Customer Reviews

Jupiter Large Commercial Juice Press, Black

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This mid-sized Orange-X juicer is a well designed heavy duty juicer that should last a lifetime. It is easy to use and clean and it is powerful enough to be used both commercially and at home.

Some may quibble over whether one juicer is better for oranges or lemons. From reading reviews, one that may be a little better for lemons, or grapefruit probably doesn't do as well with oranges etc due to only one strainer cup size being available. This very heavy duty juicer did a great job for me with lemons, oranges, and small grapefruit. It seems to be optimized for oranges though. However, I use it primarily for lemons and have had no problems except a very tiny bit of the lemon left on the side. I feel the claims about it not working well with lemons are grossly exaggerated and inaccurate.

This juicer has a stainless steel juicing strainer and cup, so the health conscious have no need to worry about aluminum being leached into the acidic juice.

Contrary to what one reviewer said, you cannot hurt your fingers using this juicer as long as you put your hand on the rubber handle (it is hard to use otherwise). The handle has a nice well calibrated stoper at the bottom that keeps you from damaging the unit by over extending when pushing down and still squeezes all the juice out well. The lower push range offers superior leverage over the juicers that have a spring and leave the handle up as you start and end from a higher position with them. (However, either way, it is not going to be hard to juice with this or other heavy duty juicers such as the Hamilton Beach regardless of handle position).

The only thing I don't like about this juicer is that if you leave the handle up and try to move it, the heavy handle will fall easily and it could hit you on the head or face if you are bending over or short. It is particularly easy to have the handle fall since the suction cup feet make it a little difficult to move around and you have to pull and yank on it a bit to get it to move. I bought some standard 4mm screw on bolts and some nice non-marking rubber feet called bumpers (screw, rubber) at Ace hardware for a few dollars that fit perfect into the holes for the screw off suction cups that came with the juicer. My guess is the suction feet were meant primarily to help in a commercial environment where you always kept the juicer in the exact same position and didn't pull the juicer out then push it back on the counter when done like you might do at home. The juicer is so heavy, that even with these new non-suction non-marking rubber feet it doesn't move at all during routine juicing.

Overall, this is a very heavy duty well made and designed juicer and I recommend it for home or commercial use (it is still quit large though called mid-sized). If it were not for the annoying rubber suction cup feet that it came with (and I easily replaced) I would have given it a five star rating. See my full review and explanations under this same mid-sized Orange-X juicer that Amazon itself sends out.

I've owned this juicer for over 5 years and it works like a charm for extracting juice from large quantities of limes, lemons or oranges. It is heavy and solidly built, and the lever action runs right through the center of the juicer so no problems with tipping. Not much effort required to get the handle all the way down, which extracts all the juice. If you want to get every last drop, rotate the fruit 1/4 turn and press again, but you get about 95% on the first squeeze. The only down side is the that it is large, heavy and bulky. It would be best if you have the counter space to leave it out all the time. I don't, so it probably gets less use than it otherwise would as I have to haul it out of the cupboard every time. It might work well in an appliance garage too.

If you've done your homework, you are likely deciding between the Jupiter and the Hamilton Beach. Both of them will last a lifetime. They are both sturdy and neither will try to tip over on you as you exert pressure on the handle. Your choice will be personal preference. If you're going to be spending hours pressing juice or you don't have much pressing strength, go with the Hamilton Beach. It's easiest to press. But know that the Hamilton Beach, because it doesn't press the heck out of the fruit, makes more watery juice. The Jupiter presses more firmly on the fruit, which means that although it requires a little more muscle, you can get some pulp in the strainer, which you can throw in with the juice. Me, I like a little pulp. Additionally, the Jupiter fits under your kitchen cabinets, which the Hamilton Beach does not. Bear in mind that these juicers are heavy enough that you want to lift them and move them as little as possible. The Jupiter comes with suction cup feet, so to move it, you have to lift it just a little, but these are replaceable with non-suction feet from any hardware store. I refuse to start my day with a noisy juice machine and quite enjoy my Jupiter juice press.

Couldn't be happier with this juicer, which we've owned for 3 years. Still going strong. As other reviewers have suggested, it's still quite large (and powerful) even though termed "mid-sized". It's nice to find such a sturdy, well-built, smartly engineered tool in today's sea of easily broken, poorly designed, cheap home equipment. Truly commercial grade.

This juicer largely delivers on the advertising claims, making it easy to juice oranges and pomagranates. Cleanup is easy, and juicing goes quickly.

However there are two things that it doesn't do as well as claimed. First, the juice is not sweeter than a reamer-type juicer produces unless you waste some of the juice. This is because the pressure squeezes the oil out of the skin of the oranges and makes the juice bitter. You can solve the problem in two ways. First, don't squeeze as hard, which means you don't get all the juice out. Or, you can skim the oil off the top of the orange juice, which means you waste some juice and the juicing doesn't go as fast. Certain oranges - valencias in particular - don't have much problem with oil and work great with this juicer. Other oranges, like blood oranges, require the skimming method because there is so much oil.

Second, it doesn't juice large fruit very well. The fruit tends to split and unjuiced parts of it slide around the sides of the press. This is particularly a problem with large pomagranates, which I cut into 8 quarters to juice instead, so they fit under the foot. Another problem is that juicing large fruit requires more force, which can cause the juicer to tip. But that's easily solved by holding it down.

I'm guessing a larger juicer (not just the larger model of this one) would solve these problems, but then it would be... larger. And this one fits under my wall cabinets on my counter. Another fix would be to have the dome that the fruit is pressed against have sharper ridges in it to break the cells of the fruit better and require less pressure to juice. I've seen this feature on other presses, but again, they were larger.

If you learn to use this machine, you should get good - but not perfect - juice out of it. And the rotary reamers it competes with are useless on pomagranates.

We have had our new juicer for about 5 days and we have juiced 9 bags (80+/-) oranges and grapefruit. I am very impressed with the quality of this juicer and how soildly it is built. The quality of the juice is very good, however, initially we did notice a small amount of bitter/acidy taste from skin acid that gets into the juice by being pressed. The solution to virtually skin-acid-free juice is to take a VERY CLEAN washcloth and drape it over the top of the orange or grapefruit prior to squeezing in the press. The washcloth absorbs the acid that is forced out of the skin which in turn makes wonderful tasting juice. Be sure to rinse the wash cloth after every 5 or 6 juicings to make sure you keep the acid out of your juice. All in all we are VERY HAPPY with this product!

BTW: It is a LOT faster than using an electric rotary juicer and your arms do not get as tired!

After reviewing many other juicers, I'm glad that I settled on this one as a gift: it is a solid workhorse... and now we have a standing supply of fresh juice! In an age of powered appliances for every possible kitchen function, I am happy to have this old-fashioned--and thus reliable--machine.

Pros
Build: The juicer is heavy and solid. I doubt that I could harm it, even if I had such intents. I anticipate many years of fresh juice from it. It can be unwieldy, and may go after a fingertip or two, until you learn to position the citrusy victims just so.
Design: It has a few elegant design touches to ensure that use and clean-up is simple. The two removable pieces are sturdy, with a simple locking mechanism to ensure that they don't slide around with each press. The rest of the frame can simply be sprayed off. Awesome!
Taste: If you like fresh juice, then you know there's no debate about the difference in taste. This one produces much richer, more flavorful juice compared to the small hand-held juicer we had, but I can't compare its output to those of other similar models.
Pulp: The tray is slotted so as prevent pulp from sneaking into the juice. For those that like pulp, and don't mind the occasional seed, simply dump the accumulated pulp into the juice container. This is a simple design solution that lets everyone have their way in the pulp/no-pulp debate.

Cons
Juice-catcher: This is a minor point, but we hunted around to find a container of decent volume for catching the juice. On the other hand, this could be a pro: there's no included container/ carafe that has to be replaced, as with coffee makers.
Pith: I am sensitive to the hint of pith, having concocted many inedible dishes with more pith than zest. I can occasionally detect the bitterness of pith in the juice. This likely results from the complete annihilation of the juiced halves, which are usually split and mangled after one meeting with the press.

I live in Phx and everyone around here knows what that means.....we have citrus coming out our ears. I'm lucky in that I only have a grapefruit, orange and tangelo tree on my property. Last year I was buying OJ at the store and that gets expensive when I have trees in the back yard, but I had a cruddy little rotation juicer that clogged and was messy. This year I determined to get a press. I looked everywhere and was somewhat surprised by the price tag on presses. Well, I sucked up my reservations and bought this juice press and WOW!!!!

I recommend this one because it is heavy duty, doesn't tip, doesn't clog, and is easy to clean. It also does large fruit, most others don't. It is so fast and easy that every other day I go pick a bag of fruit and take about 15 minutes to cut, squeeze and clean up.

Yes, I recommend this to everyone. It is well worth the price tag. Oh and both my husband and I are in the back yard right now in the beautiful AZ evening enjoying a fresh squeezed glass of OJ with a shot of Don Julio :o)

I have been juicing old school for a while and getting tired of hand cramps.

I decided to try a electric juicer and the motor burned out after two uses. I was frustrated in finding a quality electric citrus juicer and came to the conclusion that there are none!

I happened into a kitchen store and inquired about juicers. They brought out two... the first was a Metrokane Mighty Juicer and while I loved the look of it, in person it was a disappointment. It was too small, flimsy and tips very easily.

The Jupiter is heavy, well constructed and should last a lifetime! I compare it to our old Hamilton Beach juicer we had when I was growing up...

My only criticism would be that when the press is released, there is pulp on the edges of the fruit that doesn't get juiced. However, I'll gladly deal with that over unreliability or carpal tunnel!!! :)

Sent juicer to my brother for Christmas. He loves it. Easy to use and clean. Very durable and makes great orange or grapefruit juice.