At Bruno's request, I'm starting a thread about my quest for a new blender.

For three years now, we've had a KitchenAid model, and it's never really done a very good job at...well...blending. Ice get broken down, but you'll still get a smoothie with chunks of ice in it. Not big ones, but pebble size - large enough that you feel like chewing it more than swallowing, you know? It does its job bad enough that now that it leaks, instead of simply buying a new carafe, I'd like to replace the whole thing.

My first inclination was to check out the Blendtec blender from the "Will it Blend?" videos, which means they've done a great marketing job, at least to geeks like us. But naturally I wanted to know how it would do with bananas and frozen blueberries more than an iPhone

I happened to see a demonstration at Costco that pretty much sold me (as they're designed and set up to do, I know). The guy blended up a handful of spinach, pineapple slices with the core, banana, and water. The result was delicious and completely devoid of any sort of chewy pulp. My blender would merely create a disgusting, undrinkable mess

The only problem, of course, is the price. The model I'd like is the version with the larger carafe in addition to the regular carafe, which runs $489. This is insane to me, but I can see the use of such a device, so I think I'm going to save up a while and go for it.

I also looked at the Vita-Mix blender, which most people seem to put out there as the main competitor to the Blendtec. My primary reason for turning this one down was the size, because it simply won't fit under my cabinets like the Blendtec would. I also don't like the design at all, aesthetically or practically. It looks like an outboard motor, and the carafe has a ton of edges that would make it hard to scrape stuff out.

So that's my story so far. Any other blender aficionados out there?

That's a real product! Blimey, I don't think their marketing is that good, I assumed it was some kind of spoof.

The price doesn't sound too crazy to me, I mean it should last for years and years ???

Cheers

Cris

For that money, get the Vita-Mix. We use ours all the time, it's awesome. 2hp! yeah!

Since it's so ugly, get the red one.

The larger carafe on the BlendTec will make an enormous difference in blending performance, and not only because it has a 4" blade. I've noticed when blending things in the past that a narrow carafe causes larger food items to simply float or bounce around above the blade. A larger base, especially with corners, will allow the food to fall next to the blade, and also help it get stuck, at least momentarily. Giving the blade a chance to cut through it.

Matt, you could always go whole-hog and get one of the commercial BlendTec products with a 3 year warranty. $1200. Zing. Available all the way up to 2400 watts and 20 amps!

I've personally used a Vita-Mix many times and I quite liked them. But if I were to buy something today, it would probably be a BlendTec with the Wildside carafe.

The bottom edge of my upper cabinets is also only about 17" off the counter top (due to a valence), but that wouldn't be a big issue anyway. I'd probably set up a pedestal near the foyer to show off such a blender anyway.

100% correct. It is quite difficult to clean, and Vita-Mix says that the carafe is not dishwasher safe. They say the way to clean it is to put some hot water in the carafe along with a few drops of dish washing soap, and spin it up for half a minute or so. That works, not as well as my Bosch dishwasher would do, but adequate.

Ebay has 13 new BlendTec HP3A blenders at $399 with free shipping...

tanstaafl.

I just noticed that in the eBay auctions they claim you can grate cheese.. In a blender. Hmm. Whipped cheese is not grated cheese.

I love the "It makes xxxx and xxxx" claims on all small kitchen appliances. Well, it actually doesn't make anything. It just blends. It's the person behind the tool that does all the making.

I'm also not sure how someone would use a blender to make a cappuccino as claimed in the auction.

Whoa! Where do *you* shop for appliances?!?

/nyuk nyuk

I have an old Krups that works just fine. It makes fruit-enhanced power shakes most days. I haven't done ice in it for years, though, but as I recall it didn't do so bad a job with it.

My brother went for the Blendtec machine. He is simply enchanted by it and continually dreams up more uses for it. I had no idea they cost that much! Jeepers!

I think my Krups was about $100 or so. The first one was a gift from a college girlfriend- an accomplished Austrian pastry chef. She knew her way around a kitchen, for sure.
The first one died a horrible death when the idiot I sublet my apartment to one summer decided he'd make hummus with it, but didn't cook the beans.
*facepalm*
When I got back in September I found the motor burned up and had to go buy a duplicate. Been in service for better than 10 years now.

If that's all you're going by, I'm sorry to say that the Blendtec beats it I'm pretty sure it's 3hp. Besides, the Vita-Mix is out purely based on its size. I simply don't have anywhere to put that in our already-cluttered kitchen


This is the only valuable thing I've gotten out of comparison videos on Youtube. It's astonishing how much more efficient the wider carafe is at breaking stuff down. It's also nice, of course, to have more capacity.


Ha! Yeah, I don't think that would make it past the wife


Good to know, since I settled pretty early on that exact configuration. Actually, I could save some money by going with the model that only comes with the "Wildside," but I'd like to have an extra carafe on hand if I need to make two things with the blender. I have limited storage, but because those instances should be rare, I can store the extra carafe in the back of a corner cabinet.


That's how much I'm anticipating liking this thing as well


Thanks so much for this info. One of the first things I checked out was whether the carafes on these blenders were dishwasher safe, and it appears that not a single one is. This didn't bother me too terribly when I read about that water/soap trick, but I'd also heard that it wasn't completely effective and that I'd have to hand wash every few times. Oh well, that's a sacrifice I can make. My current blender's carafe is glass, so that was fine in the dishwasher, but the glass got chipped and now it leaks, so it I suppose it wasn't happy with the dishwasher process either


Eh...I'm just not an ebay guy. I simply don't trust the sellers there in most cases, at least not enough to bother going there to save $30 on the non-combo model. The model with the two carafes isn't going for any less on ebay. And I get free two-day shipping from Amazon Prime anyway.


Yeah, I heard that briefly in a demonstration video, but I haven't been able to find anything else out about it. I agree, I don't see how these things would produce anything I'd called "shredded" cheese. I'd be slightly more willing to believe "grated," but that's still a stretch. I can't seem to find anything online about how it exactly goes about doing this. I'm assuming there's a preset somewhere in the system, and that it spins the blades at a slower speed?

I did watch a cool video of a guy making peanut butter. That looked amazing, and he didn't add a single thing to the blender other than peanuts. It was NUTS I tell you! Sorry.


Do you have a link to the model, or perhaps the updated version of the model? I'd at least be curious to read up on it...

Have you found any information on why they're not dishwasher safe? My impression is that it would be because of the heat (heating element) at the bottom of a traditional dishwasher - and for the same reasons why other plastic products claim only "top rack safe."

My recommendation in that case is to get a Fisher and Paykel DishDrawer (or one of the private-labeled products from Kitchenaid or Kenmore). You can put top-rack-only items anywhere in it. There are no exposed heating elements inside the washing compartment and the drying portion of the cycle uses only a fan to blow air around, not a method comparable to the bake setting on an oven.

I'd love the have dishwasher drawers, but I'm already committed to a $500 blender, I don't have enough for a brand new set of dishwashers! Besides, ours is only a couple years old and works fine (aside from the issue in my other thread ).

You're correct, I meant to say that all the carafes are top-drawer safe, but clearly they aren't going to fit into most top drawer. I could fold down all the tines I want and adjust the drawer height, but it still wouldn't fit too well. Would they fit into a drawer washer?

If it's so rare that you'll be storing the extra carafe in the back of a corner cabinet, then why not just go with the single carafe, and just wash it out when you need to make two things with the blender?

I have a KitchenAid model. It does ice just fine, if you put it on a fast-enough speed, but I like the little ice pebbles.

Insanity! What if you want to serve two delicious carafe-fulls of two different smooth beverages?

Hmm.. OMG. What if we need to serve three? Damn, I'd better call my friends at Sesame Street to help me figure out what to do. Gordon!

I'd recommend looking for an old VitaMix on craigslist for around $150. I love the vitamix 3600, and IMHO it's a much nicer design than the current ones. From what I've heard the new ones are quieter, but the actual blending experience is about the same.

it's tall, but there's no reason you have to store the carafe on the blender when you're not using it, and when you are using it you can just pull it out in front of the cabinets.

You could also work on building yourself a time machine and going back a couple weeks.

I couldn't easily find the model on krups' site- it must be long gone.
Here's a site that has some simple reviews, the "Krups 243-70 Power X Plus Combi Blender" is included (about half-way down the page).
It's nothing special, but it does the job, parts are easy to find for the washable bits, and the carafe is glass.

http://www.housewarereviews.com/Kitchen/Appliance/Blender/Blender_9.html

Blendtec's Wildside container made them $24 MILLION at Vita-Mix's expense (patent infringement):

http://www.prweb.com/releases/blendtec/lawsuit/prweb5013304.htm

"But your honor, it's DARK GREY! Don't you see the difference??"

Holy cow, that might be the worst offense of ripping off another company's product that I've ever seen! How did they think they'd get away with that? It even has the same five-sided design (for those of you unfamiliar with the "Wildside" carafes, the corner by the handle is flat).

Now I'm even more swayed to the Blendtec, if that's how Vita-Mix "innovates."


DAMN! That sucks that I missed that! How is that even REAL? It's $230 off Amazon's price! Crap...

The secret to infringing someone else's patent is to improve on it, filing one of your own, and citing the original as previous art. Bam!


Now I want one of those Blendtecs. Damn you Matt. Which also reminds me I need to get my Bamix hand-blender serviced.

Holy cow.

Used, i.e., factory refurbished.

My guess is that the factory "refurbisher" plugs it in, spins it up, says "Yep. It works," and boxes it up with a shiny new carafe for shipment.

tanstaafl.

Yeah, like the RMA ReadyNAS I just got this week. The bloody thing just reboots non-stop while re-syncing (building/initializing). Second RMA in one week. Lovely.

Ah, should have realized it was a refurb. It's really hit or miss with those refurbs...

I just wanted to add an update.

I did get around to purchasing the Blendtec, and it's pretty fantastic. It puts our old KitchenAid blender to shame, that's for certain. No matter what, our old blender never got all the ice we'd put into it, and every time we'd end up with tons of tiny chunks of ice. The BlendTec gets every single bit of it.

I've tried a bunch of the recipes in the book that comes with it, and frankly those are very hit or miss. Some of the smoothie recipes are just plain weird and don't taste good at all. So far, my favorite is the following:

2 cups white grapes
3/4 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 banana (I just eat the other half)
2 cups ice (I actually do one cup ice one cup water)

That's it, and the BlendTec does a fantastic job on the grape and blueberry skins, which is pretty difficult.

I've also made batter for waffles, and that went really well. There's some things I'd still do with a food processor, but this is easier to use (fewer parts) and has more capacity, I think.

So far I've been thrilled by how easy it is to use. It really is as easy to clean as filling it about 1/3 of the way with water and putting a drop of dish soap** in. I then repeat that without the soap to rinse it and I'm done.

I'm extremely happy with the end results.

FYI, I ended up buying the BlendTec at Bed Bath & Beyond! They don't sell it in their brick and mortar stores, but they do sell it on their website. The great thing is, you can use one of those dozens of 20%-off coupons they send all year, and bring it into the store to order things from their website. I ended up getting $80 off, which made up for the purchase of an additional Wildside carafe which I highly recommend.

**tip for anyone thinking of getting one of these: when you pulse with the water/soap combination, HOLD THE LID! I didn't yesterday and ended up with an explosion of soapy water all over the countertop, stove, cabinets, and floor!

Matt, have you tried putting in the whole banana into that recipe? Just curious, since I love using bananas in all sorts of smoothies. Great taste and great binder to help with consistency.

Not in that recipe, but naturally I always love putting bananas in pretty much every smoothie. 90% of the recipes out there seem to call for it anyway.

Matt,
One year in, how is the BlecdTec going? Is it really worth the cost? And are you just using the standard jar, or did you get the Wildside jar as well?
Thanks

Great question, and if my wife weren't pulling me out the door to go to a wedding, I'd answer it.

Sorry, I'll get back to you tonight or tomorrow morning

Okay, I have a few spare minutes (it's been a crazy weekend).

The long and short of it is this: the Blendtec is not the magical device that the internet and Costco displays make it out to be, but it's still a damned fine blender.

I do use the "Wildside" jar instead of the regular jar, which probably isn't necessary for most of our purposes. If I blend up about 2/3rds of the Wildside jar for smoothies, It's far more than my wife and I want.

Smoothies are a cinch for this thing. My basic recipe is to throw in half a banana, a few frozen strawberries, a handful of frozen blueberries, and about a cup of frozen peaches. Then I fill about half-way up the fruit mixture with water and blend on "Smoothie" mode, which makes quick work of it and does a complete job at liquefying all the fruit. You still tend to get the strawberry seeds and some blueberry skins, but that's pretty tough to get rid of, though a second cycle might do it.

We've used the blender for other things, but I haven't done enough experimenting. For a few things, I just prefer a real food processor, especially dry stuff. But we use it to make dressings and sauces pretty often.

We don't tend to use it for soups because we have an immersion blender which is a better tool for that job.

All in all, I'm very happy with the purchase. Like I said, I need to do some more experimenting. I still think it's a little overpriced, but with that Bed Bath and Beyond coupon the price was much more manageable. I'd highly recommend the Blendtec.

ps- oh, and I've made milkshakes and they're awesome

I'm assuming it makes quick work of regular sized ice cubes as well, right Matt?

Can you use these BB&B coupons for online orders as well? I'll have to keep an eye out for a good deal, because I've wanted a really good blender for a few years.

Absolutely. If I added cubes to that smoothie I mentioned above, they'd be totally ground up.


I'm not certain, but what I did was to take the coupon into the store, and go to the desk in the desk in the back where they help people with registries. If they order from their own website, they can apply the coupon in the store. But I didn't have to come back to the store, the product shipped directly to my home, and came pretty quickly with no shipping charge that I can remember. It was a pretty good shopping experience, which I find is pretty normal at BB&B.