The Best Juicers

Look, I don’t know why you'd need to cart your slow juicer around with you. I don’t know the interesting life you lead! What I do know is that this is the one I'd pack for a trip. Slow juicers are bulky by nature, pretty much a whole cider mill on your countertop. This 10-pound Nama J3 is about the closest thing to portable you’re likely to get.

It’s also easier to keep in small kitchens where counter space is at a premium. At 15 inches tall, the J3 is among the few true masticating juicers that can tuck under a standard American kitchen cabinet. Yield from a single hopper can net you anywhere from 8 to 16 ounces of beauteous juice, with multiple options on juice strainers in case you, like Tony Soprano, want your juice with “some pulp.”

There are trade-offs, however. The J3 is still an excellent juicer, capable for apples, pears, carrots, celery, and leafy greens. But the condensed hopper and chute, and the smaller processing blade, don’t push through produce as well and easily as the larger Nama J2 and the top-line Kuvings and Hurom. A bit more fruit gets left in the hopper, and the device can jam on fibrous or harder roots like uncut ginger. The price break also isn’t much versus the J2. Turns out making things smaller isn’t always much cheaper.

South Korea’s Kuvings has long been a pioneer in the juicing game, helping usher in the current vogue in whole-fruit slow juicers. The flagship Kuvings is a barrel-shaped top-loader similar to our top-pick Nama J2, allowing you to fill up an entire recipe's worth of produce at once so you can set and forget. What distinguishes the AUTO10 Plus is its stainless steel processing blade and a 4-liter hopper extension that makes this the largest slow juicer on the market.

Even without the extension, the 18-inch-tall Kuvings is too lofty to be stored under most kitchen cabinets. Its base is also quite heavy, which nonetheless offered stability while a wealth of kale, broccoli, and apple reinvented itself as delicious juice. But while other juicers might be more practical for everyday use, the AUTO10 Plus’ capacity and throughput make it the best juicer we’ve tested for large batches.

You’ll need patience as the juicer laboriously chews up every last bit of ingredients—especially when juicing small fruits such as blueberries. I found that the more ingredients I added to the hopper, the faster the yield. Like the Nama J2, the Kuvings also includes useful attachments such as strainers for ice cream and smoothies. Especially useful is a sieve for the juice cup, to catch pith and pulp as the juice leaves the spout. My otherwise pulpy juice attained a satisfying clarity. —Emily Peck

The Sana is a stylish-looking slow juicer with smooth and quiet functionality. And in a juice world full of plastic, the pulp jug is stainless steel and the juice jug is borosilicate glass. The low-and-slow 50-rpm auger means the Sana can handle both hard and soft fruits, as well as nuts, with limited froth clouding the juice, according to WIRED contribuitng reviewer Emily Peck

But its biggest selling point is versatility, namely the four screen strainers with different mesh to suit different tasks and make it so you don't need a separate Vitamix or Cuisinart. The fine screen tackles whole apples, while the coarse screen is great for leafy greens and softer fruits such as strawberries and blueberries. The sorbet screen also works well for ice cream and purees.

Smoothies can be a tough task for most juicers, but the Sana excels. Unlike a high-speed blender that could inject air into the mix and create foam and separation, this model is deliberately slow and steady. It juices and mixes the pulp slowly back into the juice to create a nutrient-dense drink.

The Omega Time Saving Batch Juicer works a lot like the large-hopper Kuvings and Hurom and Nama that top our list, though it's a bit smaller than the big-batch heroes like the Kuvings AUTO10. But like these, it's a hopper device that lets you load in piles of veg and then walk away while it chews through layers of spinach, carrot, celery, cucumber, and apple.

The Omega is also about a third of the price, despite still being a slow, masticating juicer made in the same South Korean Hurom factory that also produces Nama's juicers. It fares better than centrifugal juicers with leafy greens. It's constructed simply and is quite easy to assemble and clean. This all makes this Omega good for beginners to juicing. But the pulp is wetter than our top picks, and the juice is a little pulpier, and this Omega leaves a little more material in the hopper. Over time, the fruit and juice waste will add up compared to the more expensive, more efficient top picks. The operating time is also low, only 10 minutes at a stretch, making this low-cost model less suitable for batch juicing. Those who don't like pulp will also need a strainer.

This Breville Juice Fountain Cold XL is the Cadillac of fast centrifugal juicers, a highly customizable 13,000-rpm beast whose cutting disc flings juice through an “Italian-made mesh filter.” Breville claims, quite credibly, that the high-powered Juice Fountain can extract juice up to five times faster than a cold-press juicer. This juiced-up juicer is indeed fast, near instantaneously pulverizing fruit. It's also large, standing nearly 18 inches high, with a broad feeder chute that'll accept a whole apple.

The “cold” in the device's name refers not to cold press but rather what the brand calls “cold spin technology,” which elevates the juice away from the device's spinning base and thus raises the temperature less than some other centrifugal juicers. Though it's unlikely other centrifugal juicers are actually “cooking” your juice by raising its temp by a few degrees, as some quixotically claim online, colder juice is certainly nicer.

But as with all centrifugal juicers, you will always get some froth in the bargain. And WIRED reviewer Emily Peck reported that the Breville's yields were poor on softer fruits and berries compared to slow masticating juicers. But the Cold XL “blitzed in seconds” harder apples, carrots, and cucumbers—as opposed to the multiple minutes needed to clear a slow-juice hopper.

The "Ferrari red" version of this horizontal juicer from Sana looks fast but juices slow—see what we did there? WIRED reviewer Emily Peck attests it chews handily through broccoli, kale, carrots, pineapples, pears, and pretty much anything else you throw at it.

But as with other horizontal-auger slow juicers—the most classic design for the genre going back to the mid-20th century—you will indeed need to be present for the juicing process and slow feed your produce into the chute. The chute is also not quite wide enough for a whole apple, which means you'd do well to cut it.

But this little thing can apparently do a lot more than juice. By rearranging its parts or adding attachments, the Sana theoretically can be configured for pasta, peanut butter, or even coffee grinding, not to mention pressing oils from nuts. We haven't had the opportunity to test these expanded capabilities, but the modular character of the device is intriguing.

Like most fast-whizzing centrifugal juicers, this little Nutribullet is loud, nearly 90 decibels—about the same as standing near a motorcycle. The juice will also be frothy after all that agitation. WIRED reviewer Emily Peck found that the device doesn't fare well with softer fruits such as blueberries and that trying to juice kale will leave behind quite a bit of pulp compared to the best slow juicers.

But the price is also a full degree of magnitude less than the gentler, top-line slow juicers we've ranked as our favorites. This Nutribullet also keeps a smaller profile. At little more than a foot high, it's easy to stash in a cabinet. The device performs quite well in its wheelhouse of harder produce such as apples or carrots, and the feeder tube allows you to feed carrots or celery without chopping. It'll also make short work of ginger, and everything but its motorized base is dishwasher safe.

This Smeg Citrus Juicer has one purpose: to squeeze the life out of oranges, lemons, grapefruits and limes. But specialization is needed: Peeling and preparing citrus for juicing is a bit of a unique hassle. Only our most powerful top picks among the slow juicers can hack av peel-on lemon.

Enter the citrus juicer, which squeezes just the middles out of halved citrus. Press the soft innards down on the reamer, and the Smeg will start automatically, dripping the juice out of the spout and into your waiting cup. I'll be honest, most citrus juicers work pretty well at their intended purpose. The Smeg's chief distinguishing merit is that it does so stylishly.

The retro design is beautifully curvy, it comes in fun colors ranging from matte pastels to loud red and black. It's less than a foot tall, a mere 70 watts, and looks charming when not in use—which means it can live prettily on your counter if you love a daily squeeze of orange juice, a lovely ceviche, or an even lovelier gimlet.