Hurom Slow Juicer Review

The Hurom Slow Juicer is undoubtedly not an entry-level model — if you couldn't tell from the price tag. It offers multiple strainers for maximum versatility, and its slow processing speed is not exactly convenient. This juicer also comes apart into many pieces, which complicates both cleaning and reassembly.

Performance Comparison

Juice Quality

Many masticating juicers in our best juicer review highlight their version of "slow squeeze" technology intended to minimize processing and thus oxidation, which in turn maximizes nutrient value and flavor. It's not exactly fair to judge slow juicers against the significantly faster spinning centrifugal models — which shred food with discs that rotate on the order of thousands of rotations per minute (RPM). But we can justly compare masticating models side-by-side, and relative to its competition, the Hurom Slow Juicer is indeed slow processing.

While the augers on other top-performing masticating models operate around 80 RPM, this one processes your fruits and vegetables at only 43 RPM. This incredibly slow process is intended to mimic hand squeezing juice and results in a better-blended finished product. We used a variety of recipes to judge juice quality, and the texture from this model was often smooth with little pulp and light, clean flavors that allowed more subtle ingredients to shine through. Our main criticism is that the juices tended to be thin and even a bit watery — a downside resulting from the slow masticating process and the effective strainers.

Soft Produce

We all want clean, fresh-tasting juice, but we certainly don't want effective straining to come at the expense of overall juice yields. Unfortunately, that appears to be the case for the Hurom H-AA. The juice we squeezed with soft produce was minimally foamy and essentially pulp-free, including oranges, apples, cucumber, and celery. But this slow juicer produced, on average, almost 1 ounce less than other comparably priced models.

The lack of introduced solids helps improve flavor and can lead to longer shelf-life, and indeed, all of the juices we made with the Hurom H-AA were delicious. But lower yields mean that you will need to spend more on produce to get the same amount of juice compared to other models in this review. The exception here is with apples: this slow juicer produced a tall glass of apple juice, with very little foam or separation — not an easy task considering the skins and seeds that often are processed along with the rest.

Hard Produce

We were similarly disappointed in the juice yields using hard produce. We used carrots, beets, and sweet potatoes for these tests. Although this slow juicer is marketed as being able to "squeeze every single drop of juice out of your produce," we consistently found that the Hurom H-AA produced less juice than even significantly cheaper centrifugal models. Although the system works well, separating solids from juice for soft produce, the low-speed auger seems to have a tough time at this essential task of juicing hard produce.

Many of the juices tended to be mild to moderately pulpy, resulting in faster separation and a lower shelf-life. In particular, beet juice tended to be particularly foamy, with an average of 1 inch of foam topping the juice container. Although the foam doesn't affect the taste and can be strained off later, this does add an extra step to your juicing process, adding another delay to an already relatively slow process.

Leafy Greens

While juicing hard and soft produce was a bit of a disappointment, especially considering the Hurom H-AA price, this slow juicer does much better when it comes to juicing leafy greens. The slow auger effectively compressed every last drop from the spinach, wheatgrass, and kale we juiced, with particularly high yields for the latter two.

In particular, the Hurom H-AA is one of the few models in our review that is actually capable of producing a shot of wheatgrass, at least to some degree. It is important to point out that at its yield ratio, this juicer will still need to process just over 4 ounces of fresh wheatgrass to get one jigger of juice, equal to 1.5 fluid ounces. And similar to hard produce, this model produced surprisingly foamy green drinks — often, we found more than 1 inch of foam accumulating on the top of the juice.

Cleaning

The Hurom H-AA is supposed to be designed for a clean operation, but the design characteristics don't translate well into practice. The slow-rotating auger jammed up on multiple occasions, including soft juicing produce like orange slices. The juicing chamber is equipped with an inner spinning brush that is supposed to sweep the strainer to reduce clogging, but the auger can easily become choked up when juicing a variety of produce.

Not only can juicing be a rather messy process, but the Hurom H-AA is also difficult to disassemble, clean, and reassemble. There are a lot of nooks and crannies to scrub, particularly around the gears that rotate the spinning brush, which was nearly impossible to clean and left us wondering how long it would take for food bits in there to mold. There are also many pieces to keep track of — our testers found this model annoyingly challenging to put back together after each cleaning.

Should You Buy the Hurom H-AA Slow Juicer?

The Hurom H-AA Slow Juicer is an overpriced, vertical masticating model. While it is well-suited to juicing leafy greens, its performance relative to soft and hard produce is merely average, mainly related to juice yields. The particularly slow process does offer a delicious glass of juice, with clean flavors and minimal pulp. However, the overall quality of juice doesn't quite balance out the other faults or the price. Not only is this juicer particularly slow, but cleaning and assembly can be difficult and time-consuming. Despite its flaws, this model does carry one of the best warranties of any juicer we tested.

What Other Juicer Should You Consider?