Breville the Juice Fountain Cold Review

This review of the Breville Juice Fountain Cold takes a deep dive into the unit's juicing capabilities and ease of cleaning. We look at the quality of the juice across a wide variety of fruits and vegetables as well as complete recipes. Additionally, we assess the yields rendered by the machine in individual ingredients. Read on for test results and insights.

Performance Comparison

Juice Quality

The juice quality metric is our most heavily weighted evaluation in each juicer's assessment. We use three recipes with varying ingredients to estimate the quality of each unit's juice. Namely, these are Can't Beet it, Romaine-Apple-Orange, and Sunset Blend. These recipes represent a broad spectrum of textures, flavors, and ingredients, all of which pose specific challenges to the juicer. While the Breville Juice Fountain Cold doesn't top the charts in this analysis, it does far better than average, particularly for a centrifugal machine.

When we look at the juices rendered from these three recipes of interest, we rate them according to their texture, taste, and thickness. What we want is a full-bodied juice that isn't pulpy or soupy but has a texture that is smooth with very little foam and a taste that is true to the ingredients. Such a standard is tough to meet but not unreasonable. The Breville performed best with the Can't Beet It ingredients; however, the renderings from the other two recipes were close seconds. As we will see in more detail below, centrifugal devices do best with firmer fruits and vegetables. Standout criticisms for this metric are that the Breville tended to produce quite a bit of foam and pulp or graininess that required the liquid to be strained to achieve the desired smooth texture. Once strained, the juices have a good texture that ranges from medium to thick, with well-balanced flavors and rich colors.

Soft Produce

Whereas the juice quality metric takes a holistic look at the juicer's liquid output from collections of ingredients — essentially providing a real-world evaluation — the soft produce metric drills down on individual ingredients with softer textures. Specifically, these are cucumber, celery, oranges, and apples. Each of these ingredients poses specific challenges to a juicer. Well, we should say most juicers, because the Breville is at the top of the class in the processing of soft produce.

Our primary focus in the soft produce metric is the amount of juice the juicer will render from a set amount of produce. However, we also evaluate other variables such as pulp, separation, foam, and color. The Breville delivers perfect products with every produce save celery. While the celery juice's texture and flavor were satisfactory, there was just very little of such that it brought the performance down significantly. Aside from that, we could not give a device higher praise for the apples, oranges, and cucumbers. These ingredients' yields were smooth, separation-free, foam-free, nicely colored, and delicious. All in all, the Breville performs remarkably well with soft produce.

Hard Produce

As our analysis examines individual juice ingredients, we come to the hard produce metric that sets its sights on carrots, beets, and sweet potatoes. Again, our analysis focuses on the volume of juice produced by weight and the quality of that juice. We assess quality in terms of texture, color, foam content, and separation. Given that the Breville is a centrifugal device, we were somewhat surprised that its performance wasn't better. As it was, the Breville did better than average, but it wasn't a standout in this assessment.

So, how did the Breville falter in the hard produce metric when centrifugal devices typically excel in this assessment? Well, first off, the Breville did outstanding with sweet potatoes — we could not give it higher praise in this area. The Breville wrung out a lot of liquid from the beets, but the quality of that liquid was poor. Specifically, there was a lot of pulp and some foam, but once strained, the juice had good color and improved consistency. On the other hand, the carrots had no pulp or foam, but the liquid yield was decidedly low. In the Breville's defense, the carrots used in its analysis appeared drier than usual, and thus there was less juice to be made despite the effectiveness of the machine.

Leafy Greens

Leafy greens are the bane of the centrifugal juicer's existence. Over the years, our testing has revealed that the low mass of leafy vegetables and the high RPMs of the centrifugal juicers don't work well together. So, while the Breville did quite poorly compared to the masticating machines in the class, it was above average when put into a subgroup with centrifugal machines.

We use three common greens to assess the Breville for its ability to render juice from leafy greens: kale, wheatgrass, and spinach. As with the soft and hard produce metrics, we look at the juice yield and quality of the juice — pulp, foam, separation, and color. When we drill down into these submetrics, we see that the Breville doesn't have trouble with separation, pulp, and, with the exception of spinach, foam. The color of the juice is nice and rich as well. The trouble is yield. While the Breville did reasonably well with wheatgrass and spinach, it struggled mightily to yield liquid from kale.

Cleaning

While the quality of the juice is paramount in any well-ordered assessment of a juicer, understanding the demands — of which there are many — of the post-juicing clean-up process is critical to lasting satisfaction. These machines have many parts and many nooks and crannies for food bits to hide. The good news for those interested in the Breville is that it ranks well above average for ease of cleaning.

As previously mentioned, juicers have many parts and are all exposed to raw ingredients or juice at some point. As such, our analysis of the cleaning process looks at the seven most common: discs, filter, food pusher, lid, strainer bowl, pulp container, and juice cup. We also assess the effectiveness of the cleaning brushes and tools often included with these devices. While some sharp bits require attentive care during the cleaning process, the biggest complaint of this assessment was the difficulty in removing the juice cup's lid — it is ridiculously hard to remove. While we didn't rate the Breville on the following, it's worth noting that sloshing some of the contents out of the cup is all but inevitable when removing the lid.

Should You Buy the Breville Juice Fountain Cold?

Ultimately, the juicer you select is a personal decision based on juice desires, kitchen space, and finances. That said, we highly recommend the Breville to those who do not foresee the majority of their juicing to include significant amounts of leafy greens. Aside from that, this juicer is a good value as it provides great performance at a substantially lower price than many other top models. It is certainly a kitchen appliance we'd allot counter space.

What Other Juicer Should You Consider?