REASONS TO BUY
Easier to assemble/disassemble
"spin cycle" to extract the last bit of juice
REASONS TO AVOID
Harder to use
Messier
Lacks its own bowl
Cuisinart CCJ-500 Pulp Control Review
All in all, this is our least favorite of the three citrus-only juicers to use
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Our Verdict
The Cuisinart Pulp Control is finished at the back of the pack when it came to our citrus juicer tests. The lack of a built-in bowl meant that it was very easy to make quite a mess and that we had to stop and clean the pulp screen much more frequently than the other products. Overall, the lack of convenience and difficulty in use make it quite hard to recommend this product, as there are much better products that sell at a comparable cost.
Our Analysis
It had a decent juice yield, didn't create tons of pulp, and costs about the same as the other juicers, but we looked forward to using the Pulp Control the least. The “super juice” feature ended up being a bit more trouble than it is worth, this model lacks a cord wrap, and the universal, one-size-fits-all reamer turned out to not really fit the smaller citrus fruits.
The Cuisinart is the citrus juicer that we liked the least.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Performance Comparison
To see which citrus juicer is really superior to the rest, we conducted a huge amount of research, then selected the three most promising models currently available on the market and compared their juicing skills side-by-side, as well as the amount of effort associated with cleaning them. We ranked and compared the performance of the Cuisinart at juicing grapefruits, limes, lemons, and oranges, with its results explained below.
Limes
The Cuisinart didn't get off to the greatest start in this metric. It produced the least amount of juice from the three small limes — only about 85 mL — and was by far the messiest to use.
The CCJ-500 had the lowest lime juice yield of the entire group.
Credit: Austin Palmer
It was hard get the limes to fit on the universal reamer without a decent amount of pressure. Consequently, we got by far the most juice and pulp on our hands with this juicer. However, at least the Cuisinart didn't produce a ton of pulp.
The spout on this juicer required frequent cleaning.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Lemons
The Cuisinart Pulp Control did marginally better in our lemon juicing test. Tasked with juicing two medium-sized lemons, this product produced 140 mL of strained lemon juice.
The CCJ-500 finished in the middle in this juice yield test.
Credit: Austin Palmer
This outperformed the Proctor Silex by 5-10 mL, but couldn't quite match the 150 mL produced by the Black+Decker. The universal reamer was a much better fit with the lemons than the limes and this juicer again produced essentially zero pulp.
Oranges
For our orange juice test, the Cuisinart again had a solid juice yield, but was docked a bit for the difficulty we had in actually juicing the oranges. On the lowest pulp setting, the Pulp Control produced approximately 475 mL of orange juice from three medium oranges and again have little to no amounts of pulp in the juice produced.
We had to clean out the Cuisinart multiple times before the completion of this test.
Credit: Austin Palmer
However, we pretty much needed to empty out the pulp screen and clean out this juicer in between each orange to prevent it from clogging. Additionally, using the “Super Spin” feature to extract the last bit of juice seemed to end up yielding more pulp than juice and isn't the most convenient feature to use.
Grapefruits
For the last of our citrus juicing tests, we evaluated the abilities of each of these kitchen appliances when tasked with juicing two large grapefruits. We again had to clean out the pulp screen frequently, but the Cuisinart actually did quite well in this metric, even though it couldn't topple the Proctor Silex for the top spot.
The CCJ-500 couldn't quite match the Proctor Silex in terms of grapefruit juice yield.
Credit: Austin Palmer
The Cuisinart CCJ-500 yielded about 400 mL of grapefruit juice after filtering out the pulp, just a few milliliters more than the Black+Decker, but about 10 mL less than the Proctor Silex.
This product is dishwasher-safe and isn't too bad to clean by hand.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Ease of Cleaning
This product is also very easy to clean, with all of the parts of this juicer being suitable for cleaning in your dishwasher's top shelf, with the obvious exception of the motor base. We particularly liked that it is much easier to remove and clean the pulp sieve on this juicer compared to the Black+Decker or the Proctor Silex.
Conclusion
While the Cuisinart CCJ-500 didn't do all that bad when it came to juice yield, the huge loss in convenience with the lack of a built-in bowl or an adjustable reamer make it very hard to recommend this one, as we found the Black+Decker and the Proctor Silex to be much more desirable and cost a bit less.
—
David Wise and Austin Palmer
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