Hamilton Beach Juicer Reviews

Although I am not a fan of centrifugal juicers, I understand why many people select them over masticating juicers – they are cheaper and they work faster. I plan to take an unbiased approach to this review. I assume that you are actively interested in purchasing a centrifugal juicer and plan to help you figure out if this is the right centrifugal juicer for you.

The 800-watt Hamilton Beach 67608A Juice Extractor gives you exactly what you can expect for its price. It is nothing extravagant. Unlike some more expensive juicers, it cannot create other types of food and does not include a particularly incredible ability to separate foam from juice. Still, it does its job effectively, efficiently, and without tiring quickly.

One Tough Motor

This juicer features an 800-watt motor designed to handle the day-to-day grinding and extracting of both soft and hard foods. You shouldn’t need to worry about using this juicer often or for extended periods of time. The 800-watt motor should be able to withstand the work of juicing medium-sized batches of juices derived from hard foods or large batches of those made from soft foods. Smaller motors, such as a 600-watt or 700-watt motor, would not be able to work that long without overheating. Still, it isn’t a 1000-watt motor, so be sure to give it time to cool down between uses and try to not use it to create ridiculously large batches of juice.

Difficult-to-process foods, such as carrots and other hard foods, shouldn’t be much of a problem either. This 800-watt motor should be strong enough to power the high RPMs required to properly break down these types of foods in a centrifugal juicer.

Choose The 2-Speed Option

Despite the saying, ‘More is better,’ I have come to find that more usually is not better; that is, unless you are talking about the number of speeds available on your juicer. The more speed options you have available to you on your centrifugal juicer, the better you are able to adapt the speed to the type of food you are juicing. For example, high speeds can create a lot of excess foam when juicing soft foods – slow speed settings are best for this type of food. Low speed settings will fail to fully break down hard foods, leaving a lot of the juice hidden away inside – high speeds are best for this type of food.

The Hamilton Beach 67608A is available in either a one-speed option or a two-speed option. Of course, the two-speed option is slightly more expensive, but not so much as to warrant choosing the one-speed. I usually promote saving a dollar when you can, but I believe that the extra little bit of money will be worth it in this case.

The one-speed version of this juicer operates at a rather high speed and will likely over-process soft foods and leave behind mountains of foam. In contrast, the two-speed option will allow you to alternate between RPM rates designed for soft foods and those designed for hard foods. As an added bonus, the two-speed version of this juicer comes with a larger juice collector cup which has been marked with measurements.

Bring Simplicity Home

This Hamilton Beach juicer makes preparation, juicing, and cleanup quite simple. Its large feeding tube means that you can easily juice entire apples and oranges. Unlike many other juicers, you will not need to waste much time cutting up foods before you can begin juicing them.

Another thing which often slows down the juicing process is stopping to empty the pulp collector. As the machine breaks down the foods, juice will run into the juice cup while the extra remnants of food will go into the pulp collector. The pulp collector cup on this juicer is not only extremely easy to remove (it is essentially external), it is also extremely large, which means you will not need to empty it near as often as the pulp collector cups included with many other juicers.

Last, but certainly not least, on our list of convenience factors is the fact that this particular juicer is rather easy to clean. Like many other centrifugal juicers, most of the non-electrical parts of this juicer are removable and can be placed safely inside the dishwasher. For those harder to reach places which are not dishwasher safe, Hamilton Beach has included a special cleaning brush designed to fit into every nook and cranny.

Consumer Feedback

Consumer feedback for this juicer was mostly positive. Only three major concerns were raised, two of which can easily be written off as regular occurrences for centrifugal juicers. The two complaints common to most centrifugal juicers were that the pulp is often wet and there is a significant production of foam. Unfortunately those two downsides are just the price you pay for the speed of a centrifugal juicer. I suspect that the foam problem was less of an issue for those who had purchased and properly used the two-speed option.

The third complaint is unique to the Hamilton Beach 67608A Juice Extractor. Apparently, this juicer bounces around as it attempts to break down hard foods. This isn’t a major concern, more of an annoyance, but is still something of which you should be aware.

Concluding Remarks

Overall, the Hamilton Beach 67608A is an average centrifugal juicer. It has many of the same benefits and drawbacks as other mid-level centrifugal juicers. Its 800-watt motor can capably create the power required to break down many foods and is likely to stand the tests of time and daily use. I would not recommend this juicer if you intend to create extremely large batches of juice at one time, as the 800-watt motor may not be able to handle this extended usage.

The extremely affordable Hamilton Beach Big Mouth centrifugal juicer performs as well as many of its mid-priced counterparts despite some obvious downgrades. Of course, downgrades are necessary in order to offer any product at a lower price than competitive products. Luckily, Hamilton Beach appears to have chosen to downgrade some of the least important aspects of a centrifugal juicer in order to comprise as little quality as possible in the name of affordability.

In the following article, I will review the Big Mouth in an effort to help you figure out if it may be the juicer for you. I will not focus on style in this article, but do feel that it is necessary to mention it quickly, since this particular juicer is available in three different style options: white and lime green, grey, or black.

Now that we have style out of the way, there are a couple of things you should consider before purchasing any juicer, this one included. First, it is important for you to figure out if you are even looking to purchase a centrifugal juicer, or if a masticating juicer is more your style. Although able to perform many more tasks, masticating juicers are much more expensive. I have posted an article about the differences between the two types which you may find useful. The other considerations will all be addressed as you move your way through this article. So, let’s begin.

A Pity It’s Plastic

One of the major ways Hamilton Beach was able to reduce the price of this juicer was by making it almost entirely out of plastic. Plastic is, of course, much less expensive that metal. Therefore, making most of the pieces from plastic is a great way to cut costs.

Of course, as with any cost-cutting downgrade, there are definite drawbacks to making this juicer almost completely from plastic. First running the motor for extended periods of time is likely to cause heat to build up. In similar plastic juicers, this heat has been known to actually cause plastic encasements to begin to melt. This is actually one the reasons why Breville, a competitor, chose to include a safety feature in many of their juicers which shuts down the system if the motor is in danger of overheating.

Another concern with plastic encasements is that they aren’t as durable as their metal counterparts. So long as you are able to be careful with your juicer and avoid dropping it, this shouldn’t be very much of an issue. It is even less important if you plan to make space for this juicer to sit stationary on your countertop.

Directly Into Your Cup

Another cost-saving technique is removing non-essential pieces of a product. In the case of this juicer, it appears that Hamilton Beach decided to remove the juice pitcher which many other competitors choose to include with their juicers. The juice pitcher catches the juice as it comes out. In all honesty, it isn’t very important. Many juicers feature 8 to 10-ounce juice pitchers which, essentially, get poured into your glass or larger refrigerator pitcher anyway. All juice pitchers really do, in those cases, is dirty an extra dish and take up more space in your cupboard.

One upside to juice pitchers is that many of them feature measurement markings so that you can precisely measure out different types of juice when making cocktails. An easy solution for this problem with the Hamilton Beach Big Mouth is simply slipping a measuring cup beneath its spout instead of your drinking glass. Therefore, Hamilton Beach has reduced the price of this juicer without really taking much away from you in the way of convenience or function.

Sufficient Motor

Cutting back in areas such as metal encasements and juice pitchers means that Hamilton Beach has been able to include a sufficient 800-watt motor in this particular centrifugal juicer. As centrifugal juicers go, I say that 800 watts is sufficient because it exists neither on the low nor high end of functionality.

A 600-watt motor would likely overheat and stop working when performing simple tasks. A 1000-watt motor could easily withstand large batches of difficult-to-process foods. This 800-watt motor will allow you to juice easy and difficult foods, and should not overheat so long as you do not leave it running for too long. I would suggest making only a couple of glasses at a time then allowing it a break to cool down, since overheating can not only lead to malfunction but also melting the plastic encasement.

A Big Mouth and A Big Bin

Further adding to the convenience of this juicer are its wide feeding mouth and its large pulp collector bin. The feeding mouth is 3 inches wide, which is quickly becoming the standard in centrifugal juicers. A 3 inch wide feeding mouth means that you will not have to cut many of your foods before placing them in your juicer, which greatly reduces the amount of prep time and clean up time involved in creating a succulent juice.

The large pulp collector is also a life saver in the realm of time. Instead of stopping every few minutes to empty a small pulp basket, you can continually feed fruits and vegetables into the wide feeding mouth without worry, and empty the large bin upon completing your task.

Consumer Feedback

Consumer feedback for the Big Mouth is impressively positive, especially considering how cost-effective this particular juicer happens to be. Most of the complaints I was able to find were focused around expected issues. For example, when the motor runs for too long, the plastic encasement and other plastic parts can begin to melt. Also, common problems with all centrifugal juicers were also reported, such as issues with froth and noise.

Concluding Remarks

Overall, I believe that Hamilton Beach has provided a great product in the Big Mouth Juice Extractor, for its price. If you have more money to spend and intend to use your juicer for extended periods of time, I would suggest looking elsewhere. However, if you are looking for something which works well and is affordably-priced, this may be just the juicer for you. I only caution that you take note of its shortcomings and work with it in the ways that best support its optimal function; take your time and allow breaks for the motor to cool down.