Magimix Juice Expert 3 review

One minute review

Magimix is a brand synonymous with some of the best food processors, but the brand offers so much more than these must-have chopping and mixing appliances. Having expanded on its food processor expertise, the brand now has a whole range of other countertop kitchen appliances including blenders, and this juicer.

The Magimix Juice Expert 3 markets itself as a cold press juicer, though confusingly it appears to be configured more like a centrifugal juicer. We’d call it a hybrid juicer, it works like a centrifugal juicer but at slower speeds to give some of the benefits of a slow juicer.

The central spinning filter basket cuts up the fruits and vegetables and pushes them through the filter for smooth pulp-free juice drinks. And the extra press attachment means it can handle typically tricky-to-juice fruits like banana and berries, creating thicker pulpy smoothie style drinks, there’s even a citrus press for OJ on demand.

We like that it comes with a recipe book packed with plenty of ideas on how to get the most from the juicer, from coulis to ice-lollies and even cake recipes to use up that fibrous pulp waste. It doesn’t come with a juice container though, so you’ll need to provide your own jug or simply pop a glass under the spout. And annoyingly all the pulp remains inside the filter, so when making bigger batches, you’ll have to keep disassembling it to remove the pulp.

In our tests it produced exceptionally smooth, clear juice, though there was some froth on top. It made short work of raspberries, removing the seeds and leaving a thick smoothie style drink that you wouldn’t get from other juicers. The citrus press is easy to use, makes delicious juice and is less wasteful than juicing citrus in a regular juicer. Overall we found it straightforward to use and more versatile than many of its competitors, but it’s not a budget choice and it doesn’t produce the same high juice yields as a typical slow juicer for ingredients like kale.

Magimix Juice Expert 3: price and availability

•  List price: £250 / AU$649 

The Magimix Juice Expert 3 is available direct from Magimix or through other retailers such as Amazon UK and Australia AU, but it’s not currently available in the US.

Although it’s double the price of the most budget slow juicer we’ve reviewed, it’s also half the price of those at the most expensive end of the scale. So while, on the face of it, this is a lot of money to pay for an appliance that just produces freshly squeezed juice, it’s actually a mid-range option in comparison to the rest of the market.

• Price and availability score: 4/ 5

Design

•  Pulp collects in filter basket 
•  Dishwasher safe parts 
•  Two citrus cones for different size fruits 

This juicer is striking in its streamlined compact design, yet it has a weighty and robust construction that gives it a quality feel. It measures 41.5 x 21.4 x 18.3cm/ 16.3 x 8.4 x 7.2inches (h x w x d) so doesn’t take up too much counter space. It is tall, though, so it’s best not to place it beneath wall mounted kitchen cupboards or you may struggle to feed fruit and vegetables into the chute.

In Australia it’s available in black or red, with a stainless-steel base, whereas in the UK, there’s only the black version available. If you’re planning to store it in a cupboard, keep in mind that it’s 7.5kg/ 16.5lbs so it feels a little heavy to lift and move around. You’ll also need to find storage space for the citrus press attachment which, apart from the included spatula, is the only part that can’t be stored inside the juicer.

When putting it together we found it all slots together intuitively and with just one on/off button, there are no complicated settings to master. The extra wide feed chute is large enough to leave some fruits whole, so you don’t need to spend ages cutting everything into tiny pieces before juicing, apples just need cutting in half.

The main juice filter is designed for use with harder fruits and vegetables, and it’ll produce smooth clear juice. If you want to juice softer fruits like berries or bananas to create thicker pulpier smoothie style drinks, you can insert the extra press accessory. And if citrus juice is what you fancy, then all you need to do is remove the filter basket and pop in the citrus press attachment. It has two cones, one for smaller citrus fruits like lemons and limes, and there’s a larger cone for juicing oranges and grapefruit.

Unlike many other juicers, this one doesn’t have a separate pulp container, the pulp collects in the filter basket so you’ll need to disassemble it regularly to empty out the pulp.

• Design score: 4.5/ 5

Performance

•  Produces very smooth juice 
•  Some pips get into citrus juice 
•  Pusher requires some force 

To get started, we juiced a couple of carrots and weighed the carrots before and after juicing to work out the yield. Impressively the juice yield was 53% which is amongst the highest yields we’ve seen for carrots across all the juicers we’ve reviewed. Plus, the juice itself was exceptionally smooth and clear.

Next up we tried out the citrus press. It’s not common to get a citrus press attachment with a juicer but it certainly enables you to get more juice from citrus fruits. Juicing oranges is easy and the arm that comes down onto the orange to hold it in place, means it’s safer than holding it with your hand.

It takes about 15 seconds to juice each orange half and you have to switch the machine off when you need to remove and replace the orange. First we tried making smooth juice with the pulp system in place, a few bits of pulp and pips made their way into the drink but for the most part the juice was smooth. When the pulp system was removed to create a juice with pulp, annoyingly even more orange pips made their way into the drink along with some pulp, but perhaps our oranges just had lots of small pips. The drink wasn’t overly pulpy, but it was about 1/3 froth.

As we do in all juicers, we attempted to juice kale and it produced a very smooth shot of this green health drink. The juice yield was 26% which is lower than the best cold press juicers, which can achieve kale yields of up to 50%. But that said, it’s much better than many centrifugal juicers, that can be as low as 15%.

Juicing berries is often very wasteful and not something we usually attempt in our juicer reviews, but since this juicer comes with the Extra Press attachment for just this type of fruit, we gave it a go. Opting for raspberries, we were pleasantly surprised that it gave us a thick raspberry smoothie with a 78% yield. Most of what was left to discard was the raspberry seeds, none of which made it into the drink. This thick raspberry smoothie would be a great base for a raspberry sauce or ice cream.

Finally we made a mixed green juice containing celery, apple, pear, broccoli, parsley and ginger. This was no problem for the juicer, but we had to apply quite a bit of pressure to the pusher to get all the ingredients juiced. The yield was 67% which is fairly typical for this juice, and the juice itself was beautifully smooth with just a little froth on top.

To juice a whole apple, you will need to cut it in half and it takes around 15 seconds. But, as with all the other juices we made, lots of juice continues to dribble and drip from the spout for a while after you’ve switched it off. So it’s best to leave the container where it is for a minute or so to catch the last of the juice. A drip stop would have been a welcome addition.

It didn’t get much louder than about 78dB in most of our tests, which isn’t too noisy. And cleaning is easy if you’ve got a dishwasher as all parts can be cleaned in a dishwasher. If you don’t have a dishwasher, like all juicers, the parts are a bit fiddly to clean, we’d recommend using a brush and having a read through our guide on how to clean a juicer for some top tips.

• Performance score: 4.5/ 5

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