 29 '17 at 22:44
  • @Catija That's clarifying. But still, returning to the question. What *is* produced by a 1500W blender then? Is there any stage in the breaking down of fiber matter that is so intense it becomes close to liquid juice rather than just smoothie? – Calaf Aug 29 '17 at 23:09
  • So... you're asking "Will any amount of blending turn a fruit into juice without adding liquid or removing solids"? – Catija Aug 29 '17 at 23:26
  • @Catija I'm merely getting an objective opinion about the advantage in terms of viscosity, if any, of a $500 blender compared to a $50 blender, for a relatively modest usage scenario of making (near-liquid) juices from fruits that are not terribly fibrous to begin with (kale juice probably requires a centrifugal extractor). – Calaf Aug 29 '17 at 23:46
  • 1
    Hi, when you use the word "juice", everybody assumes that you intend to separate the fibres from the pulp, as evidenced in the comments and the current answer. I changed it to say "smoothie" since you seem to not have such an intention. – rumtscho Aug 30 '17 at 14:18

1 Answers1

8

The measure you should use for making the smoothest purées is RPM, not wattage. You could put a blender jar on a 4500 Watt floor standing mixer and it wouldn't do anything more than roughly chop some berries (or car tires with that kind of torque.) Assuming the canister and blade designs are good, and it's not drastically underpowered for its speed (something I haven't seen before,) higher RPM blenders will pulverize the contents of the jar much more smoothly than lower RPM blenders. If you're looking for a general puréeing tool, a high-speed blender is what you need; if you're just looking to make juice, a cheap juicer will give you more bang for your buck, and you won't have to strain particularly fibrous juices.

Edit to address your updated question: Irritatingly, the difference between an expensive professional/prosumer high-speed blender and a reasonably priced standard consumer blender is significant. A standard consumer blender, within a reasonable amount of time, would make a slightly pulpy mixture out of soft fruits. In the same time, a high-speed blender could make a velvet-smooth mixture from raw carrots. Your mixture will be much smoother— so much so that some people find the smoothness unpleasant. (As an aside, I'm not sure viscosity is the best word to use... The solid matter will still be there, it will just be in significantly smaller pieces. Uniformity or smoothness I think are better descriptors.)

Edit Again: As KevinNowaczyk pointed out in the comments, "Sheer" is the measurement of thickness in purees.

ChefAndy
  • 3,053
  • 9
  • 15
  • 3
    As an aside, the viscosity of a fruit or vegetable purée exhibits what is called "sheer thinning" behavior. What this means is the more it is moved, the less it resists movement. This is the opposite of silly putty where, when you pull on it, it's resistance increases. The fineness of blending likely will affect both the viscosity and degree of sheer thinning. – Kevin Nowaczyk Aug 30 '17 at 19:39
  • Yes @KevinNowaczyk! Thanks! That's the word I was looking for. – ChefAndy Aug 30 '17 at 19:41