Cuisinart (CCJ-500) Pulp Control Citrus Juicer Reviews

I found this to be a great deal and I'm happy with this product.

-I've been using this for about 8 months on and off now and it still works great.

-It gets everything out of the fruit to the rind.

-It has different filter levels to control the pulp level. The pulpless level does have tiny bits come through now again, but it's pretty close to pulpless. Great for the price.

-It doesn't require much force. It's also very fast so you don't have to hold it for to long anyway.

-I personally have no issue with the noise level because I usually only do 2-3 lemons at a time but I can see it being a tiny bit loud for some who need to do alot more. But the noise level is no where near that of a blender. You should be able to hold a conversation without shouting.

-It's very easy to clean

-It doesn't take up much space

This was a good buy for me!

Well, after two years of seasonal use, this juice press finally went into what others have playfully referred as "permanent spin mode." Pulp flying everywhere, myself cursing to the sky, and then acquiescing, sinking to my knees to clean up the mess. I haven't reached out to Cuisinart yet. I'm not interested in paying an additional $20 to send this one back and get a replacement. It'd save me what, about $10 maybe on just outright buying a new one? However, given the price point I may simply buy a new disposable Cuisinart press to replace this one. And hope it gives me another couple years. I see that there are refurbs available. Which means that if I take this one apart, I may figure it out and fix it myself for free.

As for it's usefulness...it works great!! We have a huge orange tree outside. We also have a huge masticating fruit juicer which is a bear-and-a-half to clean. I much prefer to use this Cuisinart press because it's easier all the way around. Easier to clean, especially. At this price point, roughly 25 bucks, it's perfect. Consider that if you want to use a larger masticating juicer, that you need to remove the bitter outer peel. So that's either a bunch of slicing on each orange, or you need a professional automated peeler, which can run some bucks, or you can peel the oranges by hand. Any way you go, you're looking at mucho additional work before you get to the juicing part. With the Cuisinart, just slice your oranges in half and press em. Done. Yum!

I've had this juicer a couple of months now. I like to juice lemons or oranges for morning juice or for recipes and got tired of using a hand juicer. Using this juicer makes it easier when you have several lemons/oranges to do at one time. I really don't know if it's quicker, but it really gets the inside of the fruit 'clean', obtaining all the juice and pulp. It's a little noisier than I'd like -- kinda drowns out the TV or conversation for a minute or two -- but that's ok. You can control the amount of pulp you like which is useful. There are 3 pieces of plastic you have to clean after you're done juicing, which is more work than my hand juicer, but I'm still glad I bought it. It matches all my other countertop stainless steel Cuisinart appliances, which is an additional bonus. One more thing, make sure you don't forget to put a container under the spout when you start juicing -- I've forgotten a couple of times and end up with a puddle of juice on the counter! ;)

The first time this juicer was shipped to me, it was DOA. Amazon let me exchange it for another identical one with no hassle, and the second one I received worked with no problems. I have only used it to juice grapefruit, as I have a tree which seems to have a never-ending supply of fruit on it right now. Though it doesn't always reverse directions when I release pressure and put pressure back on, it does a good job and is WAY easier than using the antique glass (manual) juicer I was using previously. The pulp adjustment doesn't really make any difference to me, as my grapefruit have teeny seeds that always seem to get through, so I just strain all of the collected juice separately as I pour it into a pitcher. After I realized that the two pieces you turn to adjust the pulp level actually come apart, it has been MUCH easier to clean! For the price, it is a great juicer, as long as it doesn't arrive dead (and hopefully will last at least a few years).

Each winter, we buy juice oranges from the Rio Grande area of Texas. They are spectacular but a pain to hand juice. This takes care of that problem. I can juice 5 oranges in about 15 minutes or so. Super easy to clean.

Tip - Have your fruit at room temp before juicing, then roll it on the counter, pressing down hard on it to release as much juice as possible.

Pros - It is really easy to use. Gets more juice out of one fruit than hand juicing. Small enough to sit on my kitchen counter permanently. And it's under $30.

Cons - This is not the juicer you want to make smoothies out of kale etc. It is really only for citrus fruits. That doesn't bother me, but might be a negative for someone else. Also, you really need to wash the parts out after each whole orange - the pulp gathers in the parts and will hinder juicing the next one. This is easy enough to do - hot water and a thorough rinsing. They say it is dishwasher safe, but I see no reason to do that - in fact, I would not want soap on it that might leave an off taste. But if you rinse it thoroughly with very hot water immediately after use, it should be fine.

Stuff I don't know yet - some of the reviews here said it worked fine for a while and then died. I have only had mine for a week or so and all is good. Will add to this if that happens.

This juicer has been used almost daily for about three months, and it’s performing as expected. We typically juice a combination of limes, lemons, oranges, tangerines, and grapefruits, and the juicer is effective for all. A notable point is that this juicer is quite easy to clean. The entires juicing part is only three parts, and lifts off of the machine, so practically no cleaning of the machine is necessary, save for a simple wipe down from time to time. Of the three juicing parts, one part is the large reservoir, and the other two are the vertices juicer and the adjustable pulp regulator, which separate from each other for easy washing. We are quite satisfied and highly recommend this juicer.

We use this year round for home made lemon and limeade. It is replacing another model we had which caught the juice in an intergrated container. We wore two of those out and decided to try a different type. This one is fast and quiet. We miss the integrated container and double strainer. We have to add a small measuring cup to catch juice and a strainer to catch pulp- just extra to clean up. This one would be great if you like pulpy orange or grapefruit juice because that would dispense directly into your glass. Any pitcher is too tall for a direct catch. I can put all the parts in the top rack of the dishwasher, but sometimes all the pulp doesn’t come clean and I have to hand wash. Minus a star for less convenience on lemons and limes, and minus a star for more clean up.

This works well for separating the juice from the fruit efficiently. The centrifuge function seems to do well in separating most of the remaining juice from most of the pulp in the strainer basket. The things I don't like mostly stem from processing a lot of fruit at one time - the pulp strainer basket has adjustments, but regardless of the setting, a lot of pulp and some seeds still get through, so I end up straining the juice again after it comes out of the machine. Even after this, the pulp strainer fills up after about 1.5-2 cups of juice goes through, so you have to clear the strainer repeatedly if you are doing more than a glass or two. The cord is short, so you either have to use an extension, or use the machine uncomfortably close to an outlet. The base will slide around a bit as you use it unless you keep a firm grasp on it with one hand while juicing with the other hand - grippier feet would have been nice. It does get drippy and messy as you use it, so you'll probably have to clean the surrounding area after using it, although most of the actual messy parts of the machine go right in the dishwasher, so that part of clean up is a breeze.

I was spending hours squeezing limes for margaritas when our large family and group of friends would get together. I have had several citrus hand-presses, but managed to break most of them when squeezing limes. This seems sturdy and has definitely cut back on time spent. My husband has even started making orange juice in the morning.

There are a few things about the design that has resulted in me giving four stars instead of five.

1. If you use the no pulp or low pulp option, the grates clog and the amount of juice that makes it out is considerably reduced.

2. The device is designed so that if you lift up and press down again, the spinning direction of the juicer component reverses. Yet, for some reason that only seems to happen every few times - with seemingly no rhyme or reason.

All-in-all this a pretty good bang for your buck and works fine for my purposes.

Before I actually saw a citrus juicer in action on TV, I always thought that they were for lazy people who didn't want to juice their own lemons. I was wrong. I bought this juicer after watching the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network use it in almost every episode, and now I know why. Let me just lay out the benefits of using an electric citrus juicer as opposed to using a wooden reamer. First of all, if you need to measure out a precise amount of citrus juice for a recipe, it is much easier to put a measuring cup under the plastic snap-up spout of the electric juicer rather than trying to aim into the measuring cup using a wooden reamer. Second, electric juicers get so much more juice out of citrus fruits than a regular lemon squeezer. The Cuisinart citrus juicer automatically switches the direction of the reamer to get the most out of the citrus. Another benefit of electric juicers is the fact that when you are using an electric juicer citrus juice won't squirt into your eyes as does a manual juicer. Also, the Cuisinart features a unique "Final-Spin" feature similar to that in a clothes washing machine. How the final-spin feature works is that once you take the empty citrus off of the reamer, you press the clear plastic lid down onto the juicer which makes the reamer spin really fast and uses centrifugal force to squeeze all the juice out of the remaining pulp. You just can't do that with a wooden reamer. Another benefit of the Cuisinart juicer is that it filters out the pulp. Most if not all electric citrus juicers have this feature, however, most manual juicers don't. Also, with the Cuisinart, every removable part is dishwasher safe which is very convenient for cleaning. I mentioned the snap-up spout earlier in this review but I didn't explain what it was. Basically, the snap-up spout stops the juice from getting on your countertop which is especially useful if you don't want lemon juice all over your counters. The Cuisinart juicer features a stainless steel body which looks very nice and will definitely last a long time. A lot of electric juicers' motors are very loud, but that isn't the case with the Cuisinart. The Cuisinart isn't that loud and won't interrupt normal conversations. Overall, electric citrus juicers offer many benefits over manual juicers, and if you are willing to purchase one I would fully recommend the Cuisinart for it's final spin feature and it's stainless steel body.

Pros:

- Unique "final-spin" feature

- Stainless steel body

- Snap-up spout

- Quieter than most electric citrus juicers

- Pulp-control

Cons:

- None

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Very reasonable price for an electric reamer. I've tried presses in this $25 price range and of course manual reamers and those don't extract all the juice. The electric reamer does a great job of getting all the juice and most pulp out of the orange, and then the spin cycle gets most of the juice out of the pulp. (Don't leave the orange peel in there while running that.) Wasn't sure about that feature when I saw it but I'm sold on it now. Clean up is just about as easy as any when you're dealing with juice. I did have a few drops fly onto the counter while extracting. On my first good sized navel orange I got almost 2/3 of a cup. From a smaller than normal Cara Cara I got a 1/2 cup.

Pros:

-Gets far more juice out than any other I've tried. (A vegetable juicer obviously could get the most but that's not what I want for OJ)

Spin cycle really works

-Clean up fairly easy. Every piece just lifts straight off the motor base. The sieve has 3 positions for high/med/low pulp and a full quarter turn separates the two parts for rinsing off.

-Doesn't take long. Certainly nothing faster than a good lever press, but the cheap one I bought from BB&B didn't do a good job of extracting.

Cons:

-None other than how long will it last? Reviews of similar machines have stories of the plastic teeth wearing out. This one just has a long hexagonal shaft that should last. Electric motors burn out when they aren't able to spin at full speed. It's strong when geared down for reaming so that's not likely. When the spin cycle is going it won't have the same torque so that's why I don't think you should do the high speed with the rind inside. If large enough it could jam against the clear plastic lid and restrict the motor.

-You do have to watch that you don't ream too much and go into the rind.

This manual squeezer is decent (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006LMVLKO/), but I will be using my electric Cuisinart from now on.

Short Review: This juicer is simple and easy to use. If you need a juicer, buy this one.

Detailed Review: "What? We've lived in Florida for a year and we don't own a juicer?" This was my husband's lament a few days ago when we decided to go to a local orchard and "u-pick" some oranges. I immediately searched Amazon, found a juicer with good reviews that could also be delivered the same day and ordered it. The next day we picked oranges and tested out the juicer. It is amazing!

My two favorite features are: 1.) Pulp Management. I love lots of pulp in my juice so I have it set to wide open. Other members of the family want less so with a simple twist, less pulp makes it to the glass. Even better... I did the low pulp first, and high pulp last to get all the extra pulp from the first glass into mine! 2.) The ability to do that "final spin" to get the last of the juice out of the machine. Put the clear plastic cover on and press down and the thing spins like a jet engine to send all the remaining juice down the spout. (The complaint of it being "too loud" is unfounded in my opinion.) Clean-up is simple and quick. Little more than a flush under running water is needed. I know it can go in the dishwasher, but I'm not sure I will ever clean it that way.

We picked and used "Honeybell" Oranges for our juice. It consistently took 1 1/2 oranges to fill the glass (10oz). They were juicy! Of course your variety and size of orange will determine how much juice you will get from each one, but as you can see from the photos, this juicer completely cleaned out the peels. Nothing left behind! You will be able to get every drop of juice available in your fruit.

Final Recommendation: Just buy it!