Having a solid idea of how does a juicer work is a very important factor in picking the best juicer machine. This article will help you gain this knowledge and be able to ultimately decide if you should go with a centrifugal or masticating type.
Yes, you may be able to buy juices from the store, but creating one for yourself will allow you to modify it based on your actual needs.
Do you want to cure your insomnia? Do you want more energy throughout the day or perhaps you want to lose that belly fat? Creating your own juice is fun because it’s like making your own concoction or “elixir” out of natural ingredients.
How Does A Juicer Work?

A juicer is an innovation which helps us to extract nutrients from a fruit and vegetable with almost no effort at all. Instead of munching on fruits and leafy greens, a juicer eliminates the munching part for you.
There’s nothing wrong with eating raw produce as compared to drinking juice, but it’s not really possible to some of us. We all know that most kids don’t have a knack for eating their veggies, and even some adults too.
Even if you like to eat greens, I don’t think you want to spend a lot of time just chomping on them to get the same amount of nutrients as you would from a juice.
A juicer is the one that does the cutting, the crushing, and chewing for you. All you have to do is drink all the goodness it has extracted. All your body has to do is absorb the nutrients.
You might think that a blender can also do that and that is true. There are a number of differences between the two of them, though, and it deserves an article of its own. To give you a quick overview, a juicing machine removes a certain type of fiber while a blender does not, which brings us to another benefit of juicing.
Juice made from a juicer bypasses the digestion process and is easily absorbed by the body. The nutrients absorbed remain to be concentrated and enters the bloodstream quickly.
Comparison Table of Masticating and Centrifugal Juicers
Not all juicers run the same. The best way to understand how they work is to first distinguish the 2 types of juicer, and then learn how each of these types extracts juices from fruits and veggies.
The main differences between the 2 can be better explained with this table:
Masticating Juicer | Centrifugal Juicer |
Grinds and squeezes | Cuts and rapidly spins |
Operates quietly | Operates loudly with noise similar to a blender |
Entire juicing operation is slower | Creates juices really fast |
Yields more juice especially from greens | Not very efficient with leafy greens |
These differences are mainly because of the way each of these juicers operates. This is best explained in the following sections.
How Does A Centrifugal Juicer Work?

A centrifugal juicer, from the name itself, works by using centrifugal force to extract juice from just about any produce. It spins at an extremely high speed of 3,000 to 16,000 rpm while at the same time cutting the fruit or veggie. It’s pretty much like what a blender does in this part of the process.
It then separates the juice from the pulp with a mesh strainer. The pulp gets left behind in the mesh strainer. Some models eject them to a pulp container. The extracted juice is then drained out to the juice container.
The best way to visualize this is with a clothes dryer or spinner included in most washing machines. The spinner spins the wet clothes at a very high speed, which causes the water to be squeezed and drained out.
Although it filters out the pulp, expect some of them to still be included in the juice. The extraction process may be fast but it is not as efficient as the masticating types. You will evidently see this from the discarded moist pulp, which means more juice can be squeezed out from them.
Popular brands like Breville keeps on innovating their centrifugal juicers. They currently have models which can give higher juice yields than other brands. Most of their products are also designed to eject the pulp automatically while you’re juicing, so you wouldn’t have to disassemble the unit after 2 to 3 glasses just to clean the mesh.
A centrifugal juicer is built for speed, which is perfect for those who live a busy life. You can have your juice ready to drink in a couple of minutes.
How Does A Masticating Juicer Work?

A masticating juice is also called a slow juicer particularly because of how slow the auger or the gear turns. True to its namesake, it masticates or chews the fruit or veggie to extract the juice. It’s pretty much what our teeth do when we eat these.
The extraction process is more natural and thus, preserves more enzymes and nutrients than a centrifugal juicer. However, the operation is quite slow. The auger turns at a slow speed of 80 to 120 rpm, depending on the model of the juicer.
It is also known as a cold-pressed juicer. This is to give emphasis that the ingredient is pressed and not cut. The “cold” part came from the fact that the gear does not generate heat while the ingredient is being pressed.
Perhaps the most contributing factor to the slowness of the entire process is the prep time. Most masticating juicers have a slow chute opening. This means you will have to cut most of your fruits and veggies into small pieces before dropping it onto the chute.
The small feed chute, I believe, is a necessary design. It helps prevent the user from shoving in too much ingredients into the juicer at the same time. This may lead to the machine being jammed since the gear turns slowly. Additionally, it also helps to extract more juice from every ingredient since the juicer is being fed slowly.
Wrapping It Up
Now that you know how does a juicer work, you should be able to have a clearer picture of what specific juicer is best for you. Your understanding will significantly reduce the chances of being disappointed once you start using the juicer. In the end, it makes your entire juicing experience much enjoyable.
I sure hope this article has given you a quick and yet practical understanding as to how a juicer operates, whether it’s a masticating or centrifugal juicer. However, regardless of which one you decide to get, an easy-to-clean juicer works a long way.