Verdict

Pros

• Powerful motor
• Double sieve for increased yield
• Dishwasher-safe parts

Cons

• Noisy
• No cleaning tools included
• Spout drips after juicing

What is the Dualit Dual-Max Juicer?

Dualit might be best known for its toasters, but in the past few years the company has applied the same desire for well-engineered products to a host of food prep appliances – and the Dual-Max juicer is no exception.

It’s been designed to get the most juice out of your fruit and vegetables using a centrifugal process. The Dual-Max juices them not once, but twice, using a “double sieve” to squeeze the pulp again after the first extraction for maximum yield and less waste. Two speeds allow it to adapt easily to both hard and soft fruit, while a 2-litre removable pulp container means it can easily cope with making large amounts of juice in one session.

Dual-Max Juicer – Design and Features

With its slim, sleek locking arm, functional streamlined base and 7cm-wide feed tube, the design of the Dual-Max is undeniably neat and well ordered. Rather than defaulting to the bright colours of many juicers, the Dual-Max exhibits a distinctly professional look, with a discreet control dial and subtle branding on a polished silver body. Despite it being relatively compact, its sleek base conceals a high-powered 800W motor, leaving you in no doubt that this juicer means business.

Inside, a stainless-steel slicing disc is surrounded by a pair of stepped micro-mesh filters for the two-stage juicing process. Juice flows out from a wide chute at one end of the Dual-Max to meet the 800ml-lidded storage jug, which has a removable froth separator to ensure the smoothest results. The pulp is ejected towards the container at the other end.

Dualit includes some recipe ideas with the machine to help get you started, but for even more inspiration and juicing advice there’s access to Club Dualit.

Dual-Max Juicer – What’s it like to use?

Compared to many similar models the Dual-Max has fewer parts, and it’s obvious where each goes, so assembling the machine is simple. However, it’s noisy from the minute it’s turned on, even before it begins processing.

We started by juicing some hard fruit – half a peeled pineapple and an unpeeled apple – on speed 2. While both needed some pressure with the plunger to be processed, they went through quickly, resulting in a good amount of juice in the jug.

Since the jug is quite wide, however, it can be difficult to determine how much juice you’ve actually produced. It’s only when it’s poured out that it becomes more obvious: what didn’t look like much juice in the jug in our test easily managed to fill a tumbler. The resulting juice was very foamy, but the jug’s separator did a good job of filtering most of it out while still retaining some thickness in the final drink.

More disappointing was where the pulp ended up. While some made it to the pulp container, most stayed in the lid, making clearing it out afterwards a messier job.

Next, we tried some grapes on speed 1. Here, there was no need to use the plunger to push the fruit through, except towards the end when only the last few grapes remained. There was a very small amount of pulp, of which some was on the lid, but most was in the container. We then added some kale to the feed tube, which in the main processed fine. Some leaves did manage to escape the blades, so it may have been better to combine this with the fruit.

The juice was beautifully clear and almost foam-free having poured it out with the jug’s separator in place.

Finally, we tried juicing three small peeled oranges. Again, no pressure was required from the plunger and the fruit was processed quickly and evenly to produce almost an entire glass of juice. While a small amount of pulp remained even after pouring it out, the juice was still quite smooth. Most of the waste pulp was in the container, rather than the lid.

A niggle throughout was that the spout tended to continue dripping long after switching off the machine and as we took the Dual-Max apart. It’s advisable to have a glass to hand to pop beneath the spout if you move the jug away to pour out the juice.

While all of the Dual-Max’s removable parts are dishwasher-safe, and were cleaned well, the double-sieve always remained dirty. It needed an extra scrub and second wash to get rid of the small fibres clogging it up. A soft brush will do the job, but this isn’t included with the machine.

Should I buy the Dual-Max Juicer?

Great for existing juice fans as well as newcomers, the Dual-Max combines high-end performance with real affordability. While it handles some fruit and vegetables better than others, given that the Dual-Max is a solid, well-built juicer with a great yield, it’s excellent value for money. It would have been nice to see a non-drip spout, more juice from green leafy vegetables, and a cleaning brush in the box – but otherwise, it’s a pretty perfect package.

Verdict

One of the hardest-working sub-£100 juicers on the market, the Dualit Dual-Max is an easy way to get into a juicing habit without blowing the budget.

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