The things they don’t tell you

I used my new toy for the first time yesterday. A fruit&veg juicer. Feed in fruit&veg at the top and collect a thick, rich juice. Lunch with a concoction of carrots, a hunk of cucumber and half a lemon, together with a banana that needed using up. Evening with a more traditional pear and ginger. Various ingredients bought in bigger bags than I’d’ve done in the pre-juicing era.

Before buying it I had done a bit of research online. Would it do a good job? What could I expect to juice? And crucially, would it be so much faff that I’d soon give up using it? The jury is out on the latter: getting rid of the pulp is a bit more of a faff than with an espresso (or percolator) but in a similar ballpark, and general cleaning just means running the fruity parts through the dishwasher.

Overall, it’s certainly less hard work than juicing as I’ve done in the past. But there are some gotchas, like the liquid trickling slowly out. If I take the jug through to the dining table where I’m eating, a little puddle appears in its place as the final juice dribbles through. And it comes out a little warmer than the fruit going in, so best used with ice.

And then there’s the Big One noone mentioned at all in the bumpf or online reviews. That is, literally. It’s a bigger machine than I’d imagined. I now need a bigger fridge to accommodate ingredients for it, and a bigger dishwasher, not to mention a bigger kitchen. It won’t reasonably go in the corner I’d planned alongside the kettle and espresso machine. It can’t go under any wall cupboard or shelf, because while it just-about fits, it needs space above to feed the ingredients in. I’ve finally done some re-arranging so it can live in the far corner between the sink and the wine rack, where it’s also mercifully easy to clean up any little puddles it might make with a simple wipe.

Preliminary verdict: I’m going to enjoy the fruits of this gadget, but it won’t completely replace supermarket juices.