After watching the documentary, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, we decided that juicing might be a nice supplement to our diets and after a few hours of research, we chose to buy the Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Pro Juice Extractor. The considerations that went into our decision were ease of cleaning, durability of parts, and of course, how well it extracted juice.

Cleaning

I was NOT about to waste my time with a machine that was complicated to take apart or had lots of tiny nooks and crannies where pulp could hide and cultivate bacteria. The HB Big Mouth Pro had neither. Tear down is as simple as unlatching two things and lifting up the pieces. Not including the pulp collector, which should always be lined with a plastic bag during use, there are just 5 pieces to clean: lid, strainer, food pusher, basket, and juice collector. The machine comes with its own brush for quick cleaning of the strainer, and all four others pieces are dishwasher-safe even though their sleek design, devoid of any pesky hard to reach crevices are easily cleaned by hand.

Durability

I must admit, I have not done any experiments to qualitatively determine the HB Big Mouth Pro’s durability, but all the plastic parts seem sturdy enough, and replacements are easy to purchase from the vendor. It seems as if the only component that would have to withstand some stress are the two latches which are conveniently made of metal.

Function

Naturally, this post would be incomplete without mentioning machine functionality, and I’m happy to say that the HB Big Mouth Pro does well. The true test of how "good" a juice extractor is of course, how well it separates juice from pulp. This is most easily determined by assessing how dry the resulting pulp is and for a machine this inexpensive, the pulp is pretty dry. Maybe its the 1.1 HP motor (similar models have 800 watt motors), but it does its job well.

So overall, I would recommend the product to the beginning juicer who not yet ready to invest upwards of $300 or more dollars into a product they may only use as a passing fad. And at just $70, its also competitively priced.

Pros:

• Clean-up is quick and easy
• Motor is strong
• Unit is nice & compact
• We’ve had great experiences with Hamilton Beach’s customer service
• Pulp is fairly dry for a lower end machine

Cons:

• A larger juice collector would be nice
• Veggies and fruit must be fed slowly
• Plastic parts can break easily
• Moderately loud motor
• Why is the cord so short?
• Big Mouth isn’t so big.

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