Customer Reviews

KitchenAid FVSFGA Fruit/Vegetable Strainer and Food Grinder for Stand Mixers

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This gizmo makes the shortest work of making applesauce you ever imagined. You slice the apples, cook in a large pan with a small amount of water until they are soft. Then you push the apple mush, skins, seeds, core, stems, etc. in the top of the food grinder, and out the sieve part comes pure applesauce, out the end, comes the seeds, skin and stem. It takes maybe 10 minutes to process a 16qt pot of cooked apples.

I usually get every burner on my stove going, heat the pots of apples, process the mush into sauce, then can the lot. The canning part takes the longest.

Anyway if you can apple sauce, you need this tool.

The tray on the top of the unit it very small. Yoy can only put about 1/2 cup at a time in it. I know they make an attachment you can buy for like $25-30 to give yourself a larger tray. But it should just be designed larger. We usually make about 15-20 quarts of Applesauce at a time. the larger tray is a must. The "pusher" to move food down the throat is a bad design. Should be a solid cylindar instead of a cross shape. Tends to catch food and is messy.

The end result of using it is good, but it's over priced, and could be designed a little better.

If you're only making applesauce, this is a 5-star product. If you had other uses in mind, keep reading:

I thought this would replace the need for a food mill. Not quite. This would be better if you could vary the size of the holes in the screen. I don't like it for tomato sauce; the juice was too thin. I do use it when making spinach lasagna to get all of the water out of the spinach (the spinach is really bone dry when I'm done, which was what I wanted.)

I purchased the grinder/strainer combination so I could make blackberry jam easily. I read through the instruction booklet to be sure I was doing it correctly. It started out fine, but then the strainer got clogged with seeds,and the strainer burst apart at the seams.

Kitchen Aid help line person was very good and said they would send me a new part. When I asked what I could do so it wouldn't happen again, she looked up on their troubleshooting site. On the site, it warned against using large seeded-fruit such as blackberries. Had this been mentioned in their instruction booklet, I would have returned the item unused and gotten my money back. As it is now, I'll try to sell it and recoup part of my purchase price.

I used to spend hours at the kitchen sink pressing my homegrown raspberries through a sieve so that I could make seedless jam. This attachment literally flies through them. The only drawback is that you have to stop and clean out the seeds one or two times, and the puree that comes out is not completely seedless, but to me that is far better than the back-breaking work at the sink. I also use this for tomatoes and it is amazing. What used to take hours (blanching, peeling, chopping, seeding) is now done in a matter of minutes. Hooray for this brilliant attachment!

Frankly, the thing is the best. First, because it attaches to a mixer it's strong. Second, the blade for the grinder is one of the best designs made (even better than some of the professional hobart models according to a Chef friend). There are some quibbles: 1) the tray is small 2) the neck for stuffing is narrow and can take a bit to get the hang of how to tamp down effeciently, especially when grinding meat. Furthermore, the strainer is perfect for applebutter making since you need to leave the peels in for the pectin and take them out when done. This way there is no fussing with cheese cloth bags,...etc. It's as easy to make as applesauce (I leave the skins and seeds in for that, too and it's much better).

Some other reviewers don't like the current handle but let me tell you why I think it's better than the alternative. The old wooden one had a bigger problem with suction (pulling food back out of the grinder screw when you pulled up for some foods) as would any one with a solid as opposed to a cross design. And this way you have a handy way of losening the threaded cap (a real chore when your hands are all messy).

Take away: If you are interested in making applesauce, applebutter, sausage, or just about any infant food, this is the device to get.

The Fruit & Vegetable Strainer saves hours of time when making fresh tomato sauce! We used to use a folley food mill for straining our cooked, home grown tomatoes, now its for sale on ebay... the KitchenAid Fruit & Vegetable Strainer is easy to use and in minutes we have fresh tomato sauce for pasta.

My baby is ready for solid food. I'm in the kitchen cutting up stuff, putting it in the blender, and straining it. It is a PAIN. It takes what seemed like an eternity and entirely too many dirty dishes. I get on Amazon to see if there are any gadgets that would make my life easier. I see this thing which I actually already have, but had never used! I bought it to make apple sauce last year, but never did. I had a newborn this apple season, so making applesauce was the last thing on my mind.
It is FABULOUS. I put bananas in the top and out comes banana baby food. I get some milk and mix it up with the same stand mixer. Voila! I freeze it in a Wilton 2105-4923 24-Cavity Silicone Brownie-Squares Baking Mold
This is even better than mashing avocados or bananas because it gets it a good consistency and removes anything that could choke the baby.

We used this to make applesause. in a word, Awesome. It turned 5 pounds of apples into applesause in five minutes.

I've used a food grinder and fruit/veg strainer for almost 30 years with my old Oster kitchen center, so I'm very used to the concept and application. The Kitchenaid strainer is considerably smaller and has less output than my Oster's attachment. The top feed tray and the diameter of the input hole are tiny in comparison. Whoever designed this unit did not plan on someone home-canning a large quantity of food... it is designed for an occasional pressing/straining of baby food or light duty use. This is disappointing.

You will definitely need to purchase the additional optional food tray!

As for the strainer, with common sense and care it should do very well. You just have to cook any fruit which isn't already totally soft or cooked until completely mushy. I do like the backward pour-out design of the strainer unit.

Also, the picture shows a wooden pusher; the unit now comes with a plastic pusher which doubles as a wrench for a too-tight twist holding nut. It also is molded with places for your fingers, which is nice.

I like the quality of the Kitchenaid plastic. My old Oster finally gave up after almost 30 years; the motor's still going strong but the plastic Oster attachments are broken :( Let's see how the Kitchenaid holds up after 30 years of hard use.

The Kitchenaid food grinder metal plates and blade are smaller, thinner and less well made than my old Oster's. I am slightly disappointed with the design.

Please don't think I'm unhappy with my choice of replacement for my faithful but retired Oster. It's just that I was expecting an upgrade in design because of the hype and cachet of the Kitchenaid brand.