I came across a pretty good deal on an Omega J8006 juicer. Even though I already have a Breville which I love, I have heard and read about the benefits of a masticating juicer. The big one being you get more juice out of your fruits and veggies.
For those that don't know the difference between a centrifugal and a masticating juicer here you go.
A centrifugal juicer spins at a high RPMs. Fruits and vegetables that are put into the feed shoot are chopped up by a disk and juice is forced through a fine mesh screen. The remaining pulp is thrown into a separate container. They juice very fast but your pulp can come out pretty wet meaning your not getting as much juice as you should.
A masticating juicer chews and crushes your fruits and veggies between 1 or 2 augers. As it grinds and crushes and presses the juice through a small screen.
Both have pros and cons for different fruits and vegetables. Some will say that the centrifugal oxidizes the juice because of the high speeds which will reduce shelf life. Also I have heard that it's heats up the juice because of the high speeds causing it to loose nutrients.
So keep in mind this is only my opinion based on my use of both machines. I juiced all of the following on both:
Kale
Romaine
Swiss chard
Beets
Celery
Carrots
Cilantro
Apples
Lemons
Mint
Watermelon
Ginger
Strawberries
Grapes
First off I will say the Omega did produce more juice with the leafy greens, plus you can rejoice the pulp again and get a little more juice. That is the best I can say about the Omega. While it did produce more juice it took close to 3 times longer to do it. I make a gallon of juice a day. Cleaning the fruits and veggies is the same but prepping is a different story. In the Breville the only thing I had to cut up was the watermelon. Everything else I was able to put in whole. The Omega required everything to be cut into small pieces. Even carrots had to be split. The leafy greens had to be put in small leafs at a time. The Omega also clogged several times while making the gallon of juice requiring me to take it apart and clean it. When I was done I strained both and the Omega juice also also had a lot more pulp in it.
I repeated this three times on different days and the results were pretty much the same every time. The Omega produced more juice in the beginning with the leafy greens. By the time I was done with both batches the Breville had produced slightly morels juice. As far as heating up the juice, the juice produced by the Omega was almost warm when it was done compared to the Breville. Speed, the Breville took 23 minutes to make 1 gallon of juice after cleaning the fruits and veggies including cutting the watermelon. The Omega took 1 hr 36 minutes including cutting up everything to fit and stopping at least 3 times to clean the screen and corkscrew. Cleaning, the Breville only had 4 pieces, all pretty large and easy to clean. The Omega has more pieces and some are small but I didn't think clean up was an issei really with either one.
In summery while I do not think the Omega is a bad machine. You can also make pasta and breadsticks if you want to and I really wanted to like it. But in the end it's just way to slow. If I was only doing leafy greens it would be slow but make a lot of juice. But I'm not, I juice all kinds of fruits and veggies. Does it make a better quality juice, maybe but not enough to justify the extra time it takes.
