Breville the 3X Bluicer Review

The Breville 3X Bluicer is a unique combination blender and juicer. It can juice directly into a 50-ounce blender jug to incorporate fresh juice into smoothies or cocktails. The juicer top features a 3.5-inch, extra-wide chute and a 3.2-quart pulp bin. The blender features five-speed settings, four preset programs—including an auto-clean function—and a countdown digital timer for presets.

Performance Comparison

Smoothies

The Bluicer doesn't produce velvety-rich smoothies like other purpose-built blenders we tested, nor does it extract juice as well as other purposed-built juicers we tested. However, considering its versatility as a multi-functional blender, the Bluicer still does a pretty bang-up job in the smoothie department.

Like its Breville blender-specific cousin, the Bluicer features a Smoothie preset, which turns out somewhat average green smoothies but better berry blends. It did a solid job of breaking down frozen fruit, but there were a noticeable number of seeds left behind in the overly thick mixture. We needed to use the pulse setting for a few rounds to help thin the smoothie out enough to drink through a straw rather than having to use a spoon. We appreciate the ability to juice fresh apples into our smoothies, and this ability undoubtedly adds a level of freshness to our berry blends. But it took a fair amount of tamping — and even a bit of supplementary juice — to achieve the desired results.

The Bluicer did surprisingly well, however, with the fruit and oat smoothie we blended during testing. The yield was cold, thick, and delicious — a standard outcome with this notoriously difficult-to-blend recipe but one we were happy with, considering the Bluicer's average performance with other recipes using the same Smoothie preset. This result speaks to the capability of the 1000-watt motor, which is a bit lacking compared to the output power of other blenders but clearly still adequate for most blending tasks.

Convenience

As a multi-purpose kitchen appliance, the Bluicer clearly has a leg-up on other purpose-built blenders in terms of space-saving and versatility. But even in the meaningful ways that we assess convenience for all of the blenders we tested — namely design, interface, functionality, and cleaning — the Bluicer still scores above average.

The Bluicer features four presets — Smoothie, Pulse/Ice Crush, Frozen Cocktail, and Auto-Clean — as well as five juice settings. Like other blenders we tested it alongside, the Bluicer isn't particularly quiet as either a juicer, or a blender on its normal smoothie setting. While our ears couldn't tell the difference, our SPL meter recorded an average decibel reading only slightly above a directly comparable Breville blender.

Unlike other Breville blenders we tested that use plain language for labeling, the light-up buttons on the Bluicer are a mixture of words and icons, which can be a bit confusing as you're learning to use this blender. But like other Breville blenders, the presets are highly practical and coupled with a countdown digital timer for what is essentially a hands-off blending experience.

The juicer filter is removable, which makes it easy to wash by hand, but the blender blades are not. Luckily, all of the attachments are dishwasher-safe. But if you don't have a dishwasher, it's important to note that the Bluicer takes up a lot of counter space to dry.

Like most blenders we've tested, we lean on the Auto-Clean feature of the Bluicer for the most efficient cleanup. Just pour in some soap and water, click the lid into place, hit the auto-clean button, and let the non-removable blades clean themselves. Unfortunately, the design of the Bluicer doesn't allow you to place the jug on top of the base to dry, and if you're combining blending with the juicer attachment, you can expect to have a full spread of components drying out on your counter.

Ice

The Bluicer can handle ice, but only in limited quantities. Considering the volume of the 50-ounce blender jug, we were surprised by this limited capacity. The maximum is approximately 10 ice cubes to 10 ounces of liquid, yielding a textured ice mix that's more crystalline than smooth.

Despite lacking capacity, this blender crushes ice fairly easily and makes a good — but not a great — margarita. The manufacturer recommends using the pulse setting for ice, and the Bluicer also features a Frozen Cocktail preset. This setting is very easy to use but yields more of a slushy texture than the pleasantly creamy texture of other, higher-performing blenders we tested.

Pureeing

While the Bluicer may be utilitarian as a blender-juicer combo, it does not do a great job of other common kitchen tasks, namely blending. While it turned out a fairly tasty nut butter mix, its ability to make soup is subpar.

Unlike other blenders we tested, the user manual doesn't recommend settings to make nut butter, so we decided on a combination of pulsing and Smoothie cycles. After approximately six minutes of assisted blending — including lots of stirring and additional oil — the Bluicer did turn out a smooth, creamy nut butter. Although it took a considerable amount of work, we were happily surprised with the outcome.

Soup, on the other hand, is a different story. Unlike other premium blenders, there are no soup presets, so we defaulted to the “Carrot” button. But after five rounds of blending over five and a half minutes, the Bluicer yielded a fairly thick soup of uneven texture — it was either thin and watery, or chunky, like a marinara sauce. Consistent with the lack of overall quality, the blended soup barely reached mid-90°F, whereas other premium blenders are capable of blending steamy bowls of soup above 150 °F.

Grinding

Pureeing with this blender certainly leaves something to be desired, but it's relatively split in our grinding tests. The flour and sugar we milled with the Bluicer were pretty grainy compared to other comparable models, but it chops up hard cheese very well—perhaps that's not surprising, given its roots as a juicer.

The Bluicer is able to able to mill regular crystal into powdered sugar after approximately two minutes. However, having no control over the power level is limiting, and ultimately, we still felt small crystals when we ran the powdered sugar through our fingers. Similarly, milling meal corn into flour (using the “Carrot” button) yielded mostly coarse corn meal. Only about 60% sifting through our sieve, and there were even a few whole kernels left over.

Even though the Bluicer is able to nicely grind hard cheeses like parmesan, the whole blender shakes and moves around on the counter throughout the blending cycle, which is a bit alarming. We deemed it a very real possibility that the blender could shake itself right off the counter, which made this more of a hands-on task. Although it could chop parmesan into fine, restaurant-grade crumbled cheese, cutting the cheese into smaller blocks helped significantly. Between the necessary prep assistance and the racket this blender raised, both clearly show that this was not an easy task for the Bluicer.

Should You Buy the Breville the 3X Bluicer?

The Bluicer is an amazing value, but only if you are looking for a multi-use appliance. This really is a unique addition for any kitchen, and the ability to juice directly into your smoothie blend adds a certain level of freshness that is undeniable. But if you are looking for a top-quality blender to make smoothies and don't plan on making juices, you will likely be disappointed with the capability and versatility of the Bluicer for other common kitchen tasks.

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