Finding the best blender for your kitchen is essential if you want to make delicious smoothies and other drinks. With so many choices on the market, how do you narrow down the list and make sure you are getting the best value for your money? Here are some tips to help you in your search for the best blenders.
1. Blender Usage
First you need to decide how you'll be using the blender. If you plan on making a lot of thick smoothies with ice and blending tougher ingredients like nuts, then you are going to want a standard countertop kitchen blender. These blenders feature large jug containers made of glass, plastic, or polycarbonate. They also have powerful engines, ranging from 450 watts to 2 or 3 horsepower. Many also have multiple speed settings, ranging from 2 to 15 different speeds. One of the best standard counter top blenders on the market is the Vita-Mix 4500, which has a five year warranty and 1380 watts of power.
If you are always on the go and only need small portions for your smoothies, then a personal blender is a very good option. These blenders, like the Magic Bullet Blender, use small single serve cups that you use to blend your ingredients and then take with you. Most even fit into the cup holder of your car. Clean up is also a snap as you only need to clean one cup, not a huge blender jar.
If you fix a lot of soups and are very mobile in the kitchen, then an immersion hand blender is the way to go. The KitchenAid Immersion blender is one of the best you can find and it has 9 speeds and excellent consumer ratings. Hand blenders are long and thin and can be moved easily around the kitchen and submerged in boiling pots.
2. Features
Once you've decided on the type of blender you need, you can start looking at features. You should look at the capacity of the blender jar. A larger capacity of say 64 ounces is very good because you can blend large quantities if you need to. The type of material that the jar is made of is also important. Polycarbonate is one of the best materials, but it also expensive.
You also want to make sure your blender is dishwasher safe, which makes clean up a snap. The power of the engine is also very important. You want to be sure that your blender has enough power to get the job done and not leave any ice chunks in your smoothie. 450 watts and up for a countertop blender is usually good. You can go lower with a personal blender as the ingredient container is smaller.
Price also needs to be factored in. The best blenders tend to be the most expensive, typically around $400 for a Vitamix or Blendtec model. However you can still find good quality models for a reasonable price. The KitchenAid 5 speed blender, which is a countertop model, is under $100 and has many fantastic features.
3. Consumer Opinion
The final factor you need to look at is on-line reviews. You can find these on many sites including GoBlendIt.com and Amazon.com. Reading through a few reviews can save you a lot of heartache down the road. The information and features on a blender may sound great, but if it breaks down after a short time, then it's a bad buy. You can find out about product defects, and quality and reliability by reading a few owner reviews before you make your purchase.
When you read through reviews be sure you check out both the positive and the negative reviews. Also be sure to look at reviews from owners who have had the product for several months and have been using it on a consistent basis. Most blender problems like engine failure will happen just a couple of months in.
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