Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Full of good surprises, January 25, 2006
I am partial to the masticating (rather than spinning centrifugal) juicers for reasons I won't go into here, so I went nuts shopping trying to fit my budget. I looked over this model quite a few times thinking it wouldn't be suitable for more than wheatgrass, or assuming it would be a lot of extra work.
Turns out that it is so easy to use I can't hardly believe more reviewers don't talk about it. Granted I chop the veggies, but to give you a frame of reference it's less effort to turn the handle than to tamp the veggies down the chute, and you have to do that even with an electric (not that either is hard). I could liken the manual/electric usage to driving manual/automatic transmission. I actually prefer this manual over the electric masticating I have used most days. Staying actively engaged makes it go by faster or something.
It is also extremely efficient. I have also used an Omega 8005 and feel like I not only saved money up front, but am spending less on veggies. As a daily juicer, that adds up. It's also lower pulp in the juice and less froth, the first a matter of taste the second a matter of shelf life. If you like the pulp, you can obviously add it back in.
As others have mentioned the pulp wants to drop into the juice container. There are about a hundred ways to easily work around this. My personal favorite is to put something under the container to raise it up a bit, allowing it to slide "out of range." Complaining about that seems to me about as petty as complaining you need an outlet for your toaster. It's really no big deal.
I have been extremely pleased with what it is able to juice. I am growing wheatgrass, but so far have fed it mainly apples, celery, and carrots.
I suspect this is the Green Star or Solo Star or whatever it's called these days with a crank instead of a motor. That is just a guess, based somewhat on the available "conversion kit" for electric model owners. Either way it is a terrific juicer and I'm glad I didn't fork over triple the price for an electric motor.
Update 11 1/2 months after buying:
I finally had something go wrong with this juicer. I was making peanut butter with the plug in the cap and it broke. I jumped on the Tribest web site, found a toll-free number, and in less than a minute I had someone from the company on the phone who replaced the part free of charge. They honored the 1 year warranty with no hassles even though I was pushing the thing pretty hard (I think the rep was surprised I had successfully made as much PB as I had with the plug in). BTW - the peanut butter this makes is amazing. It's actually capable of making creamy peanut butter, just leave the plug out of the front cap. ;)
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41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic value, October 2, 2004
I just bought this model and it is far and away the best value I have seen. I have been using a Juiceman 410 for about 6 months, a centrifugal model, and I wanted to try one of the masticating/auger types. The Z-star manual juicer is a single auger juicer without the motor, and cranking the handle was a breeze. I performed a test with it and my Juiceman, where I juiced an apple, lemon, kiwi, 4 strawberries, and 1/8 honeydew, all unpeeled, in each machine, and the Z-star produced more juice. The Juiceman juice was smoother and had a whipped texture, but the Z-star made more and all the pulp was bone dry. In my opinion, there is no reason to buy a motorized single auger juicer as long as they make this one.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
a little more work, a little more efficient, February 8, 2007
by the time the plastic motor housing broke on the Jack Lalanne model i'd been using, i knew enough about juicing to know that i wanted to try a non-centrifugal machine. read tons of reviews and agonized sufficiently and was on the verge of buying the Omega 8005 when i noticed this manual juicer. it employs more-or-less the same principles, with the obvious exception that you have to turn the crank as opposed to a motor doing it for you. and it's 1/3 the price. i juice mainly leafy greens, carrots and apples. it does a nice job with them all. it's true that carrots and apples etc. need preparation that would not be required with a powerful, centrifugal maching with a wide feed-chute. (i give the carrots a coarse julienne cut and quarter the apples.) others have remarked that these types of juicers (the auger type) don't do justice to fruits, which may be true of most fruits. but i've found that i get a decent return on oranges. i have come to believe that the juice tastes better, compared with that produce by a centrifugal machine, but maybe that's just the effect of hype. i do know that i get more juice per unit of vegetable/fruit. and the fact is that if you are using a centrifugal machine, and you want leafy green juice, you're gonna waste a lot of veg. plus those machines are obnoxiously loud. my advice: go old school, crank it yourself. btw, 4 stars not 5 'cause nothing is perfect.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
I love my juicer!
I've had my juicer for 2 years now and couldn't be happier with it. I've juiced garlic, beets, carrots, apples, limes, lemons, oranges, parsley, cucumbers, pineapple, collard...
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Published 10 months ago by mrundle
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by Ann Wigmore
by Steve Meyerowitz
by Steve Meyerowitz
