I just bought what I thought was the best blender I could get my hands on: a KitchenAid KSB5S. It may be, for mixing up a batch of cement, slowly. But I make a daily egg white-oatmeal pancake, and usually a daily protein-frozen fruit smoothie. It's not great at either! For the price, I want perfection
Does anyone have any recommendations? I've burned out 2 cheapie Hamilton Beach blenders already this year, and already own a Braun hand-blender which doesn't do it. I also use my blender to make a weekly batch of banana-walnut muffins and occasional soups.
Any recommendations (as specific as possible ) would be aprreciated!
I killed any number of blenders before Santa brought me a Vita-Mix last year (Santa listened to Karen's recommendation after the last blender died). It's fabulous but verrrry pricey . DH thinks it has a lawn mower engine and I've yet to even come close to defeating it.
Here's what Cook's Illustrated says about blenders:
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Blenders, Rating
Fancy features and a high price tag do not guarantee great performance.
Blenders today are far sleeker and more advanced than the harvest gold clunker I've used for nearly 20 years. To its credit, though, despite being neither a beauty nor a technological tour de force, old faithful has faultlessly churned out daiquiris every summer since it was new.
Nonetheless, modern blenders occasionally beckon me with their electronic touch-pad controls, great range of speeds, redesigned jars, and pulse and ice-crushing functions. The bells and whistles don't come cheap, though: many units cost $100 or more. Do all of these features really add up to a better blender that is worth the extra expense? To find the answer, we tested the ability of eight popular models: Oster, Hamilton Beach, Farberware, Krups, Waring, Cuisinart, Sunbeam, and KitchenAid--to perform such everyday kitchen tasks as making smoothies and frozen drinks, pureeing chunky ingredients into a smooth soup, crushing ice, processing berries into sauce, and making pesto.
Why a Blender?
Food processors do everything blenders do and more, such as mincing, chopping, grating, slicing, and shredding. So it would be perfectly reasonable for a cook to ask, "Well, why bother with a blender, then?" As multitalented as food processors are, blenders are better at processing liquids and solids together to form a fine, smooth, well-aerated puree and at liquefying solids. A blender, for instance, will process cooked vegetables and broth into a finer puree than a food processor, making the texture of the finished soup silky. Blenders are also better than food processors at combining ice, fruit, juice, and yogurt to make smoothies. A food processor will leave small chunks of ice, whereas a blender will break up the ice and fruit into particles tiny enough for the drink to live up to its name.
Several design elements account for this. One important factor is the shape of the blender jar. Because food processor workbowls are relatively wide and low, the food that gets thrown off the moving blade tends to stick to the sides of the bowl. By comparison, tall, narrow blender jars force the food up because there is less space for it to move laterally. This upward motion, combined with the rapid spinning of the blades, creates a vortex within the jar that allows for the incorporation of more air, which gives the end product a fluffier, smoother consistency. In our experience in the test kitchen, blender jars also form tighter seals than food processor bowlsÑanother benefit when processing liquids. A rubber gasket forms a seal between the base of the blender jar and the blade assembly, and a tight-fitting lid seals the mouth of the jar. (Despite its secure seals, you should not fill a blender jar more than halfway; this ensures that the contents will have ample room to move as they are blended.)
John Rousso, engineering manager for Windmere Durable Holdings (parent company to Windmere and Household Products, the makers of Black & Decker Household Products), stressed the importance of one component of blender jar design--the flutes. Flutes are vertical protrusions on the inside of the blender jar, which, in RoussoÕs words, "collapse the vortex" inside the jar, thus redirecting the material being thrown against the jar walls back down onto the blade. This fosters increased contact between the food and spinning blades.
Kristin Verratti, product manager of food products for Household Products, reported that the configuration of the blade assembly also matters. Most food processors have a blade with two cutting edges at different levels, one tight against the bottom of the workbowl and one that is elevated slightly. The blades on most blenders, on the other hand, have four cutting edges oriented on two, and sometimes three or four, planes (usually, two of the cutting edges reach down toward the base of the jar and two reach up toward the top). This way, the material in the jar hits four cutting edges instead of two.
Frivolous Features
We were a little surprised to find that even in this digital age, electronic touch-pad controls made for little improvement over old-fashioned raised buttons. The flat touch pad is certainly easier to clean than the buttons, (around which it is undeniably difficult to maneuver a sponge or cloth), but it is not easier to operate. Of the four blenders tested that did have electronic controls--the Farberware, Cuisinart, Krups, and KitchenAidÑthree operated only if two buttons "on" and a speed button were pushed. Only the Krups required the use of just one button, though to be fair to the Farberware, it would operate in the low-speed range with the touch of a single button; a push of the second button served to bump it up to the high-speed range. We also found that you had to really pound on the buttons of the Farberware to get them to work. The fact that the touch pads were easier to clean did not compensate for these annoyances.
A wide variety of speeds was another feature that failed to dazzle us. Most of our tests, including those for smoothies, frozen drinks, soups, and berry puree, were performed at high speed, while crushing ice and making pesto were done at low speeds and/or with the pulse feature, which was included on all of the units tested except the Waring. Even the industry experts we interviewed agreed that only low, high, and pulse were essential; the inclusion of a broad range of speeds beyond those may be more useful for marketing than for cooking.
Jar designs vary in two principal ways--shape and material. The jars on the Krups, Cuisinart, Waring, Sunbeam, and KitchenAid units had straight sides rather than the angled sides familiar on older designs (the Waring jar was much narrower overall than the other four). We did not find these jars any easier to use, scrape down, or pour from than the old standards, nor were their mouths appreciably wider than most of the others. In fact, because these jars have wider bases, the distance between the jar walls and the blades was roughly 1/2 inch more than in our top three blenders, which had jars with angled sides (or, in the case of the Oster, jar walls that angle in steeply at the base). A narrower base translates into less space between the blade and the jar walls and therefore greater contact between the blade and the food.
Blender jars also come in several materials: stainless steel is common for bar blenders and not great for culinary uses because you cannot see through it. Most blender jars are glass, and although glass is heavier than the other choice, plastic, we prefer it because it is less likely to get scratched. After observing how badly scratched the plastic bowls on the test kitchen food processors have become, we were also concerned that plastic blender jars might scratch and therefore retain food flavors and odors over time. Among the eight blenders tested, only the Sunbeam had a plastic jar. One jar we particularly disliked, though, was the KitchenAid, because it lacked a pouring spout. We also found it difficult to align the base and body of the jar properly when screwing them together. The unfortunate result was that the jar tended to leak from the bottom. This was the case with two of the three KitchenAid 5-speed units we tested.
Conclusions
Overall, we found electronic touch-pad controls to be a nuisance, a broad range of speeds to be unnecessary, and newfangled, wide-bodied, straight-sided jars to offer no advantage over traditional jars with angled sides. Unfortunately though, even all the right design features don't guarantee first-rate performance. None of our blenders excelled in every single test. Chopping ice evenly and easily, which any blender should be able to do, stymied our two top choices, the Oster and the Hamilton Beach. Otherwise, both models were reasonably priced at around $40 and sailed through all the other tests with aplomb. Only the Krups and the Cuisinart did a great job crushing ice, but otherwise they turned in spotty performances. The losers of the bunch were the Sunbeam and, to our surprise, the costly, handsome KitchenAid. Looks like the harvest gold wonder in my kitchen at home stays on daiquiri duty again this summer.
and about the Vita-Mix:
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The King of Blenders
Is it really the king of blenders?
If you've ever ordered a smoothie at a juice bar or coffeehouse, it was probably made in a Vita-Mix. With a powerful motor and a price tag of about $400, the Vita-Mix is both the ultimate blender and a trophy appliance for any well-equipped kitchen. But how does this souped-up blender compare with the $40 Osterizer, which came out on top in the magazine's testing of blenders? We set up a strenuous course of blending exercises to see just what these machines could do.
The results showed the clear advantage of the 2-horsepower motor that drives the Vita-Mix. The Vita-Mix quickly ground 4 cups of roasted peanuts into 2 cups of smooth peanut butter, while the Osterizer choked, its 0.6-horsepower motor spewing out fumes as it produced only finely chopped peanuts. With the Vita-Mix, we were able to blend 1 pound of whole frozen strawberries along with 2 cups ice, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1 cup half-and-half into soft-serve ice cream. The blades of the Osterzier simply got stuck and refused to cut anything. Both machines were able to produce fine crumbs from several slices of bread, but only the 249-mile-per-hour blade tips of the Vita-Mix could produce hot fondue from cold ingredients in a mere four minutes.
To put the Vita-Mix's superior capabilities into perspective, consider that the average food processor runs at 1 horsepower, a chainsaw at 3 to 4 horsepower, and a push lawn mower at 4 to 6 horsepower. The Osterizer simply didn't have enough power to compete in the tough tests we had designed. But, then again, the Osterizer costs a tenth of what the Vita-Mix costs, and it works just fine when making smoothies and handling other tasks you expect of a (mere mortal) blender.
When I was a kid, Dad used to take us to medical conventions and such - his company's booth was usually set up next door or pretty close to the Vita-Mix booth, where they'd demo all sorts of yummy stuff - make soup, bread, peanut butter, frozen yogurt...etc... yum!
Of course we got lots of samples.
Try eBay - you can get a good price on used, new, refurbished models. As I said, I don't own one myself, but from everything I've heard, they wear like iron - kind of the blender equivalent of the classic KitchenAid stand mixer (yup, got one of those...although I don't use it very often...)
The Vita-Mix is pretty beefy - I bet Tim Allen would do his Home Improvement "macho grunting" (or whatever you call that "arr arr arr!").
I went through this very thing myself. I have a fairly good, standard-issue counter top blender (I think it may be a Sears or an Oster; probably cost about $30). It's fine for smoothies and anything that has a fair amount of liquid.
But it was boots up for almost everything with a substantial amount of cottage cheese. So, I bought a Braun hand blender -- the one that costs about $90 and is made of metal instead of plastic. It's great, even on cottage cheese, although it does NOT give you a silky, totoally smooth texture. Only my counter top blender does that, when it's not struggling and threatening to die or explode. But it comes awfully close. It makes great egg white pancakes.
I've lusted in my heart for a vita-mix. Maybe next year ...
Yeesh....Thanks folks. The KitchenAid is going back, but I doubt Santa thinks I've been quite good enough this year for a vit-a-mix. I can burn through a few more Osterizers or Hamilton Beaches for that!
It will go on my "someday" wish list!
A very close friend has a vita-mix for just about a year. She had wanted one forever and just absolutely loves it - you can tell by the reverent tone she uses when talking about it. I am keeping my eye open for a good used one.
Who has a Great Blender?
but verrrry pricey 
. DH thinks it has a lawn mower engine and I've yet to even come close to defeating it.
