BELLA 13694 Review

The BELLA scored about 10 points lower than the Hamilton Beach Big Mouth, our Best Buy award winner. These juicers cost about the same, so we would highly recommend the Hamilton Beach as the juicer to get when shopping on a budget.

Performance Comparison

To see which juicer ruled them all, we bought the most highly-regarded models on the market and tested them side-by-side to find the winner. We split our testing process into five different metrics, each weighted based on their importance. The results of the BELLA are detailed below.

Juice Quality

Earning the most weight out of all the metrics, our Juice Quality metric accounts for 40% of the total score. We used three different mixed juice drinks to assess performance, judging the quality of the finished beverage to score performance. The BELLA earned a 5 out of 10 for its mediocre performance.

For our first test, we used a juice blend that consisted of beets, apples, carrots and some other fruits and veggies. The BELLA actually did a decent job with this recipe, creating a slightly above-average drink which tasted alright. However, there was plenty of pulp that brought down the overall quality.

The BELLA gave an average showing in our second test, a juice cocktail made up of romaine lettuce, apples, and oranges. The drink had a nice, full flavor that was only slightly dominated by the citrus and had mild amounts of pulp. This product finished out with a below average performance in the final test for this metric: the “Sunset Blend”.

This cocktail consisted primarily of beets, sweet potatoes, and carrots, with the drink produced by the BELLA being palatable, but we wouldn't go so far as to call it tasty. The drink had a bit of an overwhelming starch taste from the sweet potato and moderate amounts of pulp.

Soft Produce

The performance of the BELLA decreased slightly, earning a 4 out of 10 for its performance at juicing soft produce. For this metric, worth 20% of the score, we tested the ability of each juicer to juice apples, carrots, cucumbers, and celery, scoring each product on the yield and quality of the juice generated.

For our first assessment, we looked at juicing cucumbers. The BELLA did an alright job, yielding an average amount of juice. However, there was a moderate amount of pulp produced. Performance dropped a little in our celery test, generating about 7 mL less juice than the average amount. There was also a mild to moderate amount of pulp and foam produced.

The BELLA did a little better with oranges, generating a slightly above average amount of juice, with almost no pulp. However, there was a decent amount of foam produced. This juicer finished out this metric with a poor performance at juicing apples, creating far less juice than average. There also was a moderate amount of pulp, tons of separation, and about a half inch of foam.

Hard Produce

The BELLA continued its relatively substandard performance, again earning a 4 out of 10 for its performance in this metric, also worth 20% of the score. We judged the juice on the same criteria as before, using beets, carrots, and sweet potatoes as our representative hard produce.

The BELLA did a very poor job at juicing sweet potatoes, having the lowest yield of the whole group. The juice also had a ton of pulp. It did a little better with beets, generating an average yield of juice, with only mild amounts of pulp.

It also did an acceptable job at juicing carrots, creating an amount of juice right in line with the average that only had a small amount of pulp. However, there was a decent amount of foam created.

Leafy Greens

For our next metric, also worth 20% of the score, we judged the yield and quality of juice when juicing leafy greens. The BELLA again scored below average, earning a 4 out of 10 for its performance.

This product did quite poorly in our first test: juicing wheatgrass. It produced well below the average amount of juice, only 1.5 mL compared to the 5 mL of the top juicer. It did a little better with kale, only yielding slightly less than the average amount of juice.

The BELLA finished out this test with an alright performance in our last test for this metric, juicing spinach. It produced almost an average amount of juice, but created a decent amount of foam.

Cleaning

For the final 15% of the score, we judged the difficulty in cleaning out each product. The BELLA wasn't particularly difficult to clean, but it definitely wasn't the most convenient, earning it a 5 out of 10. The various components of the BELLA are dishwasher-safe, but there was not a cleaning tool included. We also found it to be a little bit of work to clean out the various parts by hand, as the lid, strainer bowl, and pulp container were all too small to easily clean in some parts and were prone to trapping food remnants in hard to reach places.

Value

While the BELLA does have a low list price, it also scores very poorly, precluding it from being a good value option.

Conclusion